The 5 Best Visual Voicemail Apps in Australia (2021)

September 10, 2021
 min read


Do you find yourself receiving lots of calls throughout the day and end up missing many? If so you are probably also fed up with the amount of time you waste trying to keep up with your voicemails. If this sounds like you, then it might be time to try visual voicemail.


Visual voicemail apps transcribe your messages in an email-like interface so you can quickly read and prioritise them without having to spend minutes or even hours listening to every single one. You don't even need to dial anything to find out who left the call, how long the message lasted, or what the content of the message was. Also, instead of listening in chronological order, as is the case with regular voicemail, you can read visual voicemail in any order.


Visual voicemail apps often provide other helpful features like voicemail transcription, personalised greetings, and email forwarding too. In this article, we've rounded up some of the most useful voicemail apps with a focus on those available in Australia.


1. Vxt - Smart Voicemail App

A newcomer to the Australian market, Vxt is currently available on both iOS and Android and is quickly gaining popularity in Australia due to its clean design and range of valuable features, which include automatic voicemail to email forwarding and contact-based greetings.


Unlike competitors, Vxt also offers integration through Vxt Web with other useful tools such as Slack, Salesforce, Zapier, and more.


Like most, Vxt provides a free version of the app with certain limits but their paid subscriptions are competitively priced and for small business owners, salespeople, and others who get quite a lot of voicemail they save buckets of time and make it easier to keep up with important contacts.

iPhone: Download Vxt for iOS on the Apple App Store.


Android: Download Vxt for Android on the Google Play Store.


Browsers: Try Vxt for free on Google Chrome, Safari, and other browsers at Vxt.


2. HulloMail


HulloMail is a Thumbtel product available for iPhone and Android users.


A key feature of this app is the ability to search through voicemail transcripts using keywords or a name to find a specific message (although this is only available for paid users). You can also send copies of the transcriptions through email on HulloMail.


However, according to user reviews, a major drawback of HulloMail is the inability to get access to your full voicemail recordings. If you are not on the HulloMail Pro Plan your voice messages will be cut after 10 seconds.


3. InstaVoice


InstaVoice is one of the few services that offer an app for Windows Phone, as well as Android and iPhone.


One of their most popular features is the ability to withdraw sent messages. For example, if you were to send a voicemail, or text message through the InstaVoice app you have the ability to withdraw the message which automatically deletes it from the recipient's inbox. You can also reply to voicemail messages using a chat-like interface within InstaVoice, allowing you to call or text the person who called you. If you miss a message you will also get an alert for your email.


According to reviews, one of the biggest issue with InstaVoice is its usage-based charges. Although InstaVoice is free to use, customers have to pay per voicemail to have it transcribed using InstaVoice credits that are bought through Google Play.  


4. World Voicemail


Developed by Norwood Systems, World Voicemail is another visual voicemail solution available on iOS and Android devices.


With World Voicemail you can read or listen to your voicemails, manage them onscreen, and call contacts in a single click. The latest version features spam filtering capabilities, allowing customers to hide or mute inbound telemarketing and nuisance calls.


Despite receiving generally positive reviews in regards to its new features, World Voicemail has received some criticism for the accuracy of its transcript, with some users reporting less than 10% accuracy.


5. Google Voice


Released all the way back in March 2009, Google Voice has offered visual voicemail for longer than most of its competitors and is the most prevalent voicemail app in the world, with more than 10 million installs on Android alone.  


Its biggest differentiating feature is that it provides users with a virtual “unified” phone number that rings to all phone, whether that’s mobile, office, or home landline, and can be used for calls, text messaging and voicemail. Google Voice also offers other services including personalised voicemail for specific callers, the ability to send and receive SMS messages, forward saved voicemail message and block numbers.


Although Google Voice was the first to pioneer voicemail transcription, the service isn’t available everywhere yet. At the time of writing Voice is available in Denmark, France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, the US and according to their support page "Voice will soon be available in Canada”.


(6.) Your Carrier


It is also worth noting that you are able to access visual voicemail straight from your carrier with some mobile services in Australia. Telstra offers MessageBank Plus for a subscription fee, while Vodafone offers visual voicemail for iPhone users. At the time of writing, Optus only offers visual voicemail to corporate users and is blocked from general users. While two of the three major mobile network operators in Australia offer visual voicemail, they are only available for iPhone users and do not include the additional handy features third party apps like Vxt provide.

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