Common Objections About TitanX (Addressed Honestly)
Before diving into comparisons, let's address the objections you've probably heard or thought of yourself. We'd rather tackle these head-on than pretend they don't exist.
"TitanX is a scam" / "Those connect rates are fake"
We get it. Every sales tool promises the moon. The difference is we put $10,000 on it—if your connect rates don't increase by at least 300%, we refund AND pay you.
Case Allin (VP Software Sales, Park Place Technologies) was skeptical of TitanX too:
"I was definitely skeptical of TitanX and the stated 20 to 25% connect rates. We see four to five, maybe 6% if we're lucky, on any set of data. So I didn't expect anything near that number."
His actual results: 21.3% connect rate across thousands of dials.
"TitanX is too expensive"
Compared to what? A $0.10 contact that never answers and your reps keep calling is infinitely more expensive (do the math on average comp per month divided by average dials per rep per month to get your “cost per dial”) than a $1.00 contact that turns into pipeline. The real question is cost per conversation and cost per meeting.
Case Allin's math:
"It takes my reps 84 dials to schedule one meeting. Without TitanX, it's north of 300, almost 320 dials to schedule a meeting."
Troy Cook (CRO, Dynamic Logistix) faced a choice: hire 2-3 more reps or invest in TitanX. He chose multiplication over addition.
"The turnaround time is too slow—I need real-time"
Turnaround time is often correlated with methodology depth. If a product "scores" every contact instantly, ask what it's actually doing.
TitanX offers two options:
- Lightning (24-hour turnaround): For high-velocity SDR teams, large TAMs, and sophisticated and scalable list building processes to feed the volume
- Titan (5-day turnaround): For strategic high-ACV, defined TAMs, and/or enterprise targeting with highest P1 (high phone intent) density
The question isn't "how fast can I get data?" It's "how accurate is the prediction?"
Speed without accuracy just helps you waste dials faster and scale dysfunction.
"Why not just use a parallel dialer instead?"
Different categories solving different problems. Parallel dialers multiply your dials; phone intent multiplies your conversations. If you're dialing 5x more people who won't answer, you're just failing more and faster, blowing through your TAM, and ultimately hurting down funnel metrics (like conversion).
Hayk Ghon (Head of Growth, Hypercard) tested both:
"I've used parallel dials in the past. Great. If you switch over to X parallel dialer, you are going to see more results, but just wait until three months. It's not going to be the same—you've been through all your accounts. It's a mess."
"We already have ZoomInfo / Apollo / other data—why add another tool?"
You have data. But do you have intelligence on how to action that data? There's a difference between knowing someone's phone number and knowing they'll answer it. Data vendors like ZoomInfo or Apollo focus on somewhat accurate coverage of contact information. TitanX focuses entirely on accuracy and whether the phone is a channel that a given contact actively uses.
Ask yourself the question: “Do I answer cold calls? Do I know people that never answer cold calls no matter what?”
That would be valuable intelligence to have before unleashing your expensive reps on those prospects, especially if most of your prospects don’t/won’t answer.
TitanX works with your existing data and tech stack—it's not a replacement, it's an intelligence layer that allows you to maximize the impact of the tech you already have.
"This seems too good to be true"
Every single customer we've interviewed started as a skeptic. That's healthy.
Thomas Pellegrino (Head of BD, InvestNext):
"If you want me to be completely honest, I thought you guys were full of shit. Like I thought there's no possible way that you could get our connection rate to 25%."
His actual results: 25% connect rate, with July becoming the fifth highest month in company history for outbound—60-70% of meetings came from TitanX.
Why People Search for TitanX Alternatives
(This guide is published by TitanX. The intent is to help you understand the landscape well enough to make the right decision—even if that decision isn't us. Seriously… we are not for everyone.)
If you're searching for TitanX alternatives, you're usually in one of three situations:
- You've heard about TitanX and want to understand how it compares before committing
- You're evaluating your current solution and wondering if TitanX (or something else) is better or supplemental
- You're trying to understand the phone intent category before making a buying decision
All three are rational. The key is realizing you're not simply choosing a vendor—you're choosing a philosophy of outbound.
The Fallacy of "Instant" Validation/Scoring: Speed vs. Substance
The most common critique leveled against TitanX by "instant" alternatives is our turnaround time. These competitors point to our deeper Titan methodology and claim it is a relic of a slower era. What they fail to mention is that TitanX pioneered the very "Lightning" 24-hour turnaround they now claim to have invented—but we refuse to shorten that window to "seconds” as that severely limits your outcomes.
The reason is simple: True behavioral intelligence cannot be gathered in seconds. When a tool validates a number "instantly," it is typically performing a "ping" to a carrier database or a cached registry to see if a line is valid or active. There is no intelligence in that other than, “Yes/No that line is not dead.” This tells you the phone can ring; it tells you nothing about whether the human behind it will pick up or if it is even the correct human being (your prospect).
By contrast, TitanX analyzes behavioral windows—actual patterns of human activity—to identify "Phone Intent." If you save three days on validation only to spend the next three weeks dialing "active" numbers that never answer, you haven't gained speed; you’ve simply optimized your team’s ability to fail.
The Hidden Economics of "Cheap" Intent
There is a pervasive narrative that precision-based platforms are "expensive" compared to pay-as-you-go validation tools. But in 2025, the real cost of a sales tool isn't the line item on your invoice; it is the cost per outcome (conversation, meeting, opportunity, win), savings elsewhere, outsized outcomes, and the preservation of your Total Addressable Market (TAM).
A "budget" alternative might charge you pennies per validation, but if your SDRs have to dial that contact 15 times to get a single conversation, you are paying for that data in rep salary, overhead, and attrition. TitanX is designed for the organization that realizes their TAM is defined and their reps’ morale is a precious resource. We don’t want you to make more calls; we want you to have more conversations. Our $10,000 guarantee isn’t marketing fluff—it’s a reflection of our confidence that once you stop "pinging" numbers and start targeting "intent," the phone becomes a predictable revenue engine rather than a slot machine.
Understanding What You're Actually Buying
Before comparing vendors, you need to separate three fundamentally different categories. People mix these up constantly, and it costs them:
Category 1: Phone Intent Platforms (Call Smarter)
These platforms score contacts before you dial to identify who is likely to answer. The philosophy: call smarter, not harder.
How they work: Analyze behavioral patterns to predict answer likelihood without increasing dial volume.
Examples: TitanX, SureConnect
The core insight: Only about 20% of any B2B market will ever answer cold calls. This isn't circumstantial (bad timing, busy day)—it's behavioral. Some people answer unknown numbers; most don't. Phone intent platforms identify that 20% before you waste dials on the other 80% (some with more success than others as you will see if you keep reading).
Category 2: Parallel Dialers (Dial More…Faster)
These platforms enable reps to dial multiple numbers simultaneously (typically 3-7 at once). The philosophy: more dials = more conversations.
How they work: Call multiple prospects at once, connect the first person who answers, drop/hang up on the rest.
Examples: Orum, Nooks, Salesfinity, Regie.ai
What they're actually selling: Activity multiplication. If you believe volume is the constraint, parallel dialers remove it.
Category 3: Human-Assisted Dialers (Outsource the Grind)
These platforms use live human agents to navigate phone trees and gatekeepers before connecting calls to your reps.
How they work: Outsourced agents dial on your behalf, transfer live conversations to your team.
Examples: ConnectAndSell
What they're actually selling: Labor arbitrage and gatekeeper navigation.
The category you choose should match the Go-To-Market strategy you want to have.
The Parallel Dialing Problem (And Why It Matters for TitanX Alternatives)
Many "TitanX alternatives" searches end at parallel dialers like Orum or Nooks. Before you go there, understand the core failure modes—not because we want to trash “competitors,” but because this decision will shape your entire outbound motion.
Problem #1: The "Latency Trust-Killer" (aka The Awkward Pause when your prospect finally answers)
When a parallel dialer detects a live voice, there can be a latency delay before your rep is connected – also known as the “bridge.” During this time, the prospect hears silence—or worse, a beep.
That pause immediately signals "robocall" or telemarketing to prospects. At best, their guard goes up before your rep says a word and at worst, they hang up before your rep has a chance to talk.
As one industry analysis put it: "That's where trust dies. Even the best pitch in the world can't survive that awkward second of dead air."
Thomas Pellegrino, Head of Business Development at InvestNext, evaluated parallel dialers before choosing TitanX:
"I follow a lot of BDR leaders on LinkedIn and a lot of them swear by parallel dialers. I've never been a fan of them in the past... A lot of people right now are going that parallel dialer route, just 'cause they want to get as many phones out as they possibly can. But essentially what it is right now is it's quality over quantity. We are actually calling the people that are going to pick up the phone and we're gonna have a conversation with, instead of just sitting there and making a hundred phone calls in an hour."
Problem #2: Connect Rates Can (And Almost Always Do) Actually DROP As Dials Go Up
This is the part that dashboards hide. You can increase dials while reducing your true "conversation quality" and hurting number reputation—especially when hangups spike from delay/dropped-call experiences.
The math can be brutal. Reducing your connect rate can’t be fixed by increasing volume, not without burning numbers.
Hayk Ghon, Head of Growth & GTM at Hypercard, tested parallel dialers extensively:
"Mathematically speaking, yes, you're going to have conversations. But at what cost, right? The cost is asking your rep to do 500 dials, asking your rep to not be strategic with those conversations. I've used parallel dials in the past. Great. If you were doing dials on Outreach manually and then you switch over to X parallel dialer, you are going to see more results, but just wait until three months. Right? And then you can look back at the results. Like it's not going to be the same—you've been through all your accounts. It's a mess within the numbers. Are they healthy? Are they not healthy? When do you rotate them? It just doesn't make sense for the long run."
Problem #3: The "Spam Flag Death Spiral" (Carrier Analytics + Reputation)
Carriers and analytics layers increasingly look at patterns associated with nuisance/robocall behavior—commonly including high volume in short windows and short duration calls.
Once your caller ID is labeled "Spam Likely," answer rates approach 0%—and your team compensates by dialing more, which makes the label stick. Think about the last time you answered a “Spam Likely” label on an incoming call.
The statistic that matters: making 8+ dials from the same number within an hour significantly increases the likelihood of that number getting flagged as spam.
Practical takeaway: If you're evaluating parallel dialers, you're not just buying software—you're buying an ongoing caller-reputation operation (STIR/SHAKEN attestation, number warming, analytics registration, monitoring, remediation).
Max Woo, Head of Sales Dev at Landbase, on what would break without phone intent:
"It will be very, very painful. Specifically, we're gonna be consuming a lot more credits from our data providers. Number two is my reps would be spending a lot more time actually just parallel dialing and not connecting with as many people, just waiting for people to pick up the phones."
Problem #4: Your Best Prospects Get Treated Like Your Worst
When you dial multiple prospects at once, the system can't value an enterprise whale more than a marginal lead. Whoever answers first "wins," and the others get dropped.
If you're using phone intent data to prioritize your best prospects, then parallel dialing them burns through your most valuable contacts without giving them the attention they deserve.
Zach Palmear, Director of Sales Development at Vanta, made his choice clear:
"I've never been at an org where we've done parallel dialing 'cause I've never been a big fan of auto dialers. If I had to choose between going parallel dialing—which is camp one—or going the TitanX camp, I would choose TitanX camp all day long. It's a more personalized approach. It's a higher quality approach than just blasting out 200 dials a day and hoping someone picks up the phone."
Problem #5: Zero Personalization—Reps Are Flying Blind
When calling 5 people simultaneously, you don't know who will answer. You have approximately 2 seconds to read their name and company before delivering your pitch.
Michael Rose, Senior SDR Manager at Docebo, explains the difference:
"When it comes to parallel or high volume dialing, I've always been of the belief there has to be a better way to do this. The answer cannot just be more, more and more. There has to be an efficiency component and an efficiency component that actually makes a difference. TitanX made us dial less. It wasn't about volume. It's actually focusing on the quality targets within our ICP accounts and where our best fit leads exist. I mean, if you're parallel dialing without good data, it just means failing faster."
What Real Skeptics Said Before They Became Believers
Every TitanX customer started as a skeptic. Here's what they thought before seeing results:
Kevin "KD" Dorsey, CRO at Finally:
"I was a massive skeptic of TitanX when I first started looking into them, because I've done this, y'all, like, I am very math driven, data driven, and I've played with all the things that it's like, oh, 10x your dials, 3x your connects, and all those things just to like not have it actually work. Every single time there's an increase in one data point like connects, there's a decrease somewhere else."
Case Allin, VP of Software Sales at Park Place Technologies:
"I was definitely skeptical of TitanX and the stated 20 to 25% connect rates. We see four to five, maybe 6% if we're lucky, on any set of data. So I didn't expect anything near that number, I thought 10% would be a major improvement."
Sol Broady, Head of Corporate Development at Management Controls:
"Before I engaged with TitanX, I was a skeptic, not only of the platform, the technology, but also cold calling as a lead generation tool in general. The notion of scaling it into a predictable revenue engine for us seemed dubious until I learned what I know now about TitanX."
Michael Rose, Senior SDR Manager at Docebo:
"Was I a skeptic? Yeah, for sure. I get at least one DM a week about like a connect rate tool. And you know, most of them, they over promise, under deliver. So when I hear about TitanX, I'm like, oh boy, here's another one."
Thomas Pellegrino, Head of Business Development at InvestNext:
"If you want me to be completely honest, I thought you guys were full of shit. Like I thought there's no possible way that you could get our connection rate to 25%, because I thought we actually had a decent connection rate. We were at about eight to 9%."
The Moment It Became Real: When Skeptics Saw Results
Case Allin:
"First time we saw the power of TitanX—gave the initial list to two of my senior reps and the first one hit the phones in the morning like 9:00 AM. He comes running in my office and he's like, 'Hey, I've called six people and four of 'em have answered the phone.' He's like, 'I've never had this happen in my career.'"
Sol Broady:
"We felt the effects of TitanX instantaneously, it was clear and obvious. Literally from the first list that we dialed, we saw a 5x increase in efficiency, and I remember looking at the rep that I was working with and just saying like, we've found it. We're basing the whole strategy around this going forward."
Michael Rose:
"For me when I realized this was real and it wasn't just hype, it was actually in the pilot. I had reps in their first day getting 25% connect rates and getting their weekly total number connects in one call block. And it was really hard to believe it. It wasn't just noise. These were ICP contacts that were right-fit accounts that we were having real conversations and real meetings with."
JJ Russell, VP of Sales at VSimple:
"The first time that we felt the impact and power of TitanX—really memorable to me. It's when I got started here at VSimple and they had zero predictable top of funnel strategy. We brought in our first SDR and Dawson started calling P1s or high intent contacts from TitanX and meetings started showing up in Slack. It was this revelation for us where every day a meeting was hitting the calendar and all of it was being driven by TitanX data."
Troy Cook, CRO at Dynamic Logistix:
"I was very quickly convinced—it was like in the pilot. The first step was just watching Justin make the calls. Before I even got the rest of the data. And so that was like the first thing where I was like, okay, I've never seen someone make three calls and get two connects, like right out of the gate."
Max Woo, Head of Sales Dev at Landbase:
"I mean, the results are immediate. Like, you know, the next day, one of my SDRs told me like, man, TitanX is nuts. Like within one day he was able to have, I believe, like 30 plus conversations as opposed to what he was seeing before."
The Numbers: Before and After TitanX
Connect Rate Transformations
Business Impact
Kevin Dorsey (CRO, Finally):
"Over the last six months, and TitanX has been a huge part of this, we have quite literally doubled SDR production. The SDR team now is smaller than it was nine months ago and producing almost twice as many qualified opportunities per month than beforehand."
Sol Broady (Management Controls):
"The difference that TitanX has made for my pipeline is enabling what looks to be a 4x increase in sales qualified leads year over year. We achieved around 115 sales qualified leads for all of 2024. With a purely TitanX enabled system, we're standing at around 180 year to date—so we've increased by 33% in six months what we were able to achieve in the entirety of last year."
Thomas Pellegrino (InvestNext):
"July is usually one of our slower months historically. And this month it's actually ended up being the fifth highest month in company history for outbound. I would say over 60 to 70% of our meetings that were booked in the month of July came from TitanX."
Case Allin (Park Place Technologies):
"It takes my reps 84 dials to schedule one meeting. Without TitanX, it's north of 300, almost 320 dials to schedule a meeting."
TitanX Alternatives Compared: Platform-by-Platform Breakdown
1. TitanX (Phone Intent Platform)
TitanX isn't a dialer; it's a Phone Intent Engine. It's designed to help teams prioritize who to call so reps can stay 1-to-1 human while still getting transformational high connects to prospects.
What it does: Scores contacts for propensity to answer (P1/P2/P3 designations) and removes bad data (NA designation), enabling reps to prioritize high-intent prospects before dialing.
Approach: Behavioral intelligence from 400M+ analyzed calls. Our algorithm analyzes large-scale datasets aggregated across more than 40 independent signals. Selective human verification involved in the process. Works with your existing dialer, data provider, and tech stack seamlessly (we can live right inside of your CRM without interrupting your existing workflows)
Pricing: Annual credit-consumption based, custom packages, with dedicated technical solutions consultants and technical account management. Salesforce & Hubspot Enterprise-Built Embedded App. Premium pricing reflects methodology depth.
Guarantee: $10,000 if connect rates don't increase by at least 300%.
Two delivery options:
- Lightning (24-Hour Turnaround): Best for SDR teams with high-velocity weekly cadences and volume-tested list building resourcing. Surfaces people who have answered calls recently.
- Titan (5-Day Turnaround): Best for strategic SDR & AE/enterprise teams with defined TAMs and/or high ACVs. Highest density of P1 high-intent results via deeper behavioral windowing.
Best for: Teams that prioritize conversation quality over dial quantity. Organizations concerned about compliance and sustainable outbound motion. Companies that want to multiply rep productivity without adding headcount.
What users say:
Mary White (COO, MarketLauncher):
"We tripled our connect rate by using TitanX. So every account, it's made a difference. When you mix high intent from TitanX with a seasoned, strong salesperson, that's when the magic can happen."
Hayk Ghon (Head of Growth, Hypercard):
"The impact is immediate within hours of implementation, if not minutes. Everyone wants smaller teams. Everyone wants more results per headcount. So I think it's a perfect fit in this market right now."
JJ Russell (VP Sales, VSimple):
"If I could give one phrase for TitanX, they absolutely deliver. They do exactly what they say they're gonna do. There is nothing over promised and underdelivered. If anything, it's the other way around."
Considerations:
- Not real-time—turnaround is 24 hours to 5 days depending on product
- Higher investment than automation-only tools
- Requires decent input data quality for best results
- Not a dialer—you need your own calling solution
2. SureConnect (Phone Validation / "Likely to Answer")
SureConnect is commonly considered a low-cost "phone intent / validation" alternative as well as a low-cost "instant" alternative to TitanX. While it appeals to budget-conscious individual contributors, immature outbound motions, or very small teams, it’s important to understand the fundamental difference in methodology. There is a group of cheap AI-powered alternatives, it's important to evaluate them on this vector to find out why they are so inexpensive, and what the implications are for your business.
What it does: Validates phone numbers and categorizes contacts as "Likely to Answer," "Voicemail," or "Bad Number."
Approach: Automated validation (specific methodology not publicly detailed in depth).
Pricing: Often represented as base subscription + per-number fee. Pricing varies—confirm current details directly with vendor.
Best for: Budget-conscious individual contributors or immature/new outbound motions wanting phone validation at lower price point to see if they can validate that having a phone motion is viable for the long term strategy. Organizations comfortable with less transparency around methodology.
Guarantee: None stated.
Considerations:
- Validation methodology not fully transparent in public documentation
- Newer to market with less established track record
- Real-time validation (faster) but methodology questions remain
- No performance guarantee
- If it's faster/cheaper, ask: what exactly is the signal? What does "likely to answer" mean operationally—and how is it produced?
The Bottom Line: If you are looking for basic phone validation to ensure a number isn't "dead," SureConnect is a budget-friendly option. If you are looking to triple your connect rates and protect your company from compliance liability, the two platforms aren't in the same category.
3. Orum (Parallel Dialer)
Orum is an AI-powered parallel dialer enabling reps to dial up to 7-10 numbers simultaneously. Includes coaching analytics and call prioritization.
What it does: Parallel dialing at scale; routes whichever call connects first to the available rep.
Approach: Proprietary telephony AI built on 100M+ calls. Identifies "hot" numbers based on historical answer patterns within their platform.
Pricing: ~$500-800/user/month ($6,000-9,600/year). Quote-based. Hidden costs include phone numbers, number replacement, and data enrichment.
Best for: High-volume SDR floors where activity metrics are the primary KPI. Teams comfortable with parallel dialing tradeoffs.
Guarantee: None stated.
What you need to measure during pilot:
- Answer-to-rep latency
- Hangups in first 3 seconds
- Spam labeling incidence over time
- Conversion from connect → meeting (not just connect rate)
Considerations:
- Parallel dialing can create a latency delay to connect
- Higher spam risk from volume approach
- Drops calls when multiple prospects answer simultaneously
- Proprietary system—requires changing your entire dialing workflow
- Interface described as "dated" compared to competitors
4. Nooks (Parallel Dialer + Virtual Salesfloor)
Nooks combines parallel dialing (up to 5 lines) with a pioneering virtual salesfloor for team collaboration. Originally launched as a collaboration tool, added dialing later.
What it does: Parallel dialing combined with virtual salesfloor coaching/culture layer.
Approach: Built on Twilio infrastructure. AI voicemail detection. "Magic Connect" learns from voicemail patterns.
Pricing: ~$300-500/user/month ($3,600-6,000/year). Three separate products priced separately.
Best for: Teams that value virtual salesfloor collaboration. Organizations prioritizing team culture and coaching visibility during call blocks.
Guarantee: None stated.
What users say about Nooks (from industry analyses):
- "Delays and choppiness are the most common complaints"
- "Nooks dialer was built on Twilio, leading to increased lag time and stability challenges"
Considerations:
- Same parallel dialing drawbacks (delays, dropped calls, spam risk)
- Twilio infrastructure introduces latency
- Three products priced separately adds complexity
- Performance varies significantly based on list quality
5. ConnectAndSell (Human-Assisted Dialer)
ConnectAndSell uses live human agents to dial on behalf of your reps, navigate phone trees and gatekeepers, then transfer live conversations.
What it does: Humans dial and transfer live conversations.
Approach: Labor-based (not AI), with agents making ~120-130 dials per hour per rep.
Pricing: Average ~$50,000/year. Can reach $96,000 for larger implementations.
Best for: Enterprise organizations with large budgets. Teams needing human navigation of complex phone trees.
Guarantee: None stated.
Considerations:
- Very similar drawbacks as with parallel dialers
- Very expensive (~$50K+/year)
- Awkward handoff from agent to rep
- No control over agent quality or messaging
- Interface described as "clunky" and "dated"
- Requires very clean data to be effective
Comparing TitanX Alternatives: Which Path Is Right for You?
2025-2026 TCPA & Robocall Compliance: The Legal Red Lines
Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Please consult your legal counsel regarding specific compliance requirements for your business.
Regardless of which TitanX alternative you evaluate, compliance should be part of your decision.
First, a Critical Update on the "One-to-One Consent Rule"
The FCC adopted a "one-to-one consent" approach with an announced effective date of January 27, 2025. But the 11th Circuit vacated the rule in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC in January 2025. Subsequently, the FCC deleted/repealed the vacated language and reverted the prior rule text.
So: Do not build your outbound program around the assumption that the vacated "one-to-one consent rule" is in full effect. Always consult legal counsel on the current interpretation.
What Still Creates Compliance Headaches
A) "Abandoned Call" Rules (Dead Air / No Agent Available)
When a system dials more calls than available agents, some answered calls can become "abandoned." The FCC's rules have long limited abandoned calls (commonly referenced as a 3% cap in telemarketing contexts, with specific measurement rules).
If you're using any dialing method that can create dead air or dropped connects, you need to understand how your vendor handles abandonment rate controls and disclosures.
B) AI-Generated / Artificial Voice Is Explicitly Inside TCPA Restrictions
In 2024, the FCC clarified that TCPA restrictions on "artificial or prerecorded voice" apply to AI technologies generating human voices.
So if any vendor is using voice AI in ways that touch outbound calling, your compliance review needs to include it.
To be explicit: Buyers should ensure their security and legal teams contractually confirm that any vendor does not use AI or automated systems to place calls or leave voicemails without explicit consent, as this is a direct TCPA violation and getting caught up with the FCC is a next-to-guaranteed losing battle.
C) Carrier Analytics + Reputation (The "Spam Likely" Reality)
Even if you're "technically compliant," carriers can still label/block based on behavior patterns (volume spikes, short durations, complaints).
This is why parallel dialing can create business risk even before it becomes legal risk.
TCPA Compliance: Questions to Ask Any Vendor
Use these questions with TitanX, SureConnect, Orum, Nooks, ConnectAndSell—everyone:
- How exactly do you determine "likely to answer"? (Not marketing language—mechanics.) And do you use Artificial Intelligence to place calls on our data to determine this “likely to answer”?
- Does your process involve placing any calls/texts to prospects before my reps dial?
- Can you document your compliance methodology?
- What happens if a methodology is later deemed non-compliant? Who owns the liability?
- How do you handle state-by-state requirements and industry-specific rules?
Important: This section is not legal advice. Treat it as a buyer's guide to what you should ask counsel and vendors to document.
The TCPA Landmine: Why "Automated Verification" is a Legal Risk
Perhaps the most dangerous trend in the 2025 sales landscape is the rush toward fully automated AI "verification." As the FCC and TCPA regulations have reached a boiling point, the legal definition of an "artificial voice" or "automated system" has expanded to include many of the "robotic" technologies that low-cost alternatives use to scrub your lists.
In February 2024, the FCC confirmed that TCPA restrictions on "artificial or prerecorded voice" encompass AI technologies that generate human voices or simulate call content. Many "instant" validation tools use automated bots to place silent "test calls" to prospects to verify if a line is live. Under current rulings, these automated pings can be interpreted as illegal robocalls.
If a vendor’s process involves placing automated calls to prospects without prior express written consent, buyers may risk statutory damages. TitanX’s methodology is designed with TCPA guidelines in mind to help minimize compliance risk for our customers.
Fact-Check: TitanX vs. "Instant AI" Alternatives
We make no claims as to which vendors fit the “Instant AI” category. But they do exist, and it’s important buyers understand the tradeoffs - both in terms of quality and legal risk - before buying any phone intent/validation vendor. This stuff doesn’t make it to the Reddit threads, and that’s ok. That’s why we saw fit to publish this guide.
The Philosophy Question: Volume vs. Precision
The TitanX alternatives decision ultimately comes down to philosophy:
Volume Believers Think:
"Connect rates are low, so we need to make more calls. If we're only connecting 3% of the time, calling 300 people instead of 50 will get us more conversations."
Precision Believers Think:
"Connect rates are low because 80% of our market will never answer—it's behavioral, not circumstantial. Identifying the 20% who answer and prioritizing focus on them is more efficient than calling everyone more times."
Both approaches can produce results. The question is which produces sustainable results without burning through your market, damaging number reputation, and creating compliance risk.
The data across hundreds of millions of calls analyzed shows that only ~20% of any B2B market will ever answer cold calls, on average—regardless of how many times you dial. You can call the other 80% until you're blue in the face. They're not picking up.
Phone intent platforms like TitanX exist to identify that 20% before you dial. Parallel dialers exist to dial the entire market faster.
Kevin Dorsey (CRO, Finally) on the paradigm shift:
"My team, you know, Joe, you and I talked about this, like I'm talking to people—like that in itself was a winner. Like I'm getting more people on the phone, I'm having more conversations. I have more follow ups now than I've ever had before."
Thomas Pellegrino (Head of BD, InvestNext):
"I think the big thing is when you look at SaaS sales in general, a lot of people think, okay, more dials, more dials, more dials, right? And I think that's why a lot of people right now are going that parallel dialer route. But essentially what it is right now is it's quality over quantity."
"If TitanX Disappeared Tomorrow..."
We asked customers what would break first. Their answers reveal how deeply embedded phone intent has become in their operations:
Sol Broady (Head of Corporate Development, Management Controls):
"If TitanX disappeared tomorrow, I would have to call an emergency meeting and retract all of my goals, and I would have to significantly change my budget because I would need to likely hire more people. Even if I had unlimited budget and other resources at my disposal, I would not feel confident in attaining my goals anymore. I cannot emphasize enough that TitanX is the underlying pillar for our go-to-market motion right now."
Michael Rose (Senior SDR Manager, Docebo):
"If TitanX disappeared tomorrow, what breaks first is confidence. Reps lose that feeling of dialing, of knowing this person's picking up the phone and goes back into dialing into the void and cutting our connect rate at least in half. The phone will feel like a dead channel again. And all the momentum we built would slow way down."
Zach Palmear (Director of Sales Development, Vanta):
"If we had to get rid of TitanX, I think candidly, we would struggle. Our connect rate would decline. We would start to see some meaningful meeting decline across the board. Yes, we would pivot, we would have to find other avenues to figure out what we can do. Are we gonna double dial? Are we gonna continuously rotate numbers and use local dial? All of those are fair and fine, but TitanX has absolutely helped our connect rate."
Case Allin (VP of Software Sales, Park Place Technologies):
"If TitanX disappeared tomorrow—well, the rabbit's outta the hat. The sales team knows what good data looks like. There's really no going back."
Hayk Ghon (Head of Growth, Hypercard):
"If TitanX disappears tomorrow, I think I have to do my math all over again to understand how many dials do we need to do to get there, how much time or how many more reps I need to add to get to this opportunity goal that I have in front of me."
The $10,000 No-BS Guarantee
TitanX's stance: If we don't increase your connect rates by 300% during your pilot, we pay you $10,000.
You should ask every vendor what they'll guarantee—and what measurement rules they'll commit to in writing.
Zach Palmear's take on the guarantee:
"I was definitely a skeptic of TitanX. Hearing some outrageous claims, like we will give you $10,000 if your connect rate doesn't skyrocket by at least 20 to 30%. Outrageous. But the TitanX team definitely put their money where their mouth was."
Hayk Ghon's perspective:
"If you're on the fence, the pilot program that you guys have—it's no lose, right? You guys are gonna pay them if you don't triple their connect rate. What would I tell you is, I want you to imagine having three times more conversations. I want you to imagine telling your rep that I can guarantee you conversations."
The Phone Intent Buyer's Test Plan
If you want a decision you can defend internally, run a pilot like this:
Step 1: Define the Metric Stack (Don't Let Vendors Pick It)
Track all of these:
- Answer rate (connects / dials)
- Human conversation rate (conversations ≥ 20 seconds)
- Meeting rate (meetings / connects)
- Meeting quality (SQL rate or next-step rate)
- Spam labeling rate (how many numbers show "Spam Likely" over time)
- Cost per meeting (all-in: platform + numbers + rep time + remediation)
Step 2: Split Your List Fairly
Same ICP slice, same geo mix, same job levels, same time blocks. No cherry-picking.
Step 3: Standardize Caller Reputation Inputs
If one tool requires new numbers weekly and another doesn't, that is a real cost. Carriers routinely factor volume + short-duration patterns into spam labeling.
Step 4: Force Transparency
If a vendor can't clearly explain "how the sausage is made," treat that as a risk signal, not a curiosity.
Step 5: Measure What Matters
As Michael Rose put it:
"If you're running a phone motion with basic enrichment tools and hoping reps get lucky by dialing as many contacts as they can, you're wasting time. If you care about pipeline specifically from the phones, this is one of the tools that actually moves the needle. You see it. You try it, you get the results."
Decision Framework: Which TitanX Alternative Is Right for You?
Choose Phone Intent Scoring (TitanX, SureConnect) If:
- You believe the problem is who you call, not how many you call
- Compliance is a significant concern for your organization
- You want to work with your existing tech stack
- You care about sustainable outbound motion that doesn't burn through your TAM
- You're willing to invest more for higher-quality conversations
- Rep morale and confidence matters to you
Choose Parallel Dialers (Orum, Nooks) If:
- You believe more dials = more conversations
- You're comfortable with volume-based approaches and their tradeoffs
- Team collaboration features (virtual salesfloor) matter significantly
- Activity metrics are your primary KPIs
- You're willing to accept lower per-dial connect rates for higher overall volume
- You have infrastructure for ongoing number rotation and spam remediation
Choose Human-Assisted Dialing (ConnectAndSell) If:
- Budget is not a primary constraint
- You're navigating complex enterprise phone trees
- Human gatekeeper navigation is critical to reaching decision-makers
- You want someone else handling the dialing process entirely
FAQ
What counts as a "TitanX alternative"?
Three categories: phone intent platforms (predict who answers), parallel dialers (dial multiple at once), and human-assisted dialers (agents dial and transfer).
Does the 2025 "one-to-one consent rule" apply today?
It was adopted with a scheduled effective date (Jan 27, 2025), but it was vacated by the 11th Circuit and later removed by the FCC.
What compliance issues should outbound teams care about in 2025-2026?
- Abandoned-call controls in predictive/parallel dialing contexts
- AI-generated/artificial voice TCPA coverage
- Caller reputation / spam labeling dynamics
How fast does TitanX show results?
Most customers report seeing impact within hours to days:
- Thomas Pellegrino: "Just after the first day... we were sitting at a 36% connection rate"
- Hayk Ghon: "The impact is immediate within hours of implementation, if not minutes"
- Troy Cook: "Instant. I mean, it was within a week... I instantly saw an increase in conversations"
Is TitanX worth the higher price?
The ROI math typically favors phone intent over volume. Case Allin summarized it: "It takes my reps 84 dials to schedule one meeting. Without TitanX, it's north of 300, almost 320 dials to schedule a meeting."
Kevin Dorsey's perspective on value: "We've done a lot of work with scripting and targeting and all that, but the fact that my reps are talking to 20 people a day—we start to trip into opportunities because we're getting more people on the phone."
What's the difference between TitanX and SureConnect?
Both are in the phone intent/validation category, but they differ in:
- Methodology transparency: TitanX documents its large-scale dataset algorithm + selective human verification process; SureConnect's methodology is less publicly detailed
- Performance guarantee: TitanX offers $10K guarantee; SureConnect doesn't
- Pricing model: TitanX is premium credit-based; SureConnect positions as budget-friendly
- Market position: TitanX pioneered the "phone intent" category; SureConnect is a newer entrant
The "Skeptic’s ROI" Math
When evaluating a vendor who claims to be "just like TitanX but cheaper," ask for their cost-per-meeting math. If a rep earns $60,000/year and spends 80% of their day dialing numbers that don't answer, the "cheap" data is actually costing you roughly $48,000 in wasted salary per rep.
By increasing your connect rate from 5% to 25%, you aren't just getting "more connections." You are effectively quintupling the capacity of your existing team without hiring a single new person. That is the difference between a tool that "validates" and an engine that "converts."
Making Your Decision
If you're evaluating TitanX alternatives, here's the blunt process:
- Define your philosophy first (volume vs precision)
- Run pilots with multiple vendors (anyone unwilling to prove results shouldn't get your business)
- Calculate total cost of ownership (numbers, enrichment, remediation, opportunity cost, rep time)
- Ask the compliance questions—every vendor
- Talk to current customers (not just testimonials on websites—actual users who can speak candidly)
TitanX offers a $10,000 guarantee if connect rates don't increase by at least 300%. Ask other vendors if they'll do the same.
Ready to stop guessing?
Request a demo — We'll show you how many P1s are sitting in your current "dead" list, and how to compare TitanX against your alternatives using a fair pilot.
Last updated: January 5, 2026
This guide is published by TitanX. We've aimed to represent all vendors fairly based on publicly available information, user reviews, and market research. Features, pricing, and capabilities change—verify current details directly with each vendor.
