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 IT Administrator
IT administrator at a machine builder with 280 staff on three sites in Baden-Württemberg, with production halls on DECT handsets, the office on Microsoft Teams and a service team abroad. Wants desk and DECT phones provisioned without touching each one, Teams calling with the company numbers, users created from Entra ID with single sign-on, an API for the number plan, and an emergency call from a home office that reaches the right control centre.
Placetel
This judge's pick
sipgate
Criterion by criterion
Calling, numbers & call routing
Placetel
Numbers from all 5,200 German area networks and over 40 countries, free porting of single numbers and whole blocks with Placetel handling the correspondence with the old provider, an Auto Attendant with keypad menu and time-based routing covering business hours, holidays, lunch and vacation, routing to queues or hunt groups, plus skill-based queue routing, busy lamp fields with pickup, group call parking, fax and voicemail with transcript by email are all documented. We found no public information on emergency calls (110/112) with the caller's location, which is the open point for my home-office staff.
sipgate
Local numbers in our own area code, porting described as free, multi-level IVR menus that route by location or concern, queues, call groups, voicemail with email forwarding, fax and busy lamp fields are all documented, and skills-based routing appears in the contact centre module. Emergency calls to 110 and 112 are described with the customer's registered address, but I found no public information on location-aware emergency calling for home-office users, on call park, on number blocks, or on the porting process and its timelines.
Apps, desk phones & Microsoft Teams
Placetel
Desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux, mobile apps for iOS and Android, browser participation and presence are documented, and desk phones, DECT handsets and headsets are orderable and auto-provisioned by entering the MAC address — to buy or rent monthly. Mobile extensions via SIM or eSIM that place calls on the office number, call pull between desktop and mobile, and "real telephony in Microsoft Teams" with all functions in the Teams client free in all Webex plans are stated; we found no list of supported device makers and no statement of Direct Routing or Operator Connect certification.
sipgate
Desktop and mobile apps with presence and status, the office number shown when calling from the mobile, and fixed-mobile convergence through sipgate's own mobile network with SIM, MultiSIM and a free eSIM are well documented, and real telephony in all Microsoft Teams clients over our existing numbers is described. What I could not find is any list of supported desk or DECT phones with automatic provisioning — decisive for our production halls — and we found no public information on devices sold or rented, or on the Teams connection route such as Direct Routing or Operator Connect.
Call centre, analytics & AI
Placetel
Queues with priority and skill-based routing, agent sign-in and sign-out with statuses, live queue monitoring, monitor, coach and barge-in, callback in queue, real-time reporting plus deep-dive reports and a live KPI dashboard are documented. Live transcription with automatic call summaries and action points, a 24/7 AI voicebot taking unlimited parallel calls with structured data capture for the CRM, and WhatsApp and live-chat add-ons beside calls round it out; we found no public information on sentiment analysis, scheduled or exportable reports, or a power dialer.
sipgate
Skills-based routing, a real-time service-level dashboard, an agent workspace with status and handovers, listen-in coaching and per-agent analytics are documented, alongside automatic transcripts, summaries, topics and talk-ratio analysis, conversation intelligence over one hundred percent of calls, an AI agent that answers and forwards around the clock, and SMS beside calls with group statistics as a paid add-on. I found no public information on whisper and barge, callbacks from the queue, outbound or power dialers, or scheduled and exportable reports.
CRM integration, API & administration
Placetel
The REST API is documented to configure numbers, employees, VoIP targets and routing and to retrieve user data and call detail records, with a call-control/notify API pushing call events to my own webserver — that covers the number-plan automation I want. Integrations cover Salesforce, HubSpot, Zendesk, Pipedrive and many more with screen pops and click-to-call, SAML single sign-on over our identity provider is in the Enterprise plan, SIP trunks work with any VoIP-capable PBX including Asterisk and Auerswald, and a partner portal exists; we found no public information on SCIM provisioning of users from Entra ID, audit logs or bulk import.
sipgate
The CRM story is strong: Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zendesk and Zoho among fifty-plus integrations, contacts shown on incoming calls, automatic sync of notes, summaries and call logs, plus a REST API with webhooks, OAuth2 clients and call control including transfer, hold and record. SAML 2.0 single sign-on appears in the enterprise features, which covers our Entra ID login, but administration is described only as an administrator and a user account, and I found no public information on SCIM provisioning, audit logs, bulk import, or API management of users, numbers and routing.
Reliability, call security & telecoms compliance
Placetel
A 99.99 percent availability figure, redundant data centres in Germany and Europe with automatic failover within seconds, a public status page, TLS 1.2 and SRTP encryption, ISO 27001 plus data-centre certifications including SOC 2, the Bundesnetzagentur named as supervisory authority, a named data protection officer and a commitment to Fernmeldegeheimnis are documented. We found no public information on SLA credits, a public incident history, retention of recordings, toll fraud protection, or emergency calls from softphones and home offices — the last is exactly what I need for remote staff.
sipgate
Two German data centres in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf with ISO 27001 certification under continuous recertification, TLS and SRTP encryption, AES-256 at rest, a public status page, Bundesnetzagentur as the supervisory authority and a security concept under the Telecommunications Act audited by the regulator give me a solid audit footing, with thirty-day retention for events, faxes, SMS and voicemails stated. The 98 percent SIP-server availability is stated without an SLA with credits, and I found no public information on emergency location handling for home-office softphones or a public incident history.
European sovereignty
Placetel
Hosting exclusively in Europe across redundant data centres in Germany and the EU, AI processing of conversation data on EU servers only, an EU contracting entity (Gamma Placetel GmbH, Cologne) with a downloadable data processing agreement and TOM annex, a named data protection officer, and ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications are documented. A subprocessor list with locations is not among the captured pages, and the company's takeover history points to UK ownership by Gamma without that being stated on the vendor's own pages, so the chain is not evidenced end to end.
sipgate
The contracting entity is sipgate GmbH in Düsseldorf with the commercial register entry, all infrastructure sits exclusively in Germany on named operators in Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, and the published data processing agreement commits to processing in the EU or EEA and lists its subprocessors with locations — the AI services Microsoft Azure AI and Google Gemini in Ireland and Mistral in France, German telecoms pre-services, and Telefonica Germany behind the mobile network. The privacy policy names marketing and support processors in the USA such as HubSpot, Google and ActiveCampaign with EU standard contractual clauses stated as the safeguard, so the core call chain is European while I found no public information on the parent company or its ownership.
Pricing transparency
Placetel
Three plans are public per user and month (Essentials ab 6,90 €, Business ab 9,90 €, Enterprise ab 14,90 €) with per-minute rates outside the flat rates (German landline ab 1 Cent, mobile ab 9,9 Cent, international ab 1,9 Cent), free activation and free porting, terms of 1 or 24 months, and priced add-ons from TAPI (5,90 €) and WhatsApp or Live-Chat (69 € each) to AI (ab 69 € per month with 750 minutes included), Teams (ab 6,90 € per user) and mobile SIMs (ab 9,90 €), plus downloadable price lists for international numbers and 0800 service numbers. We found no device prices and no VAT treatment on the captured pages, and the extended call centre is listed only as an optional add-on without a price.
sipgate
The three business plans are public at 12,95 Euro, 17,95 Euro and 22,95 Euro per user per month with a two-user minimum and their main inclusions, alongside no set-up fee, a one-month term cancellable with one working day's notice, free number porting, prices excluding VAT, and named add-on prices for the call recorder at 3 ct./min. and web SMS at 9,9 ct. The captured pages give different figures for API costs — the help pages state the price as free for sipgate products while the service description mentions a monthly base fee plus a fee per API call — and I found no public information on what numbers cost, on contact centre seats, the Microsoft Teams add-on or devices.
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.