As of 6 Nov 2026, the panel rates Placetel 3.5/5 and sipgate 2.5/5 in Cloud Telephony (VoIP & Cloud PBX). Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick Placetel and 2 pick sipgate. Placetel scores higher on 6 of 7 criteria (Pricing transparency, Apps, desk phones & Microsoft Teams, CRM integration, API & administration, plus 3 more). sipgate scores higher on 1 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty). Provenance — Placetel: EU origin, foreign-owned; sipgate: EU-Made. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
Placetel's means sit higher on calling and routing 7.0 vs 5.3 (four leans, two ties), apps and devices 6.7 vs 4.7 (six leans), contact centre 7.2 vs 5.7 (three leans, three ties), integration and administration 6.8 vs 5.0 (five leans), pricing transparency 6.8 vs 4.7. sipgate leads sovereignty 6.7 vs 6.0 (five leans sipgate, one Placetel); network and compliance splits one lean each way, four ties (6.3 vs 5.5). Weighted totals read higher for sipgate with the data protection officer (6.8 vs 6.7) and skeptic (6.3 vs 6.5); Placetel reads higher on the other four. Verdicts place sipgate's hosting exclusively in Germany (ISO 27001-certified data centres, Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, subprocessors named by location); Placetel's servers run exclusively in Europe, and no published subprocessor list, named hosting infrastructure or ownership behind the Cologne entity was found. Both attribute sets read unknown; no overall winner — the split is the answer.
Choose Placetel if
You run a contact centre needing skill-based queues with supervisor monitor, coach and barge-in, live KPI dashboards and an AI voicebot writing structured data into the CRM: contact centre leans Placetel on three judges with three ties (mean 7.2 vs 5.7), and the verdict gives it the highest single score in the results, an 8, on this criterion.
You must port existing numbers in blocks and source numbers across markets: the verdict lists free porting of single numbers and blocks with the vendor handling correspondence with the old provider, plus numbers from all 5,200 German area networks and over 40 countries; calling and routing leans Placetel on four judges with two ties (7.0 vs 5.3).
Your procurement needs a computable annual bill: pricing transparency leans Placetel on six judges (6.8 vs 4.7); sipgate's verdict lists public prices only for business S, L and XL at 12.95, 17.95 and 22.95 Euro per user per month from two users, with contact-centre seats, numbers, devices and the Teams add-on carrying no public price — Placetel's verdict still flags device prices, VAT treatment and the call-centre module price as gaps.
Your team standardises desk phones and apps across sites: apps and devices leans Placetel on six judges with zero ties (6.7 vs 4.7), and the sipgate verdict found no public information on desk-phone models or provisioning.
Your administrators need broad integration and administration tooling: integration and administration leans Placetel on five judges with one tie (6.8 vs 5.0).
Choose sipgate if
You require hosting exclusively in Germany: the verdict cites ISO 27001-certified data centres in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, and sovereignty leans sipgate on five judges with one lean Placetel (6.7 vs 6.0); Placetel's verdict states servers run exclusively in Europe, with no named hosting infrastructure found.
Your data protection officer signs the contract: that bench's weighted total reads sipgate 6.8 vs Placetel 6.7, backed by a published data processing agreement committing processing to the EU and EEA unless the user consents.
You need subprocessors disclosed before signature: the verdict names sipgate's subprocessors by location, while Placetel's verdict reports that no published subprocessor list, named hosting infrastructure or ownership behind the Cologne entity was found.
Your vendor policy requires a German contracting entity: the verdict names sipgate GmbH of Düsseldorf, and the provenance label reads EU-made for sipgate versus European foreign-owned for Placetel.
Your buying process includes a challenger review: the skeptic bench's weighted total reads sipgate 6.5 vs Placetel 6.3.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The Contact Centre Lead
Leads customer support for an online shop for bicycle parts, with eighteen agents in Leipzig and a hotline in German and English. On Mondays after a sale the queue reaches forty callers. Wants skills-based queues, a wallboard, callbacks instead of hold music, listen and whisper for training new agents, reports per agent and hour, and call summaries in the helpdesk without anyone typing them.
Placetel
This judge's pick
sipgate
Criterion by criterion
Calling, numbers & call routing
Placetel
Numbers from all 5,200 German area networks plus 40 countries, free porting of single numbers and blocks with the vendor handling the correspondence, IVR with time, holiday and lunch-break schedules, queues, hunt groups, busy lamp fields, group call park and electronic fax are all documented. For my two hotlines that covers routing fully; a visual call flow editor and emergency calling with a registered location are not described on the pages we read.
sipgate
German local numbers in our own area code, free number porting and international numbers are documented, alongside multi-stage IVR menus that route to groups, waiting fields, busy lamp fields, call groups, transfer, voicemail to email, web fax, and 110/112 emergency calls that pass the stored address to the rescue centre. Skills-based routing appears within the contact centre module, and the visual routing pages cover channels, numbers and forwarding. We found no public information on number blocks, call park, or the porting process and its timelines.
Apps, desk phones & Microsoft Teams
Placetel
Desktop, mobile and browser clients with presence and call pull mid-conversation, auto-provisioning by MAC address, a shop that sells and rents desk phones, DECT and headsets, real mobile integration by SIM or eSIM with calls from the office number, and Microsoft Teams telephony free in all plans. The pages do not state the Teams calling route or a certification, and we found no public list naming the phone makers supported.
sipgate
The pages document desktop and mobile apps with status display and call statistics, the office number on outgoing mobile calls, parallel ringing on desk phone and mobile, a free eSIM and MultiSIM on the mobile network operated with Telefónica Germany, and real telephony in all Microsoft Teams clients through sipgate trunking without additional hardware. We found no public information on supported desk phone or DECT models with automatic provisioning, on device sale or rental, or on a Direct Routing or Operator Connect certification behind the Teams calling.
Call centre, analytics & AI
Placetel
This is close to what I run eighteen agents on: skills- and priority-based queues, agents signing in and out with statuses, a live KPI dashboard as the wallboard, callback instead of hold music, monitor, coach and barge-in for training new agents, and live transcription with automatic summaries captured structured for the CRM or ticket system — exactly the call notes nobody has to type. Sentiment with listed languages and scheduled, exportable reports are not described on the captured pages.
sipgate
The contact centre module documents routing by availability, service level or skills, a real-time dashboard for call volume, waiting times and reachability, listen-in coaching for quality assurance, and analytics filterable by individual agents, time windows and topics — most of what my eighteen agents in Leipzig need. AI agents take calls around the clock and hand over with context, transcripts and summaries are created automatically after hang-up, and those summaries can sync into the CRM or a helpdesk such as Zammad, Zendesk or Freshdesk. We found no public information on callbacks from the queue, whisper or barge, wrap-up time, dialers, or the languages the AI transcription supports.
CRM integration, API & administration
Placetel
A deep integration bench — Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Freshdesk, Pipedrive, Zammad and more — with screen pops and click-to-call, a REST API that configures numbers, users and routing and reads call records, event notifications to our own webserver, SIP trunks documented for Asterisk and Auerswald, SAML single sign-on and a partner portal. We found no public information on SCIM, audit logs or bulk user import.
sipgate
More than fifty integrations are listed, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zendesk, Zoho Desk, Freshdesk and Zammad, with contacts shown automatically on incoming calls and call notes and summaries written into the CRM, plus a documented REST API with OAuth2 clients and real-time webhooks covering call control, SMS and fax. SAML 2.0 single sign-on, two-factor authentication, two permission levels and a partner programme are stated, and SIP trunking connects existing VoIP-capable PBXs. We found no public information on SCIM provisioning, audit logs, bulk user import or administration across several sites in one account.
Reliability, call security & telecoms compliance
Placetel
Redundant data centres in Germany and Europe with automatic failover in seconds, a stated 99.99 per cent availability, a public status page, TLS 1.2 and SRTP documented by protocol, ISO 27001 plus SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II for the hosting data centres, the Bundesnetzagentur named as supervisory authority and a written commitment to telecommunications secrecy. SLA credits, toll-fraud protection, retention periods for recordings and emergency calling for home offices are not described.
sipgate
Data centres in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf certified to ISO 27001 with ongoing recertification, a public status page with subscription for outages and maintenance, TLS for signalling and SRTP for media documented, and a stated SIP-server availability of 98 % averaged over 365 days. Emergency calls to 110 and 112 are routed with the customer's stored address, premium number ranges are blocked by default under a prepaid model, and retention of events, fax, SMS and voicemail is stated at thirty days. Telecoms regulation shows through the Bundesnetzagentur as supervisory authority and a §166 TKG security concept regularly audited by it, while we found no public information on an SLA with credits or a public incident history.
European sovereignty
Placetel
The contracting entity is Gamma Placetel GmbH in Cologne with a published data processing agreement and TOM annex, hosting is documented as exclusively in Europe with redundant data centres, ISO 27001 is stated and a data protection officer is named. The hosting infrastructure is not named and no subprocessor list with locations is published, so the full chain from carrier to support tools stays unproven.
sipgate
The contracting entity is sipgate GmbH in Düsseldorf (Amtsgericht Düsseldorf, HRB 39841), the infrastructure runs exclusively in German data centres operated by Myloc in Düsseldorf and Interxion in Frankfurt, and the published data processing agreement commits to processing only within the EU or EEA. The subcontractor annex names the chain with its locations: German carriers and pre-services, Pusher (Bird B.V.) in the Netherlands for real-time signalling, and the AI summary services at Microsoft Ireland, Google Cloud EMEA in Ireland and Mistral AI in France. Website-side marketing and support tools run through US providers such as Google and HubSpot under standard contractual clauses, so I do not call the chain sovereign end to end.
Pricing transparency
Placetel
All three plans are public per user — 6,90 €, 9,90 € and 14,90 € — with per-minute rates from 1 ct fixed line, 9,9 ct mobile and 1,9 ct international, free porting and activation, terms of 1 or 24 months, and add-ons priced: AI from 69,- € per month with 750 minutes, WhatsApp and Live-Chat at 69 €, Placetel Mobile from 9,90 € per SIM. Device prices and VAT treatment are not on the captured pages, and the call-centre module plus a Professional plan referenced for AI outbound are named without a price shown.
sipgate
Three business plans are published at 12.95, 17.95 and 22.95 Euro per user and month with a two-user minimum, including a German flat rate in business L and an EU flat rate in business XL, with no setup fee, a one-month term cancellable with one working day's notice to month end, and all prices stated plus VAT. The call recorder at 3 ct./min., web SMS at 9,9 ct. and free number porting are priced. We found no public price for the optional contact centre, the Microsoft Teams add-on, individual numbers or devices, so I cannot compute a full annual cost for my eighteen agents from the captured pages alone.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Placetel
sipgate
Legal entity
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting location
Not determined
Not determined
Hosting options
Not determined
Not determined
Open source
Not determined
Not determined
Data processing agreement
Not determined
Not determined
Transfer impact assessment
Not determined
Not determined
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 6 Nov 2026, the panel rates Placetel higher: 3.5/5 against 2.5/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 4 of the 6 judges pick Placetel and 2 pick sipgate. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is Placetel or sipgate European?
Placetel is European (EU origin, foreign-owned). sipgate is European (EU-Made). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Where do Placetel and sipgate store customer data?
Per the vendors’ own pages as captured — Placetel: Default not stated; pages mention the EU. sipgate: Default not stated; pages mention Germany.