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 Data Protection Officer
External data protection officer for a group of six medical practices whose patients call about appointments, results and prescriptions. Knows that call records fall under the secrecy of telecommunications and that a recorded or transcribed call can hold health data. Reads the subprocessor list, asks which AI model writes the transcripts and where, wants encryption on by default, and needs a DPA and a retention period before any call is recorded.
Placetel
sipgate
This judge's pick
Criterion by criterion
Calling, numbers & call routing
Placetel
Numbers from all 5,200 German area networks plus international numbers from more than 40 countries, free porting of single numbers and blocks with Placetel handling the correspondence with the old provider, IVR with schedules for business hours, holidays, lunch and vacation, queues, hunt groups, call park, busy lamp fields, voicemail with transcript and fax are all documented. We found no public information on emergency calls with a registered caller location or on recording consent announcements — the first matters to every practice I advise, the second to any call we allow to be recorded.
sipgate
German local numbers in the customer's own area code with free porting, multi-stage IVR menus, hold queues and call groups, busy lamp fields, voicemail to email, web fax and 110/112 emergency calls routed with the customer's registered address are all documented, and international numbers, a visual routing set-up and skills-based routing in the contact centre push past the base level. We found no public information on time-based and holiday routing, call park, number blocks, or the porting process and its timelines, so the evidence sits between the levels.
Apps, desk phones & Microsoft Teams
Placetel
Desktop, mobile and browser apps with presence and cross-device call pull, automatic provisioning of desk phones, DECT handsets and headsets by MAC address, devices to buy or rent, and a real mobile network integration by SIM or eSIM that can call out on the office number are documented, with Microsoft Teams telephony included free of charge. We found no public information on the Direct Routing or Operator Connect method behind the Teams calling, on a certification, or on a list of supported phone models.
sipgate
iOS and Android apps with presence through shared call lists, the office number shown on outgoing mobile calls, and real telephony inside the Microsoft Teams clients are documented, with fixed-mobile convergence on sipgate's own mobile service over the Telefónica Germany network including SIM, MultiSIM and eSIM. We found no public information on desk phones or DECT handsets from named makers, automatic device provisioning, or devices sold or rented, which caps the level.
Call centre, analytics & AI
Placetel
Queues with priority and skill-based routing, agent sign-in and statuses, supervisor listen, whisper and barge-in, callback in queue, live KPI dashboards, real-time and historical statistics, outbound campaigns and WhatsApp or live chat beside the calls are documented, together with an AI voicebot handling unlimited parallel calls and writing structured data into the CRM. We found no public information on sentiment analysis, the transcription languages, or the AI model provider and its data handling — the last is what I need before any patient conversation is transcribed.
sipgate
Skills-based routing, a real-time service-level dashboard, listen-in coaching and an AI agent that answers standard calls around the clock and hands over with context are documented, as are transcripts, summaries, topics, to-dos and talk ratio, agent-filterable analytics, group statistics and SMS beside calls. We found no public information on whisper and barge, callbacks from the queue, outbound or power dialers, or scheduled exportable reports. Credit where due from my chair: the data processing agreement names the summary models — Microsoft Azure AI and Google Gemini in Ireland, Mistral AI in France — and states that with the AI features off there is no processing by Microsoft.
CRM integration, API & administration
Placetel
Integrations for Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Pipedrive, DATEV and many more with screen pops during calls, a REST and notify API covering numbers, users, routing and call records, SIP trunks documented for VoIP-capable PBXs such as Asterisk and Auerswald, an admin Control Hub, multi-site administration, SAML single sign-on and a partner portal are all documented. We found no public information on SCIM provisioning, audit logs, two-factor authentication or bulk user import.
sipgate
Integrations for HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zendesk, Zoho and more than fifty others, with caller pop-ups on incoming calls and call logs, notes and summaries written to the CRM, plus a documented REST API with OAuth2 and real-time webhooks, SIP trunking for an existing PBX, administrator and user account roles, two-factor authentication and SAML 2.0 single sign-on are all public. We found no public information on SCIM provisioning, audit logs, bulk user import, or running several sites in one account, so the administration side stays mid-level.
Reliability, call security & telecoms compliance
Placetel
A 99,99 percent availability SLA, redundant data centres in Germany and Europe with automatic failover in seconds, a public status page, TLS 1.2 and SRTP for calls, end-to-end encryption for files and messages, ISO 27001 for the platform plus SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27017, 27018 and 27701 for the data centres, and the Bundesnetzagentur named as supervisory authority alongside an explicit telecommunications secrecy commitment give a strong compliance posture. We found no public information on retention periods for recordings and call records, consent announcements, SLA credits, toll fraud protection or emergency calls from home offices — without a stated retention period I cannot approve recording in a medical practice.
sipgate
Two ISO 27001-certified data centres in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf, a public status page, a stated 98 percent SIP-server availability over 365 days, the Bundesnetzagentur named as supervisory authority, a security concept under the Telecommunications Act audited by the regulator, premium-rate ranges blocked by default, and a 30-day maximum retention for voicemails, SMS, faxes and the event list give me most of what an audit of six medical practices needs. The captured service description makes encryption of calls and faxes optional rather than on by default, and we found no public information on an SLA with credits, on consent announcements before recording, or on a retention period for recordings themselves — the exact gap that would worry a practice before enabling recording.
European sovereignty
Placetel
The contracting entity is Gamma Placetel GmbH in Cologne with a German commercial register entry, hosting is stated to run exclusively on servers in Europe with Cisco as the backend technology, a data processing agreement is available for download, and Placetel AI states it processes all conversation data exclusively on EU servers. We found no public information on the subprocessors behind hosting, carriers, SMS, support and payment, on which AI model writes the transcripts, or on the individual data centres — the subprocessor list is the first thing I read, and I could not read one here.
sipgate
A German contracting entity at the district court of Düsseldorf (HRB 39841), hosting exclusively in Germany on named operators (Myloc in Düsseldorf, Interxion in Frankfurt), a published data processing agreement at no extra fee with a subprocessor annex naming each provider and its location, EU-only processing unless the customer consents, ISO 27001-certified data centres, and the transcription and summary models named as Microsoft Azure AI and Google Gemini in Ireland and Mistral AI in France — that is close to the full chain. A beta setting can switch the large language model to OpenAI, and the privacy policy lists US providers such as ActiveCampaign, Calendly, Google, HubSpot and Qualtrics for newsletter, booking and support tasks with standard contractual clauses as the safeguard; we found no public information on the ownership structure behind the vendor.
Pricing transparency
Placetel
All three plans are public per user and month (Essentials ab 6,90 €, Business ab 9,90 €, Enterprise ab 14,90 € pro Nutzer/Monat), calls are listed ab 1 Cent Festnetz, ab 9,9 Cent Mobilfunk and ab 1,9 Cent Ausland with flat rates in the upper plans, activation and porting are free, terms of 1 or 24 months are stated, and most add-ons carry a price, from Microsoft Teams at ab 6,90 € mtl. pro Nutzer to the AI receptionist at ab 69,- € pro Monat. We found no public information on device prices, the cost of the extended call centre module, or VAT treatment, and number prices sit in downloadable price lists rather than on the pricing page.
sipgate
The three business plans are public — 12.95, 17.95 and 22.95 Euro per user and month, minimum two users — with their main inclusions listed, alongside a Call Recorder at 3 ct./min., Web-SMS at 9.9 ct., free number porting, no set-up fee, monthly cancellation with one working day's notice, and all prices excluding VAT. We found no public information on what numbers or devices cost, or on the price of the optional contact centre, the Microsoft Teams integration and the group-statistics add-on, and the Enterprise plan is quote-only, so the true annual cost is not computable from the public pages.
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.