Buyer’s guide
The best AI receptionists, priced honestly
Seven platforms, four incompatible billing meters, and a category that would rather you compared logos than bills. Here is every published price on one page, converted into the only question that matters: what does your phone pattern actually cost?
Prices checked against each vendor’s own pricing page on Sep 17, 2026. Nobody paid to be here and there are no affiliate links on this page.
The key facts
- Published AI receptionist plans run from $29/mo for 60 minutes to $599/mo per location.
- Four billing meters are in use: per call, per minute, per unique caller, and flat per location.
- Human answering services publish roughly ten times the price of AI for the same call count.
- Overage, not the headline plan, decides the real bill — several vendors do not publish theirs.
- The cheapest structure depends on your average call length and how often the same number calls.
- Every figure here comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked on 17 September 2026.
AI receptionists compared
Read the meter column first. It decides more of your bill than any feature list on this page.
| Platform | Meter | Entry price | Higher tiers | Overage | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai (AI Receptionist) | Per call | Free — 25 calls/mo | $150/mo for 75 calls; $500/mo from 300 calls | $1.67–$3.00 per call by tier | Long, complex calls — duration never moves the bill |
| Smith.ai (human receptionists) | Per call, human-staffed | $300/mo for 30 calls | $2,100/mo for 300 calls | $8.50–$11.50 per call | Regulated intake where a person must be on the line |
| Rosie | Per minute (bundled) | $49/mo for 250 minutes | $149/mo for 1,000; $299/mo for 2,000 | Not published | Solo owners with short, transactional calls |
| Dialzara | Per minute (bundled) | $29/mo for 60 minutes | $349/mo for 1,000 minutes | $0.35–$0.48 per minute | Testing the category on the smallest possible commitment |
| Goodcall | Per unique caller | $79/mo, 100 unique customers, unlimited minutes | $249/mo, 500 unique customers | $0.50 per extra unique customer | Repeat callers — the same number calling ten times counts once |
| Ruby | Per minute, human-staffed with AI | $250/mo for 50 receptionist minutes | $1,725/mo for 500 minutes | Not published on the plan page | Premium human answering where brand voice outranks cost |
| Slang.ai | Flat, per location | From $399/mo per location | From $599/mo per location | None — flat | Restaurants booking through OpenTable, SevenRooms or Yelp |
Smith.ai (AI Receptionist). A live-agent handoff is a paid add-on on top of the per-call rate, so escalation-heavy months cost more than the plan suggests.
Smith.ai (human receptionists). Useful as the price of the thing AI is replacing: roughly ten times the AI track for the same call count.
Rosie. Direct calendar booking and warm transfers start on the $149 tier, not the entry plan. The missing overage rate is the number to ask for before signing.
Dialzara. One of the few vendors that publishes its overage rate on the same page as the plan, which makes a bad month predictable.
Goodcall. Priced per agent, so multiple lines or locations multiply the base fee rather than sharing one allowance.
Ruby. Works out to roughly $3.45–$5.00 a minute. Ruby states 24/7 coverage with no activation or setup fees.
Slang.ai. Purpose-built for hospitality reservations and priced per site, so a two-restaurant group pays twice.
The same work, three call patterns
Normalise before you compare. The winner changes with the shape of your phone traffic, not the size of it.
200 calls a month, 3 minutes average (600 minutes)
Per-call plans charge for 200 events. Per-minute plans charge for 600 minutes — which is over the top bundle at several vendors. Per-caller plans charge for however many distinct phone numbers those 200 calls came from, often 120–150.
60 calls a month, 6 minutes average (360 minutes)
Chatty intake calls invert the ranking. A per-minute bundle that looked cheap at $49 blows through 250 minutes by the third week; a per-call plan is unmoved.
40 calls a month from 12 regulars
Per-unique-caller billing is the cheapest structure by a wide margin here, because reschedules and status checks from the same number are free after the first.
How to pick without regret
- Pull last month’s call log. Count calls, total minutes and distinct numbers. Three figures, ten minutes, and the meter chooses itself.
- Get the overage rate in writing. Two of the seven platforms here do not publish theirs. That is the number that turns a $49 plan into a $180 month.
- Name your booking system out loud. “Calendar integration” and “works with your practice software” are not the same sentence.
- Call the demo line and be awkward. Interrupt it, mumble, go off-script, then ask for a human. Anything that survives all four is fit for your front desk.
- Check the escalation price. Human handoff is frequently an add-on charged per call, on top of the plan.
The verdict
There is no best AI receptionist, only a cheapest meter for your call log. Short transactional calls belong on a per-minute bundle. Long intake calls belong on per-call pricing, where a fifteen-minute conversation costs the same as a two-minute one. A business whose regulars keep ringing back belongs on per-unique-caller pricing, where the tenth call from the same number is free. Restaurants and multi-site operators are the exception: flat per-location pricing removes the anxiety entirely and costs a premium for it. Whichever way you go, the human answering service you are replacing publishes roughly ten times the price for the same volume, which is why this category exists at all.
Front-desk coverage from the desk
More on the beat: Virtual Receptionists, Voice Agents and Voice AI.
Questions people are asking
How do AI receptionists work?
A voice model answers your business line, follows a script you configure, answers common questions, books into your calendar, and either takes a message or transfers the call to a person. You get a recording, transcript and summary after each call.
How much does an AI receptionist cost?
Published plans run from $29 a month for 60 minutes to $599 a month per location. Most small businesses land between $49 and $199 a month. Human answering services doing the same call volume publish prices roughly ten times higher.
Which AI receptionist is best for a small business?
It depends on your call pattern, not on features. Short transactional calls suit per-minute bundles, long calls suit per-call pricing, and businesses with repeat callers save most on per-unique-caller pricing.
Can an AI receptionist integrate with my CRM?
Most do, either natively or through Zapier or Make. Practice-specific systems are the gap to check: confirm your exact booking or case-management tool by name before buying, because generic Zapier support is not the same as a native integration.
Will AI replace receptionists?
Not at the front desk of a busy office. What it is replacing is the after-hours answering service and the voicemail box, which is where most missed-call revenue leaks from.
What is the difference between an AI receptionist and a voice agent platform?
A receptionist product ships a configured phone agent you set up in an afternoon. A voice agent platform sells raw minutes and an API, cheaper per minute but requiring engineering to build and maintain the same behaviour.
What should I test before buying an AI receptionist?
Call it yourself and be difficult. Interrupt mid-sentence, mumble a postcode, ask something off-script, and ask for a human. How it handles those four moments predicts your reviews.
Do AI receptionists charge for spam calls?
Some do and some do not, and it materially affects the bill on a per-call plan. Ask for the spam policy in writing rather than assuming detection is included.