Balto: Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls. Strella: AI-moderated customer research platform that runs in-depth interviews and synthesizes findings in real time, with an option for human-led calls. The right pick comes down to team size, budget, and the workflows you want to automate.
How Hosiqo compares and tests toolsFinal recommendation
Shortlist Balto when guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements matters most, and Strella when b2b and b2c qualitative studies with built-in recruitment matters most. Run both through a week of actual calls to see which suits your workflow.
Real-time AI guidance and agent-assist platform that coaches contact-center and sales agents live during calls.
AI-moderated customer research platform that runs in-depth interviews and synthesizes findings in real time, with an option for human-led calls.
Balto is a contact-center AI platform centered on real-time guidance during live customer and sales calls. Rather than focusing on post-call review, Balto listens to conversations as they happen and surfaces dynamic prompts, objection-handling cues, compliance checklists, and knowledge-base answers to the agent in the moment. Its Agent Assist pulls relevant information so reps can respond to customer questions instantly, while real-time QA automatically scores interactions across all calls and flags compliance risk early, maintaining an audit trail for supervisors. Coaching automation tailors recommendations to each agent's performance, and real-time note generation produces call summaries without manual write-ups. Balto also offers voice AI agents to handle high-volume, repeatable calls and supports omnichannel context across voice and digital channels. It integrates with CRMs and telephony systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral. The platform is used across industries including healthcare, insurance, banking, collections, and home improvement, and is aimed at contact centers and sales teams that want in-the-moment guidance, compliance assurance, and automated quality management at scale. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Strella is an AI-powered customer research platform designed to run in-depth interviews and generate actionable insights in hours rather than weeks. Teams create a study in minutes using AI-generated, unbiased discussion guides that any team member can refine and launch, and they can either lead interviews themselves or hand moderation to Strella's AI moderator for faster results. During AI-moderated sessions, the platform conducts the conversation and adapts questions in real time based on each participant's responses, asking thoughtful follow-up questions to explore topics more deeply. Strella handles study logistics including recruitment, incentives, and scheduling, and offers a choice between interviewing customers a team already knows or recruiting from a panel of millions of global participants with targeting across professional, demographic, and behavioral segments; it supports research in dozens of languages for both B2B and B2C studies. On the analysis side, the platform synthesizes findings in real time, identifies themes across participants and segments, and lets researchers chat with their research to generate video highlight reels and pull insights at multiple levels, from an individual participant up to broader strategic patterns. The company is venture-backed and reports use by recognized consumer brands. Pricing varies by plan. Check the official website for current pricing.
Best suited for
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium); Strella is a free tier with paid upgrades (freemium). Always confirm current pricing on each vendor's site before buying.
| Feature | Balto | Strella |
|---|---|---|
| Core capability | Real-time, in-call guidance with dynamic prompts and objection cues | AI moderator conducting adaptive, in-depth interviews in real time |
| Standout feature | Agent Assist that surfaces knowledge-base answers live | Optional human-led moderation alongside AI-moderated sessions |
| Team usage | Automated quality assurance scoring across 100% of calls | AI-generated unbiased discussion guides editable by the team |
| Integrations | Real-time compliance monitoring with audit trails | Recruitment, incentives, and scheduling handled in-platform |
| Languages & capture | Automated call summaries and coaching recommendations | Real-time synthesis with cross-participant and segment-level themes |
| Best-fit workflow | Integrations with CRMs and phone systems such as Salesforce and RingCentral | Chat-with-research and video highlight reel generation |
Balto
Choose Balto if you need guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements — strengths include guides agents during the call rather than only analyzing afterward.
Strella
Choose Strella if you need rapid customer discovery and concept validation interviews — strengths include flexibility to run interviews via ai or have a human moderate.
Balto
Strella
It depends on your workflow. Balto is strong for guiding agents live through objections and compliance requirements, while Strella is strong for rapid customer discovery and concept validation interviews. Both transcribe and summarize meetings.
Balto is a free tier with paid upgrades and Strella is a free tier with paid upgrades. Check each vendor's pricing page for the latest plans and free-tier limits.
You can — some teams pair them when each covers a different part of the meeting workflow.
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