Callingly and Thoughtly both say they'll call a new mortgage lead within seconds, qualify it and warm-transfer it to one of your loan officers. What sets them apart is whether you can prove that on your own leads before you pay. With Callingly you can, this week: a 14-day trial, no credit card, published prices. With Thoughtly, testing on real leads starts after a sales call. So pick Callingly.
Thoughtly has a 14-day self-serve trial too, but its docs say that trial can't place outbound calls to leads. Its pricing page says "most teams start with a 30–60 day pilot on Flex", and its mortgage page says "Most lenders are live within a week." So for most teams, the first real test of Thoughtly runs one to two months, on a plan with no price on its page.
Here are the six tests we'd put either one through for a 15-person mortgage team.
Callingly vs Thoughtly for mortgage leads: what you can test before you pay
| Test | In Callingly's trial | What Thoughtly publishes |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Speed to first call | Calls within seconds of the lead reaching Callingly, during your team's call hours | "Calls every inquiry in seconds" on one page, "called in under a minute" on another |
| 2. Your qualifying questions | You write them; a question is skipped when the form already filled its field | Loan purpose, timeline, credit band and rough LTV |
| 3. Warm transfer when loan officers are busy | Next priority group, then a fallback team, then a callback offer | Its docs describe a transfer to one phone number; no-answer handling isn't described |
| 4. Routing by state license | A routing rule on your state field sends the lead to that state's team | "Routes to the right LO by state license, product line, and pipeline capacity"; no setup doc |
| 5. What lands in your CRM | Native Salesforce, HubSpot, Follow Up Boss and more; the loan officer's call and recording | "200+ integrations" on pricing, "20+ native integrations" in its docs |
| 6. Price | From $100 a month, $0.50 per AI call on Starter | No published price |
Test 1: how fast the AI calls a new web lead
Callingly's AI Agent calls each new lead within seconds of it reaching Callingly, during your team's call hours, and can text in the same sequence. To test it, submit a test lead through the form your borrowers really use and time it from submit to ring.
Thoughtly's mortgage page says it "calls every inquiry in seconds." Its speed-to-lead page says "called in under a minute, every time." In Thoughtly's docs, the call on a new lead is an Automation you set up, triggered by an incoming webhook or a CRM event. In the pilot, time it the same way, from your real form.
Test 2: AI lead qualification with your own questions
Thoughtly's mortgage page says its agent captures "Loan purpose, timeline, credit band, and rough LTV" in one call.
In Callingly you write the questions yourself in the AI Agent editor, and you choose which lead field each answer is saved to. If your form already asked for the loan purpose, map that question to the same field: the AI skips it for leads who already answered, so nobody gets asked twice. The answers feed the briefing your loan officer hears before the transfer.
The test: send one lead with the loan purpose filled in and one without. The first shouldn't hear that question.
Test 3: the warm transfer when your loan officers are busy
This is the test most demos skip, and the one that costs you leads. Your LOs are on calls all day. What happens to a qualified borrower when the first one doesn't answer?
In Callingly, if the lead already has an owner who is available and your routing says so, that loan officer rings first. Otherwise the available LOs in your first priority group ring together, up to a set limit, and the first to accept gets the lead. LOs who take transfers on a screened phone line hear a short briefing first: the lead's name, source, category and the most useful thing they said. If nobody accepts, Callingly tries your next group, then your fallback team, and then the AI offers the lead a callback. To test it, put two LOs in your first group, have both decline, and watch the lead move to the next group.
Thoughtly's docs describe a transfer step that sends the caller "to a specific Phone number" (the number can come from a variable), with an optional message spoken first. The docs don't describe ringing several loan officers or what happens when the number doesn't answer. Its speed-to-lead page promises a "warm transfer with full context." In the pilot, ask to see a transfer with your two most likely LOs both on calls.
Test 4: routing Texas leads to Texas-licensed loan officers
Under 12 CFR 1008.103, a loan originator needs a license in the state where the property is, so a loan on a Texas property has to go to an LO licensed in Texas.
Thoughtly's speed-to-lead page says it "Routes to the right LO by state license, product line, and pipeline capacity." Its docs don't say how that's set up. During the pilot, ask Thoughtly to build it with your real license list.
In Callingly, routing rules match on any field your lead source sends, custom fields included, and send the lead to a team. Add a custom field for the property state, have your form fill it, then add one rule per state: "Property state is TX" sends the lead to your team of Texas-licensed LOs. Route on the property's state, not the borrower's mailing address.
Test 5: what lands in your CRM
Callingly connects natively to Salesforce, HubSpot, Follow Up Boss, Pipedrive and Zoho CRM, among others. It takes leads from anything else through Zapier, a webhook or a lead email. After a transfer, your CRM gets the loan officer's call with its recording.
Thoughtly's pricing page lists "200+ integrations" and its docs say "20+ native integrations." Its mortgage pages name Encompass, Velocify, Total Expert and others, alongside "most generic CRMs via Zapier or webhook," without saying which are native. If your leads start in an LOS, ask Thoughtly the question its pages leave open: native, Zapier, or a custom build?
Test 6: Thoughtly pricing vs Callingly pricing for a mortgage team
Thoughtly's pricing page lists three plans, Flex, Scale and Enterprise, each behind a sales button: "Talk to sales," "Get a quote" or "Talk to enterprise." The plan table shows voice minutes as "Unlimited," while the FAQ says "Usage above your plan's monthly allowances is billed in arrears" (charged after you use it). Its docs FAQ says pricing is per minute, "starting at just 5 cents per minute." Its "TCPA / state DNC compliance review" comes with Scale and Enterprise, not Flex.
Callingly charges per AI call, not per minute. Starter is $100 a month with $100 of usage included, at $0.50 per AI call. Growth is $250 a month with $250 included, at $0.45 per call. An AI call is billed when it completes, voicemail included. Calls that ring out or are busy aren't billed.
Say your team gets 250 new leads a month and the AI needs one or two completed calls per lead. That's 250 to 500 AI calls, or $112.50 to $225 on Growth, covered by the $250 you already pay. Add $5 a month for each phone number. Users are unlimited, so all 15 loan officers cost nothing extra.
Frequently asked questions
What is Thoughtly?
Thoughtly is an AI voice agent platform. You build agents in its node-based Agent Builder, connect them to your systems with Automations, and use them for calls, texts and email. Its pricing page says Flex is "For teams that build and run it themselves," and Scale adds "white-glove onboarding."
Do AI calls to mortgage leads need consent?
Yes. In 2024 the FCC ruled that the TCPA's limits on "artificial or prerecorded voice" calls "encompass current AI technologies that generate human voices" (FCC 24-17). Those calls need the called person's prior express consent, absent an emergency or exemption. The consent your form collects matters with any AI calling tool.