Cradle vs Microsoft Teams Phone: cloud phone system comparison for AU and NZ accounting firms

AI summaries, transcripts and time tracking

Both products ship AI features. Microsoft Teams Phone has Copilot for Microsoft 365: AI-generated notes, real-time summarisation and intelligent recap, for users with a Copilot for Microsoft 365 licence. Cradle includes AI call summaries and voicemail transcripts on Professional and Enterprise.

For accounting firms, the substantive difference is where the AI output goes. On Cradle, the summary posts into the FYI activity feed against the right client the moment the call ends. On FYI Elite with FYI AI, Cradle also drafts a time entry against the right job, ready for a partner to approve at month-end. Nobody types the call up after.

On Teams Phone, the AI output lives inside Teams. Getting the summary into FYI, XPM or HubSpot requires Power Automate or a third-party connector. The Copilot summary is genuinely useful for chat, meetings and ad-hoc context, and pairs well with the collaboration product. It just is not shaped around writing into the accounting practice tool.

Worth noting: Copilot for Microsoft 365 is licensed per user, separately from the Teams Phone tier. If AI features are decision-critical for Teams Phone, add the Copilot licence cost to the comparison.

Pricing positioning

The two products price very differently, which makes list-price comparisons easy to read wrong.

• Cradle publishes per-user subscription tiers on /pricing: Standard, Professional and Enterprise. Calling credit is included on each paid tier. FYI, XPM, HubSpot, MS Teams compatibility, business-hours routing, fail-safe routing, mobile and desktop apps, call recording and number porting are included on every paid tier.
• Microsoft Teams Phone publishes four per-user tiers on the Microsoft sales site, before the Teams licence and (if you want AI) the Copilot for Microsoft 365 licence. The plans are Teams Phone Standard, Teams Phone with Pay-as-you-go Calling, Teams Phone with Domestic Calling, and Teams Phone with Domestic + International Calling. Teams Phone Standard is the cloud phone system on its own; the calling minute bundles are add-ons layered on top.

For New Zealand, Microsoft's published prices on microsoft.com/en-nz/microsoft-teams/microsoft-teams-phone as of 14 May 2026 are NZ$16.20 (Standard), NZ$21.00 (Pay-as-you-go), NZ$35.60 (Domestic), and NZ$55.00 (Domestic + International) per user per month, assuming annual commitment.

For most accounting firms, the right way to compare total cost is to add the Teams Phone tier, the Teams licence (if not already in your Microsoft 365 plan), a Copilot for Microsoft 365 licence (if AI features are decision-critical), and the integration build-out cost for FYI / XPM / HubSpot write-back. Set that total next to Cradle's per-user subscription on /pricing, where the practice tool integrations are included.

Prices change. Check /pricing and the relevant Microsoft Teams Phone page before deciding.

What getting started looks like

Cradle. Start a free trial from /pricing without booking a sales call. If you would rather have someone walk you through it, book a 30-minute demo and the Cradle team will provision your number, users and basic routing during the call. The FYI, XPM and HubSpot integrations are configured from admin.cradle.io: a few minutes per integration, no engineering project.

Microsoft Teams Phone. Setup depends on which connectivity mode you choose:

• Calling Plans. Microsoft is the operator. Assign licences, buy numbers from Microsoft, set policies in the Teams admin centre. Simplest path, but Microsoft Calling Plans are not available in every country.
• Operator Connect. A participating operator (your existing carrier, or a new one) manages the trunk. Sit between the simplicity of Calling Plans and the flexibility of Direct Routing. List of participating operators is on learn.microsoft.com.
• Direct Routing.Bring your own carrier. Requires a certified Session Border Controller, public-trusted certificates, FQDN and DNS configuration, firewall ranges for SIP and media traffic, codec configuration. Real IT project; Microsoft's planning guide is at learn.microsoft.com.

Porting your numbers.Both products port. Cradle's onboarding team handles the LOA paperwork and the carrier liaison end-to-end; typical porting takes around two weeks. On Teams Phone, number porting depends on the connectivity mode: Microsoft handles it for Calling Plans, your operator handles it for Operator Connect, and you (or your SBC vendor) coordinate with the carrier for Direct Routing.