By default a 📞 Call button hands the number to whatever phone app your computer uses. That works, but the call happens outside Direct REI — so there's no recording, no in-tab controls, and inbound calls never reach you here.
In-browser calling changes that. With a headset and a Telnyx or Twilio number, calls are placed and answered right in the tab.
Pick your calling method
Go to Settings → Phone → Calling integration → Provider:
- System default (FaceTime, system phone) — hands off to your computer's phone app. No setup, no recording.
- 📞 Quo — routes through the Quo desktop app. Recording is turned on inside Quo; its recordings and transcripts still flow onto the contact's timeline here.
- 🎧 In-browser calling (your Telnyx number) — the softphone. Minutes bill to your own Telnyx account (roughly $0.002/min). Needs a paid Telnyx account and a microphone.
- 🎧 In-browser calling (your Twilio number) — same thing on Twilio (roughly $0.018/min outbound, $0.013/min inbound).
Both in-browser options are bring your own account — you connect your own provider under Settings → Phone and pay them directly. Direct REI doesn't mark up your minutes.
Turn it on
Pick one of the in-browser providers and a setup panel appears under the dropdown with a button to enable calling on your connected number. Once it's ready the number shows a 🎧 Calling ready badge in the SMS/phone accounts list.
Your browser will ask for microphone permission the first time you place a call — allow it, or calls fail with a "no microphone" error.
The call bar
During a call a floating bar appears with the contact's name, the call state, and a timer. From it you can:
- Mute and Hold
- ⌨ Keypad — for phone menus ("press 1 for…")
- ⚙ — pick which microphone and speaker to use; it remembers per device and you can switch mid-call
- Hang up
If your connection drops briefly the bar shows Reconnecting… and picks the call back up rather than dropping it.
Taking incoming calls
Under your number's settings, turn on 🔔 Ring my browser for incoming calls. After that an inbound call pops up in the tab with the matching contact's name, and you answer with one click.
- Everyone on the team rings at once — whoever answers first gets the call; the rest see "answered by a teammate."
- Each person can opt their own device out with the Ring this browser checkbox, without affecting anyone else.
- You can set a forward to cell fallback for calls nobody picks up in the browser.
- Every inbound call logs to the contact's timeline either way — answered, missed, or declined.
Voicemail
With ringing armed, you can turn on voicemail: if nobody answers, the caller hears a greeting you write and leaves a message. The recording lands on the contact's timeline as a playable card, with an optional transcript (transcription bills to your provider, around $0.025/min).
Voicemails also show up in the Inbox's 🚩 Attention lane, so a message left overnight isn't buried.
Recording your calls
Turn on ⏺ Auto-record my browser calls in the same Calling integration panel (there's a matching toggle right on the Dialer). Then every call you place or answer in the browser is recorded — both sides — and saved to the call log and the contact's timeline.
- A red ⏺ REC chip appears on the call bar while recording. Click it to pause, click again to resume — useful when a caller reads out a card number. The paused portion is simply not captured; the rest of the take is kept.
- If auto-record is off but you want this call, a ⏺ Record button on the bar starts one.
- Muting also stops the recording capturing you — a muted mic is never recorded.
- Recordings play back inline on the contact's timeline and are included in the call-log export.
- Only the account owner can turn recording on or off; it applies account-wide, so a VA dialing inside your account records under your policy.
AI call summaries
Turn on ✦ AI call summaries in the same Calling integration panel (Pro and Scale plans) and Direct REI writes a short AI summary on the call log and the contact's timeline for every call that has a transcript — transcribed voicemails, AI Call Agent calls, and Quo call transcripts. The summary appears as a "✦ Summary" line on the call card, shows up in the Home activity feed, and rides the call-log export.
- Each summary counts toward your monthly included AI usage (the same meter Oliver and the AI task manager draw from — the cost is a fraction of a cent per call). At 100%, summaries pause until the meter resets on the 1st.
- Only the account owner can turn it on or off, and it applies account-wide.
- Calls without a transcript aren't summarized — that includes browser recordings (audio only) and calls handed off to a phone app. Very short transcripts are skipped too; they already read at a glance.
- Where your provider writes its own summary (Quo's call summaries, the AI Call Agent's), that native summary is used at no AI cost.
Which number you call from
If your account has more than one number, the Dialer shows a Calling from picker: Auto (matches the number the lead already texted, otherwise your default), Rotate through all, or one specific number. It's saved per device, so each rep can differ.
What's next
To put it to work on a list: Cold-call workflow with the dialer. To stop spam from ringing you: Block spam callers & texters.