What is the Beside app? A plain review — and how it compares to OsmO
Short answer: Beside is a business phone app with an AI receptionist. It answers calls to your company line, asks the caller who they are and what they want, writes the call up as a transcript and summary, and puts it somewhere your colleagues can see it — alongside shared numbers and CRM integrations. One person can start on it and add a team later.
The verdict in four lines
- What it is: an AI receptionist sitting on a business line, plus the team plumbing around it.
- What it costs: two plans when we checked — one capped at 30 AI receptionist calls a month, one without that cap. Read the total at checkout, not the figure on the card.
- Worth trying if: customers call your business and nobody is free to pick up.
- Probably not for you if: the phone you want fixed is your own mobile — spam, missed calls, errands you would rather not make. That is a different product, and we make the case for ours below.
We have not tested Beside hands-on. Everything here comes from Beside’s own product and pricing pages, read on 13 September 2026 — the full list of what we checked is at the bottom.
| The question | The answer, in one line |
|---|---|
| What is the Beside app? | A business phone app whose AI voice answers your company line and writes up who called and why. |
| What does it cost? | Two plans — one with a 30-call monthly cap, one without. Its own page showed two different rounded figures, so check the checkout total. |
| Who is it for? | A business with inbound customer calls. A solo owner can start alone; the features assume a team eventually. |
| Is it any good? | Sensible for a business line. Overkill for one person who just wants their mobile protected. |
| What is the alternative? | For a personal number: an assistant like OsmO, which screens your own calls and places them for you. |
1. What Beside actually is
Strip the category words away and Beside is doing one job: answering a phone call that a person at the business could not take, and making sure the business finds out about it.
Four pieces, in the order they matter:
- An AI receptionist. An automated voice picks up the incoming call, asks who is calling and what it is about, and handles the conversation rather than sending it to voicemail.
- A written record. Each call comes back as a transcript and a summary, so nobody has to remember what was said or re-ask the caller.
- A shared number. The line belongs to the business rather than to one phone, which is the part a sole mobile number cannot do.
- CRM integrations. The call can land next to the customer record it belongs to instead of in one person’s call log.
It runs as mobile apps with web management, and it documents both call forwarding and number porting — so an existing business line can be pointed into it without starting a new number from scratch.
What it is not, so you do not buy it for the wrong reason:
- It is not a spam filter for your personal mobile. The design assumes the calls coming in are people you want to hear from.
- It is not a confirmed outbound assistant. Its material is about answering calls. Dialling a number yourself from inside an app is not the same as telling an assistant to go and make the call — see what to check.
- The free offer we saw was a trial, not a free plan. Seven days, attached to the top tier. Check whether that still holds before you plan around it.
2. What Beside costs
Here is the shape of it, as the pricing page read on 13 September 2026. We are deliberately not reprinting the numbers: the page showed different rounded figures in the plan cards and in the FAQ underneath them, which is exactly the situation where a number copied onto a third-party page goes stale and misleads you.
| Plan | The limit that defines it | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline | 30 AI receptionist calls a month | A cap on the feature you are buying. Count a busy month before choosing it. |
| The uncapped tier | No AI receptionist call cap | This is the plan its seven-days-free offer was attached to. |
Three things to price before you commit: what an additional line costs, what an additional user costs, and what the figure at checkout actually says in your currency. Then read Beside’s pricing page yourself — it is the only source that is current, and ours is a snapshot of one day.
For comparison on our side: OsmO’s price and renewal terms appear on the store purchase screen in your own currency, there is a 7-day trial, and some features require Premium. A free download is not a free service. See OsmO plans.
3. Who Beside suits — and who it does not
This is the whole decision, and it takes ten seconds.
| If this is you | Then |
|---|---|
| Customers ring your business and the call goes unanswered while you are working | Beside is the right category. Trial it. |
| Two or more of you need to see the same calls and the same customer history | Beside is the right category. A personal assistant app cannot do this. |
| You are one person, and the problem is spam and interruptions on your own mobile | Wrong category. You would be paying for a shared line you do not need. |
| What you really want is someone to make the call — book it, chase it, sit on hold | Check first. That is a different capability; do not assume it is included. |
| You want your existing personal number screened without changing it | Look at a forwarding-based assistant such as OsmO. |
A solo owner sits in the middle, and Beside lets you start alone and add people later. Just be clear which half of your calls you are solving: the ones customers make to the business, or the ones that land on your own phone all day.
4. The review bit: what to check before you pay
We have not run calls through Beside, so this is not a verdict on how it sounds on the line — and you should distrust anyone who gives you one without saying how they tested it. What we can give you is the short list of things that decide whether an AI receptionist works in practice, each of which you can settle inside a trial.
| Check | How to settle it in the trial |
|---|---|
| Does it understand your callers? | Call it yourself from another phone, in a normal voice, with background noise. Then have someone with a different accent try. |
| Is the summary accurate? | Give it a message with a name, a date and a number in it. Check all three survive into the write-up. |
| Does the route actually work? | Set up forwarding, then let a call go unanswered end-to-end. Carrier behaviour and charges vary, so prove it on your own line. |
| Is the 30-call cap enough? | Count your real inbound misses for a week before picking the cheaper plan. |
| Can it place calls for you? | Ask support to demonstrate delegated outbound calling, if that is part of why you are buying. |
| What happens to the recordings? | Read the privacy policy for retention, permissions and deletion. Do not assume two call apps handle data the same way. |
Run the same six checks on anything you compare it against, including ours. A product that passes five of them and fails the one you care about is still the wrong product.
5. How Beside compares with OsmO
Being straight about the bias: OsmO is ours. It is also a different kind of product, which is why this section is a map rather than a scoreboard — Beside answers a business line, OsmO looks after the number in your pocket.
| Need | Beside | OsmO |
|---|---|---|
| Whose phone | A business line customers call | Your own mobile number |
| Incoming calls | AI receptionist answers them | Assistant answers the calls you route to it |
| Outbound tasks | Verify delegated AI calling separately | Assistant can call businesses for you and report back |
| Call records | Transcripts and summaries | Summaries and transcripts, texted to you |
| Team workflows | Shared numbers and CRM integrations | Not a team product — it manages your calls |
| Keeping your number | Forwarding or porting, both documented | Forwarding on your existing number |
| Platforms | Mobile apps plus web management | iPhone and Android |
| Where it works | Check current availability | United States, United Kingdom, India and Canada |
| Trial and pricing | Plans turn on receptionist call volume; check the current offer | 7-day trial; some features require Premium |
Based on published product information, not hands-on testing of Beside. Beside’s pricing and features were read on 13 September 2026.
Where they genuinely overlap
Both answer an incoming call instead of letting it ring out, and both hand you something written afterwards. So if all you need is “something picks up and tells me what they wanted”, either category can do it — and the deciding factors become the ones in the check list above: comprehension, summary accuracy, and whether the route survives your carrier.
What OsmO does that a business phone app does not
Two things, and they are both about your own phone rather than a company’s.
- It screens on the number you already have. Forwarding sends the calls you do not pick up to the assistant instead of voicemail. Your phone normally rings first; unknown calls can go straight to the assistant if you switch that on. Nothing about your number changes.
- It makes calls for you. Ask it to book a table, chase a delivery, confirm an appointment or sit through hold music, and it reports back what was said. Keep the instruction specific, and confirm anything that really matters yourself.
Setting it up is one pass of in-app forwarding, then a test: call your own number from another phone and let it ring out. Check the assistant answers and the message reaches you. Carrier charges and compatibility depend on your plan, so prove the route before you rely on it.
6. Which one to choose
One question decides it. Which phone is causing the problem?
- The business line, with customers on it and colleagues who need to see the calls — that is a business phone app, and Beside is a reasonable one to trial.
- Your own mobile, with spam on it and errands you keep putting off — that is a personal assistant, and that is what OsmO is built to be.
If the honest answer is “both”, solve the one that costs you money first and leave the other for a month. Running two things at the same incoming call makes it hard to tell which one is working.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Beside app?
Beside is a business phone app with an AI receptionist. It answers calls to your business line, records who called and why, and writes the call up as a transcript and summary. It also offers shared numbers and CRM integrations so colleagues can work from the same line, and a solo owner can start alone and add people later. The details on this page were taken from Beside’s own product and pricing pages on 13 September 2026.
Is the Beside app any good?
It depends on which phone you are trying to fix. Beside is built around a business line: an AI receptionist, a shared number, and call records that land where a team can read them. If that is your problem, it is a sensible thing to trial. If you are one person who wants their own mobile protected and errands called out, you are paying for team plumbing you will not use. We have not tested Beside hands-on, so read this as an assessment of what the product describes, not a judgement on its call quality.
What does the Beside app cost?
When we checked on 13 September 2026, Beside listed two plans: Baseline, capped at 30 AI receptionist calls a month, and a second tier without that cap. The uncapped tier advertised seven days free. The pricing page showed different rounded figures in the plan cards and in the FAQ below them, so trust the total at checkout rather than the number on the card, and check what extra lines or extra users add. Prices change — confirm on beside.com/pricing.
Is Beside an AI phone app?
Yes, in the receptionist sense: an AI voice answers an incoming call, asks who is calling and why, and hands you a written record of it. That is a different capability from an AI you send out to make a call on your behalf. If the second one is what you want, ask Beside to demonstrate it before you subscribe.
Does Beside work for one person, or do you need a team?
One person can start on it and add colleagues later. But the features it is built around — shared numbers and CRM integrations — are the ones a team uses, so a solo user is buying into a business phone system rather than a personal call screen.
Does Beside keep my existing phone number?
Beside documents both call forwarding and number porting, so an existing line can be routed into it. Porting moves the number across; forwarding leaves it where it is. Check carrier compatibility and place a test call through the whole route before you depend on it either way.
Can Beside make calls for me?
Verify this one directly with Beside. Its material describes answering incoming calls, and dialling a number yourself inside a phone app is not the same as handing an errand to an assistant. OsmO does the second: you ask it to call a business and it reports back. If delegated outbound calling is why you are shopping, make it your first question.
What is an alternative to the Beside app?
If the phone you want looked after is your own, OsmO is the closer fit. It screens calls on your existing number through forwarding, takes messages, sends transcripts, and can place calls for you. It runs on iPhone and Android in the United States, United Kingdom, India and Canada, with a 7-day trial and some features behind Premium. If you need a shared business line with CRM records, stay with a business phone product.
What we checked, and when
Every claim about Beside on this page traces to one of these. We have not tested the product hands-on, and a competitor’s page is a snapshot that goes stale — so treat the primary source as the current truth, not us.
| Source | What it told us | Read on |
|---|---|---|
| beside.com/pricing | Two plans: Baseline capped at 30 AI receptionist calls a month, a second tier without the cap; seven days free advertised on the uncapped tier. Plan cards and the FAQ below them showed different rounded figures. | 13 September 2026 |
| beside.com product pages | AI receptionist on a business line; transcripts and summaries; shared numbers; CRM integrations; mobile apps with web management; call forwarding and number porting both documented; a solo user can start and add a team later. | 13 September 2026 |
| OsmO plans | Store-localised pricing shown on the purchase screen; 7-day trial; some features require Premium; iPhone and Android; United States, United Kingdom, India and Canada. | Current |
Want your own number looked after instead?
OsmO answers the calls you miss on your existing number, texts you the transcript, and makes calls for you when you would rather not. iPhone and Android. 7-day trial; some features require Premium.
Related reading: Best AI call assistant apps · What is an AI phone assistant? · AI receptionist app · An AI that makes calls for you · OsmO vs Mitra · Truecaller alternative · Whoscall alternative
Found something here that is out of date? Beside changes its own pages without telling us. Tell us at support and we will re-check and re-date the sources section.