Salesforce Open CTI Sunsetting: Timeline, Impact, and Your Migration Options

Salesforce Open CTI is being deprecated February 28, 2028. The JavaScript-based framework that allowed third-party phone and dialer tools to embed natively inside Salesforce is being phased out in favor of Service Cloud Voice, Salesforce’s newer telephony architecture.

For teams running CTI integrations today, this is not an immediate emergency, but it does require a clear plan. Salesforce has signaled that Open CTI will not receive new investment, and the migration window to Service Cloud Voice is already open.

This article explains what Open CTI is, what sunsetting actually means in practice, how Service Cloud Voice compares, and what steps to take to keep your integration running without disruption.

What Is Salesforce Open CTI?

Salesforce Open CTI is a JavaScript API that lets third-party telephony and dialer applications embed directly inside Salesforce without requiring the user to install software or switch between tools. Instead of opening a separate desktop app to make or receive calls, reps can access their phone controls, call logs, and contact data from within the Salesforce interface itself.

Open CTI works by embedding a telephony widget inside a Salesforce softphone panel. When a call comes in or goes out, the integration can:

• Automatically log the call to the related Contact, Lead, or Opportunity
• Surface relevant CRM records based on the caller’s phone number
• Trigger screen pops with customer context before the rep picks up
• Sync call data back to Salesforce in real time

It was introduced as a replacement for the older CTI Toolkit, which required a locally installed adapter on each user’s machine. Open CTI removed that dependency by running entirely in the browser, making it easier to deploy at scale across distributed sales and support teams.

For years, Open CTI has been the standard integration layer between Salesforce and third-party phone systems. Most major telephony vendors, including dialers built specifically for revenue teams, have built their Salesforce integrations on top of it.

What Does Sunsetting Mean for Open CTI?

Sunsetting does not mean Open CTI stops working tomorrow. It means Salesforce has formally stopped investing in it and is directing customers toward a replacement. In practice, this typically unfolds in three stages:

For Open CTI, Salesforce has moved into the deprecation phase. The framework continues to function for existing integrations, but it will not keep pace with new Salesforce platform updates, Lightning improvements, or emerging telephony requirements.

The practical risk is compatibility. As Salesforce continues to release new versions and update its core platform, Open CTI integrations may begin to break in ways that Salesforce has no obligation to fix. Teams that stay on Open CTI are essentially running on borrowed time.

When Is Salesforce Open CTI Being Sunsetted?

Salesforce has set February 28, 2028 as the official end-of-life date for Open CTI. After this date, the framework will no longer be supported, and Salesforce will make no guarantees about compatibility with future platform releases.

Key milestones to know:

2028 may feel far away, but enterprise migrations rarely go quickly. Evaluating vendors, running a pilot, retraining reps, and reconfiguring workflows takes time — often six to twelve months at minimum for mid-size and large organizations.

The practical takeaway: do not wait for the deadline. Teams that begin planning now will have full control over the process. Teams that wait until 2027 will be rushed, competing for vendor resources, and at higher risk of disruption.

What Features Will Be Lost When Open CTI Is Sunsetted?

When Open CTI reaches end-of-support in February 2028, the framework itself is not immediately ripped out of Salesforce — but the practical effect of losing support means that any features dependent on it become vulnerable to breaking without any obligation from Salesforce to fix them.

What is specifically put at risk depends on how your current integration is built, but the capabilities most commonly delivered through Open CTI include:

Embedded softphone panel.

The in-browser dialer widget that lives inside Salesforce — allowing reps to make and receive calls without switching to a separate application — is delivered through Open CTI. Without a supported integration, this panel may stop rendering or functioning correctly as Salesforce releases new platform updates.

Automatic screen pops.

When an inbound call arrives, Open CTI integrations typically match the caller’s number to a Salesforce record and surface it automatically before the rep picks up. This context — account history, open opportunities, previous interactions — is what makes inbound handling efficient. Without a working integration, reps lose that visibility.

Automatic call logging.

One of the core values of a CTI integration is that every call is automatically written to the correct Salesforce record — Contact, Lead, or Opportunity — without manual entry. If the Open CTI integration stops functioning reliably, call activity either goes unlogged or requires reps to log manually, which creates data gaps and administrative burden.

Real-time CRM data during calls.

Open CTI integrations can surface relevant Salesforce data — account details, deal stage, previous call notes — directly inside the dialer panel during an active call. This live context improves how reps handle conversations. Without a working integration, reps have to navigate away from the call to look up this information.

Post-call workflow triggers.

Some Open CTI integrations trigger downstream Salesforce workflows after a call ends — updating fields, creating follow-up tasks, or advancing records through a process. These automations depend on the integration writing data to Salesforce reliably. If the integration degrades, these workflows may stop firing correctly.

What will not be lost is access to Service Cloud Voice or third-party Salesforce-native integrations that do not depend on Open CTI. Teams that migrate to a supported replacement before February 2028 will retain all of these capabilities and, in most cases, gain additional ones, such as real-time transcription, AI summaries, and improved call analytics.

What Are Your Options After Open CTI?

When Open CTI is sunsetted in February 2028, you will need a supported telephony integration to keep your phone system connected to Salesforce. There are two realistic paths.

Option 1: Migrate to Service Cloud Voice

Service Cloud Voice is Salesforce’s native replacement and the path Salesforce will push hardest. It offers deep platform integration, real-time transcription, and Einstein AI features built directly into Salesforce.

The catch is cost. Service Cloud Voice requires additional Salesforce licensing on top of what your team already pays, and for most mid-market sales organizations, that incremental cost is significant. For teams with dozens of reps, the licensing expense alone can be difficult to justify before factoring in implementation, training, and telephony infrastructure.

For large enterprise teams already deeply invested in the Salesforce ecosystem and needing native omni-channel routing, Service Cloud Voice makes sense. And for most revenue teams that need a reliable, full-featured dialer tightly integrated with Salesforce, the cost-to-value calculation is harder to make work.

Option 2: Revenue.io’s RingDNA Dialer

Revenue.io connects directly to Salesforce without requiring Service Cloud Voice licensing. It delivers full dialer functionality including call recording, call transcription, AI summaries, mobile functionality, voicemail drop, local presence, and automatic activity logging at a significantly lower cost per user.

For revenue teams that want to move off Open CTI without rebuilding their entire telephony stack or absorbing a major licensing increase, Revenue.io’s dialer is worth evaluating seriously.

How Open CTI and Service Cloud Voice Compare

Understanding the technical differences between the two frameworks helps clarify why Salesforce is making this change and what your team will gain or lose in the transition.

Open CTI does one thing well: it lets third-party phone tools live inside Salesforce. Service Cloud Voice goes much deeper, treating telephony as a native part of the platform rather than an embedded external tool.

The tradeoff is cost and complexity. Service Cloud Voice is more capable, but it comes with significant additional investment. For teams that do not need the full Salesforce stack, a native integration like Revenue.io covers the core use cases at a fraction of the cost.

Will There Be Support Available After Open CTI Is Sunsetted?

No. After February 28, 2028, Salesforce will no longer provide support for Open CTI. This means that if your integration breaks — whether due to a Salesforce platform update, a browser compatibility change, or any other cause — Salesforce has no obligation to investigate or fix it.

In practice, this creates two categories of risk:

Platform compatibility breaks.
Salesforce releases major updates multiple times per year. After the sunset date, Salesforce will make no guarantees that Open CTI will continue to function correctly when new platform versions are released. An update that changes how Lightning components render, how JavaScript is sandboxed, or how iframes are handled could silently break an Open CTI integration with no official recourse.

No bug fixes or patches.
Any bugs or issues that surface in Open CTI after February 2028 will not be addressed by Salesforce. If your integration was working before a platform update and stops working after, the path forward is migration — not a support ticket.

Your telephony vendor may continue to provide support for their side of the integration, but they face the same constraint: if the underlying Open CTI framework breaks due to a Salesforce platform change, there is a limit to what even a committed vendor can do to restore functionality without moving to a supported architecture.

The practical implication is that staying on Open CTI past February 2028 means accepting operational risk that is outside your control. Salesforce will continue to evolve its platform, and Open CTI will not evolve with it.

What Are the Benefits of Transitioning Away from Open CTI?

Moving off Open CTI before the February 2028 deadline is not just about avoiding a broken integration — it is also an opportunity to upgrade to a telephony architecture that does more than Open CTI ever could.

Stability and forward compatibility.

Any supported replacement, whether Service Cloud Voice or a Salesforce-native integration like Revenue.io, will be maintained and updated alongside the Salesforce platform. You stop carrying the risk of silent breakage from a platform update and gain confidence that your integration will keep working as Salesforce evolves.

Real-time transcription.

Open CTI does not support real-time call transcription. Both Service Cloud Voice and modern Salesforce-native dialers like Revenue.io provide AI-powered transcription during and after calls, turning every conversation into searchable, analyzable text without manual effort.

AI-generated call summaries.

Where Open CTI integrations required reps to manually write call notes after every conversation, modern replacements automatically generate AI summaries, capturing what was discussed, what was agreed, and what follows next. This alone recovers significant rep time at scale.

Improved coaching capabilities.

Supported integrations enable real-time coaching prompts during live calls, conversation intelligence that surfaces patterns across the full team, and manager visibility into call quality without listening to every recording. Open CTI provided none of this natively.

Better data completeness.

Because modern integrations capture and log call data more reliably and comprehensively than Open CTI-based solutions, the Salesforce records they write to are more complete. This improves forecasting accuracy, pipeline visibility, and rep accountability without additional manual effort.

Lower operational risk.

Transitioning on your timeline with adequate time to pilot, train, and migrate data is significantly less painful than being forced to migrate under pressure when an integration breaks in production. Teams that move early control the process; teams that wait are reactive.

The net effect is that migrating away from Open CTI, done thoughtfully and with the right replacement, typically results in a more capable, more reliable telephony integration than most teams had before — not just a like-for-like swap.</p>

How to Prepare for the Open CTI Sunset

February 2028 is far enough away that most teams are not in crisis mode, but close enough that planning should start now. Enterprise migrations take longer than expected, and waiting until 2027 means competing for vendor resources during peak migration demand.

Here is a practical approach to getting ahead of it.

Step 1: Audit your current Open CTI integration.

Start by understanding exactly what you have. Document which telephony vendor you use, how the integration is configured, what Salesforce objects it writes to, and which workflows depend on it. This audit becomes the foundation for any migration plan.

Step 2: Identify what your team actually needs.

Not every team needs the full Service Cloud Voice stack. Define your core requirements: call logging, screen pops, recording, coaching, reporting. Knowing what matters to your team makes it easier to evaluate options without overpaying for features you will not use.

Step 3: Evaluate your options early.

Give yourself time to compare Service Cloud Voice against Salesforce-native alternatives like Revenue.io. Request demos, ask vendors about their migration support, and pressure-test the cost model across your full user count.

Step 4: Run a pilot before full rollout.
Whichever path you choose, pilot it with a small group of reps before rolling out to the full team. This surfaces configuration issues, training gaps, and workflow problems before they affect revenue.

Step 5: Plan your data migration.

If you are moving to a new integration, make sure historical call data, recordings, and activity logs are preserved and accessible in Salesforce after the switch. This is often overlooked and can create compliance or coaching gaps if not handled carefully.

Step 6: Train your team before go-live.

A new telephony integration changes how reps make calls, log activity, and access customer context. Build training into the rollout plan, not as an afterthought. Reps who understand the new system from day one adopt it faster and revert to workarounds less.

Conclusion

Salesforce Open CTI is being sunsetted on February 28, 2028. For sales and service teams that rely on a CTI integration today, that deadline represents a real forcing function to evaluate what comes next.</p>

The two paths are clear. Service Cloud Voice is Salesforce’s native replacement and offers the deepest platform integration. This comes with significant additional licensing costs that make it a difficult fit for many mid-market revenue teams. Revenue.io offers full dialer functionality natively inside Salesforce at a significantly lower cost per user, without requiring the Service Cloud Voice licensing layer.</p>

The teams that will navigate this transition best are the ones that start evaluating now. Auditing your current integration, defining your requirements, and piloting a replacement with time to spare is far less painful than scrambling in 2027 when everyone else is doing the same thing.</p>