A UK or Australian outbound team usually runs five kinds of cold calling software: a dialler, a CRM, a data source, a register check and a dead number check for mobiles. The register check is TPS and CTPS screening in the UK and a Do Not Call Register wash in Australia. It has to run before a number reaches the dialler, because under PECR an attempted call counts as a call, even if nobody answers. This piece explains what each kind of tool does, what it costs at published prices, and where screening sits in the workflow. This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice.

The five kinds of cold calling software

  • A dialler places the calls. It ranges from click-to-call inside a browser to power and predictive diallers that work through a queue.
  • A CRM holds the record: the contact, the number, every call and its outcome.
  • A data provider supplies new contacts and numbers to call.
  • A register check screens each number against the TPS and CTPS in the UK, or washes it against the Do Not Call Register in Australia, alongside your own do-not-call list.
  • A dead number check tells you whether a mobile number is live before an agent spends time on it.

Some products cover more than one of these. A CRM may include calling, and a phone system may include a dialler. It still helps to think of them as five jobs, because each job has its own question to answer before you buy.

Vendor prices below come from each vendor's own pricing page as at 20 October 2026. They are shown in the currency each vendor uses, and they change often.

Diallers: click-to-call, power and predictive

There are three common types. With click-to-call, the agent clicks a number and the software rings it. A power dialler rings the next number in the queue as soon as the agent finishes a call, one call at a time. A predictive dialler dials more numbers than there are free agents, on the basis that some will not answer.

The predictive model has a known cost. When more people answer than there are agents free, calls are dropped or met with silence. Ofcom can act against that under its persistent misuse powers in the Communications Act 2003. Section 128(5) covers use of a network that is likely "to cause another person unnecessarily to suffer annoyance, inconvenience or anxiety". Section 130(4) sets the maximum penalty at £2,000,000. So the pacing settings on a predictive dialler matter as much as its price. Ofcom's policy detail on abandoned and silent calls is in AI cold callers and auto-diallers under PECR.

Recorded messages are a separate rule. A dialler that connects a live agent makes an ordinary marketing call under regulation 21 of PECR. A system that dials automatically and plays a recorded message is covered by regulation 19 instead, which needs the person's prior consent whether or not the number is on the TPS. That includes pre-recorded voicemail messages, so check what a dialler's message features do before you switch them on.

Published prices for cloud phone systems with a dialler, as at October 2026:

  • Aircall: £25 to £40 per user a month billed annually, with a minimum of 3 licences. The power dialler starts on the £40 tier. Enterprise is priced on request.
  • CloudTalk: €19 to €49 per user a month billed annually. The preview and power dialler is an add-on below the top tier.
  • JustCall: $29 to $89 per user a month billed annually, with a minimum of 2 licences. The power dialler starts on the $49 tier, and predictive dialling sits on a plan priced on quote.

Predictive diallers are usually sold on quote, as JustCall's is.

The CRM: where the record and the result live

The CRM is where the number lives, so it is the natural home for everything known about that number. That includes the call history, any opt-out the person has given you and the screening result. When the result sits on the record, an agent or a dialler can see it before the call, and you can show later what the number's status was on the day you rang it.

Many CRMs now include calling. HubSpot Sales Hub, for example, runs from free (up to 2 users) to about $150 a seat a month, plus one-off onboarding fees of $1,500 and $3,500 on the two higher tiers. Its paid tiers include calling minutes, from 500 on Starter to 12,000 on Enterprise. If the CRM is also your dialler, screening on the CRM record covers both.

TPSClear screens numbers inside HubSpot, and connects to other systems through Zapier, n8n and the API. The full list of checks is on the features page.

Data providers

Data providers sell contacts by credits or by quote. Lusha, for example, runs from a free plan with 40 credits a month to about $400 a month, priced by the number of credits. UK-focused data providers such as Cognism quote on request.

Any check a data tool runs happens at the moment you export the contact. After that, the number sits in your CRM while the registers change. Records also arrive from other places, such as web forms, events and old spreadsheets. The difference between checking at export and checking in the CRM is set out in ZoomInfo, Lusha and LeadIQ compared on TPS.

TPS, CTPS and DNCR screening

In the UK, regulation 21(1)(b) of PECR bars live marketing calls to a number listed on the TPS register. The CTPS is the version for businesses, and TPS and CTPS suppression explained covers why a B2B list needs both. Regulation 21(1)(a) also bars calls to anyone who has told you not to call them, which is why your own do-not-call list sits beside the two registers.

Screening is a recurring job, not a one-off at import. Regulation 21(3) gives a grace period: you are not in breach of 21(1)(b) if the number was listed for less than 28 days before the call. A number that was clean when you loaded it can be registered next week, so each number needs re-checking inside every 28 days. The detail is in the TPS 28-day rule.

Since 5 February 2026, the definition of a call in PECR includes an attempt to connect one. A dialler that rings a TPS number has made a call even if the line is never answered. So screening has to happen before the number joins the dialler queue, not after a connect. The change is covered in the Data (Use and Access) Act and cold calling.

In Australia, section 11 of the Do Not Call Register Act 2006 bars telemarketing calls to a registered number, with exceptions. One exception is consent. Another is a wash: the number was submitted to the register and came back as not registered within the 30 days ending on the day of the call. So an Australian wash result is relied on for 30 days, then the number is washed again.

What screening costs by each route is in how much TPS screening costs. If you are weighing up running your own, see build vs buy for a TPS check.

Dead number checks

A dialler team loses time on numbers that cannot answer. A dead number check looks up a mobile number on the network before it reaches the queue and tells you whether it is live. Ours returns Live, Switched off, Dead or Undetermined, and works on mobiles only. How the lookup works is in HLR lookup explained, and the prices are on the pricing page.

Dialler settings the law cares about

A few settings in a dialler or phone system carry legal rules of their own. Check these before the first campaign.

In the UK

  • Caller ID. Regulation 21(A1) of PECR applies to every marketing call, solicited or not. You must either let your own number show, or show a number on which you can be contacted. If the dialler shows a number from a pool in place of your own line, that number needs to take a call back.
  • Identifying yourself. Under regulation 24, the call must give the name of the business making it and, if asked, an address or a freephone number. That belongs in the script and the agent's screen.
  • Pacing. A predictive dialler set to over-dial produces abandoned and silent calls, which Ofcom treats as persistent misuse.

In Australia

  • Caller ID. Section 14 of the Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017 requires calling line identification on every call or attempt. The number shown must be reasonably likely to take a return call for at least 30 days after the call.
  • Calling hours. Section 8 allows telemarketing calls from 9am to 8pm on weekdays and 9am to 5pm on Saturdays, with none on Sundays or certain public holidays. The time that counts is the time at the account-holder's usual residential address, so the dialler needs to apply each record's time zone. More on calling in Australia is in how to cold call in Australia.

How the pieces fit in one workflow

  1. A number enters the CRM, from a data provider, a form or an import.
  2. It is checked against your own do-not-call list, then screened against the TPS and CTPS (or washed against the DNCR for an Australian number). The result goes on the record.
  3. If it is a mobile, a dead number check confirms it is live.
  4. Only numbers that pass go to the dialler queue.
  5. The number is re-checked before 28 days are up in the UK, or re-washed before 30 days in Australia, for as long as you might call it.

When I look at a team's setup, I start with step 2. The rules on marketing calls are written around who you ring, so the register check has to sit on the CRM record and run before the dialler sees the number.