How Much Does an AI Receptionist Cost? 2026 Pricing by Billing Shape

The cheapest paid plan from each of the seven AI receptionists covered here costs $24.95 to $150 a month, and Smith.ai offers a free plan for 25 calls. Human answering services start at $250 to $300 a month. The billing shape (per call, per minute, or per unique customer) moves your real bill more than the headline price does.

Based on each vendor’s published pricing and documentation, checked 26 October 2026. We have not run call tests on these tools yet, and ByRole AI does not sell an AI receptionist or an answering service.

Every price below links to the vendor’s own pricing page. New to the category? Start with what an AI receptionist is and how a call works.

The three billing shapes

Every AI receptionist here bills on one of three units: the call, the minute, or the person calling. Pick the unit that matches how your phone rings, or a cheap headline plan turns into an expensive month.

Per call: Smith.ai AI and Upfirst

You pay for each call answered, however long it runs. Smith.ai AI Pro is $150 a month for 75 calls ($2.00 a call), then $2.50 per extra call. Upfirst Starter is $24.95 a month for 30 calls, then $1.50 each.

Per call suits long calls, such as detailed intake, because length is free. It hurts with quick questions: a 40 second “are you open Saturday?” costs the same as a full booking.

Per minute: Rosie, RingCentral, Dialzara, My AI Front Desk

You pay for talk time. Rosie Professional is $49 a month for 250 minutes. RingCentral AI Receptionist is $49 for 100 minutes, then 50 cents a minute. Dialzara Business Lite is $29 for 60 minutes, then 48 cents a minute. My AI Front Desk is $99 a month, or $79 billed annually, for 200 voice minutes, then 25 cents a minute.

Per minute is kind to short calls and hard on long ones.

Per unique customer: Goodcall

Goodcall Starter is $79 a month for 100 unique customers (about 150 calls, by Goodcall’s estimate), then 79 cents per extra customer, with no per minute charges. A caller who rings three times in a month counts once.

This shape rewards regulars, like clients who reschedule or tenants chasing a repair. It costs more when nearly every caller is new, for example during an ad campaign.

Hybrids: plan ladders and credits

Rosie charges no per minute overage. Its FAQ says it warns you by email, then moves you to the next plan at that plan’s standard price, so it works like a ladder of flat plans at $49, $149 and $299. My AI Front Desk bills overage in credits, 25 credits a minute at 1 cent each, with auto-reload in $10 blocks.

2026 AI receptionist price table: 9 tools

The first seven rows are AI receptionists. The last two are human answering services, there for contrast. “Entry price” is the cheapest paid self-serve plan.

A note on RingCentral: its page also shows $39 plus a $30 RingEX Core seat, so the $39 price needs a RingCentral phone seat.

Where each AI plan goes next as volume grows:

• Rosie: $149 for 1,000 minutes, $299 for 2,000.
• Goodcall: $129 for 500 customers, $299 for 2,000, with extras at 26 and 15 cents.
• Smith.ai AI: $500 for 300 calls on Enterprise, extras at $2.17 to $2.10.
• Upfirst: $59.95 for 90 calls, $159.95 for 300, $299 for 600, with extras at $1.00 down to $0.70.
• Dialzara: $99 for 220 minutes, $199 for 500, $349 for 1,000, with extras at 45 down to 35 cents.

Same 100 calls, three different bills

Run one month through three plans. The assumptions: 100 calls, an average of 3 minutes each (300 minutes in total), and no more than 100 different people calling.

Rosie, per minute: $149

100 calls × 3 minutes = 300 minutes. Rosie Professional includes 250, so you are 50 minutes over. Rosie does not bill those minutes. It moves you up to Scale at $149 a month for 1,000 minutes.

The $49 plan holds 100 calls only if they average 2.5 minutes or less (250 ÷ 100). And if you need direct calendar booking or warm transfer, Rosie’s cheapest option is $149 anyway.

Smith.ai AI Pro, per call: $212.50

Pro is $150 for 75 calls. The other 25 calls are overage: 25 × $2.50 = $62.50. Total: $150 + $62.50 = $212.50. Call length makes no difference.

Goodcall Starter, per unique customer: $79

Starter covers up to 100 unique customers for $79, and minutes are not metered. 100 calls come from at most 100 people, so the bill is $79.

Same month, same calls: $79, $149 or $212.50. The top bill is about 2.7 times the bottom one. Change the assumptions and the order changes:

• Shorter calls: at a 2 minute average, 100 calls is 200 minutes. That fits Rosie’s $49 plan, which then beats Goodcall.
• Longer calls: per call and per customer billing ignore length, while per minute plans climb.
• More new callers: each unique customer past 100 adds 79 cents on Goodcall Starter.

Cheapest AI receptionist plans, and is there a free one?

The cheapest paid entry plans in this set:

1. Upfirst Starter: $24.95 a month for 30 calls, or $20 a month billed annually.
2. Dialzara Business Lite: $29 a month for 60 minutes, without warm transfer.
3. Rosie and RingCentral: $49 for 250 minutes and $49 for 100 minutes.

A cheap plan is only cheap if your volume fits it. Put the same 100 calls on Upfirst Starter and you pay $24.95 + (70 × $1.50) = $129.95. On Premium, at $59.95 for 90 calls, the same month costs $59.95 + (10 × $1.00) = $69.95. The tier you pick inside one vendor can matter as much as the vendor.

The free options

Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist is the only one of the seven AI tools here with a free plan on its pricing page: 25 calls a month for $0, then $3.00 per extra call. At 75 calls, Free costs (75 minus 25) × $3.00 = $150, the same as Pro. Past 75 calls a month, Pro is cheaper.

Most of the others offer trials: 7 days at Rosie, Dialzara and My AI Front Desk, and 14 days at Upfirst. Goodcall lets you build a free demo agent and charges once you connect a number. My AI Front Desk says it has no permanently free plan.

What an answering service costs instead

A human answering service puts a person on every call. Smith.ai’s Virtual Receptionists start at $300 a month for 30 calls, or $10 a call, with extras at $11.50. Basic is $810 for 90 calls ($10.50 over) and Pro is $2,100 for 300 calls ($8.50 over).

Ruby bills by the minute: $250 for 50 minutes, $395 for 100, $720 for 200 and $1,725 for 500. That is $5.00 a minute on the smallest plan and $3.45 on the largest. Ruby lists no setup fees and publishes no overage rate.

Now the same 100 calls. Smith.ai Basic: $810 + (10 × $10.50) = $915. On Ruby, 300 minutes is past the 200 minute plan, and with no published overage rate, the next listed plan is $1,725, so ask Ruby for a quote. Compare that with $79 to $212.50 for the AI plans.

The extra money buys judgment on angry or sensitive calls. Whether you need it is covered in AI receptionist vs answering service.

Hidden costs to check before you sign

• Overage rates. Per minute overage here runs from 25 cents (My AI Front Desk) to 50 cents (RingCentral, rounded up in 30 second steps). Per call overage runs from $1.50 (Upfirst Starter) to $3.00 (Smith.ai Free).
• Automatic upgrades. Go past Rosie’s included minutes and you move to the next plan at full price, from $49 to $149. Rosie says it emails a warning first.
• Features locked to higher tiers. Rosie’s direct booking and warm transfer start at $149. Dialzara’s $29 plan has no warm transfer. Smith.ai AI includes custom prompting and custom integrations only on Enterprise at $500, though native integrations such as Clio and Zapier are on all plans. Smith.ai’s human service charges 50 cents per call for each CRM after the first.
• Spam and short calls. Upfirst says spam, calls under 15 seconds and silent calls do not count. For the other tools, ask in writing how spam and wrong numbers are billed.
• Setup fees, contracts and annual billing. Ruby states no setup or onboarding fees. Dialzara states no contract. Upfirst takes 20 percent off for annual billing, My AI Front Desk drops from $99 to $79 a month, and Rosie calls its annual plan 2 months free. Annual billing locks in a plan size, so run monthly until your volume is steady.

HIPAA and business associate agreements

If patient calls will go through the tool, compliance can decide the price for you. Smith.ai is direct about it in an FAQ:

“Smith.ai is not HIPAA-compliant, so we cannot handle calls that involve protected health information.”

Smith.ai, legal industry page FAQ

The same answer says Smith.ai still takes medical practice calls that do not involve patient health details. RingCentral lists HIPAA and SOC 2 as included. Upfirst offers BAAs on its Custom plan only, so its $24.95 price does not apply if you need one. Get any business associate agreement in writing before routing patient calls.

How to estimate your own bill

1. Decide which calls go to the AI: all calls, missed calls only, or after hours only. Count only those.
2. Pull three numbers from last month’s call log: total calls (C), total minutes (M) and unique callers (U).
3. Price each shape: plan price + (C, M or U minus what the plan includes) × the overage rate. If the bracket is negative, count it as zero.
4. Check the next tier up. As the Upfirst example shows, a bigger plan with less overage can be cheaper.
5. Check feature gates. If you need booking or warm transfer, price the tier that includes it.

Example: RingCentral at 300 minutes is $49 + (300 minus 100) × $0.50 = $149, before rounding from its 30 second steps.

Break even: how many recovered calls pay for the plan

You pay for the calls you miss now. CallRail’s own data says “on average, 28% of business calls go unanswered” (July 2026), and Invoca’s platform data shows fewer than 3 percent of callers who reach voicemail leave a message. Both come from vendors, so count your own missed calls too.

Then fill in two numbers only you know:

• V = what one booked job is worth to you (gross profit if you know it, revenue if not).
• B = the share of answered calls that become a booked job, from your own records.

With P as the monthly plan cost, jobs needed to break even = P ÷ V, and recovered calls needed = P ÷ (V × B). On Rosie Scale that is 149 ÷ V jobs. On Goodcall Starter it is 79 ÷ V. If V is larger than P, one recovered job a month covers the plan.

We left V and B blank on purpose: any number we picked would be a guess for your trade. For tools by trade, see our AI receptionist guides by role. When we run call tests, they will follow how we test.

Frequently asked questions