What an AI receptionist costs: 8 services billed for the same calls

AI receptionist pricing: 8 services, the same month of calls

AI receptionists charge for different things. Some sell calls, some sell minutes, one sells callers and one sells a flat month. To compare them, we gave eight services the same months of calls, from 50 to 400, each call lasting two and a half minutes. Then we worked out the cheapest way each service's own published plans and extra-use rates would bill each month.

Across the seven services other than ours, the median bill is $75 for 50 calls, $112 for 100, $149 for 150, $199 for 300 and $235 for 400. We left Conecto's row out of every range and median in this guide.

Goodcall counts unique callers in a month, and says 100 of them come to about 150 calls, so we used that ratio.³ NextPhone charges a flat $199 a month for unlimited calls.⁴ Rosie moves you up to its next plan when you run past your minutes, with no charge per extra minute.⁵ Conecto's row uses its cheapest number, at $2 a month.⁸

These bills are part of the Conecto Answering Service Price Index, which also prices ten live services. The best AI receptionists says what each of the eight is good for. The full set is in what an answering service costs, and the headline numbers are on our statistics page.

How much does an AI receptionist cost per month?

For a small business with 100 calls a month, an AI receptionist costs $49 to $213 a month, with a median of $112. At 300 calls the range is $129 to $500, with a median of $199.

The monthly cost per call falls as calls grow. The median service works out to $1.50 a call at 50 calls a month, $1.12 at 100, $0.99 at 150, $0.66 at 300 and $0.59 at 400.

The bills spread widely. For the same 150 calls, the most expensive service charges 3.4 times as much as the cheapest. Which service you choose moves the bill more than how many calls you get.

The plans behind the bills

Each service publishes its plans on its own pricing page. These are the plans we priced, at monthly billing.

Which AI receptionists cost under $100 a month

At 50 calls a month, six of the seven services cost under $100: Rosie ($49), Upfirst ($55), Dialzara ($60), Smith.ai ($75), Goodcall ($79) and My AI Front Desk ($99). At 100 calls, three still do: Rosie ($49), Upfirst ($70) and Goodcall ($79). At 150 calls only Goodcall does, at $79.³

The cheapest AI receptionist depends on the month. Rosie's 250 minutes for $49 cover 100 calls of two and a half minutes exactly, and one more call moves the bill to $149.⁵ Goodcall stays at $79 until the month passes 100 unique callers.³ Smith.ai's free plan covers 25 calls a month, with each call after that at $3.00.¹

How call length changes the cheapest service

A plan sold by the call costs the same for a one-minute question and a six-minute booking. A plan sold by the minute charges for the whole length of each call. Here are the same 150 calls a month at three average lengths.

With short calls, the minute plans win: Rosie covers 150 calls of a minute and a half for $49.⁵ With four-minute calls, the plans sold by the call or the caller cost the least, and the bills at Dialzara and My AI Front Desk rise by about 40 percent.

AI receptionist cost against a receptionist on staff

The median receptionist in the US earned $18.27 an hour in May 2025, or $38,010 a year.¹⁰ In private industry, wages make up 70 percent of what an employer pays for a worker, and benefits the other 30 percent.¹¹ On those figures, a full-time receptionist on staff costs a business about $54,300 a year, or $4,525 a month.

That is about 30 times the median AI receptionist's bill for 150 calls a month. A receptionist on staff also receives visitors and gives out information in person, which no phone service does.¹⁰

Live answering services sit between the two. Ruby's virtual receptionists cost $250 a month for 50 minutes and $720 for 200.¹² Smith.ai's live receptionists cost $300 for 30 calls and $810 for 90.¹³ For 150 calls of two and a half minutes, the ten live services in our index charge a median of $630, about four times the median AI bill.

Setup fees, add-ons and what counts as a call

Setup cost

Most of the AI receptionists we priced are set up by the business itself, with no setup charge on the pricing page. Dialzara and NextPhone list no setup fee.^6,4 Answering Service Care, which sells AI plans next to its live ones, charges a one-time setup fee of $100 for an AI plan.¹⁴

Month to month or yearly

Every bill in this guide is a monthly price with no yearly commitment. Paying for a year lowers the price at Smith.ai (10 percent), Upfirst (20 percent) and My AI Front Desk ($79 a month in place of $99).^13,2,7

Calls that don't count

Upfirst blocks spam and doesn't bill calls under 15 seconds or calls where the caller never speaks.² Goodcall doesn't count spam or wrong numbers.³ On Conecto, a call nobody answered costs nothing.⁸

How the minutes are counted

Dialzara says it counts by the second.⁶ Conecto bills each started minute, so a call of 2 minutes 30 seconds costs 3 minutes.⁹ The other per-minute services state no rounding rule on their pricing pages, and our tables bill them by the second, which flatters any that round up.

A person on the line when needed

Smith.ai's AI Receptionist can pass a call to one of its North American receptionists at any time, and Smith.ai says that is part of why its AI costs a little more than its competitors'.¹ On Abby Connect, one plan minute of live answering buys two minutes of AI answering.¹⁵

Where Conecto fits

Conecto, our product, rents your AI agent a phone number in the US or Canada. By default the line takes messages: it tells callers they reached an AI, records what they say and passes the message on. With a webhook, your own agent answers each thing the caller says, within about two and a half seconds.⁹ Answered calls cost $0.25 per started minute and numbers cost $2 to $25 a month, quoted before you rent one.⁸ Calls end after five minutes unless you raise the limit, up to ten.⁹

There is no plan. For 100 calls of two and a half minutes, that comes to $77 with a $2 number, and for 150 calls to $114.50. Because it bills by the started minute, it costs less than most services when calls are few or short, and more than the flat plans when calls are many or long: $302 at 400 calls, against $129 at Goodcall and $199 at NextPhone. When your agent answers live, its own costs come on top. AI receptionist lists every tool and its price.

How we priced them

We read each service's pricing page on November 5, 2026, in US dollars, at monthly prices before tax. For each service and each month of calls, we took the cheapest mix of one plan and its published rate for extra minutes or calls. We billed per-minute services by the exact second, Goodcall by its own ratio of 1.5 calls to a caller, and Conecto by the started minute. One-time setup fees, add-ons and yearly discounts are left out of the tables.

Prices change often, so check a service's page before you sign, and tell us at hello@conecto.chat if one has moved.

Questions

How much does an AI receptionist cost?

An AI receptionist costs $49 to $199 a month for 50 calls and $79 to $270 a month for 150 calls, with medians of $75 and $149. Those figures come from the published prices of seven services on November 5, 2026, for calls of two and a half minutes.

How much does an AI receptionist cost per call?

About $1. At 150 calls a month the median AI receptionist works out to $0.99 a call, and at 400 calls to $0.59. Plans sold by the call charge $0.70 to $1.50 for each extra call at Upfirst and $2.10 to $3.00 at Smith.ai.^2,1

What is the cheapest AI receptionist?

It depends on the month. At 50 and 100 calls of two and a half minutes, Rosie's $49 plan costs the least. From 150 to 400 calls, Goodcall costs the least, at $79 to $129.^5,3 Smith.ai's free plan covers 25 calls a month.¹

Is there a free AI receptionist?

Smith.ai publishes a free AI Receptionist plan with 25 calls a month, and each call after that costs $3.00.¹ The other services we priced start at $24.95 to $199 a month.

Is an AI receptionist cheaper than a human receptionist?

Yes. For 150 calls a month the median AI receptionist costs $149, the median live answering service $630, and a full-time receptionist on staff about $4,525 with benefits, at the US median wage.^10,11

Do AI receptionists charge a setup fee?

Most don't list one. Dialzara and NextPhone list no setup fee, and Answering Service Care charges $100 once for an AI plan.^6,4,14

How much does an AI receptionist cost for a dental or medical office?

The same plans apply, and the price depends on the calls, as for any business. A practice that handles patient information should ask the service about a business associate agreement before it signs. Among the services we priced, Upfirst says it signs them.²

Sources

We read these pages on November 5, 2026. Each number in the guide links to the page behind that sentence.

1. AI Receptionist pricing, Smith.ai
2. Pricing, Upfirst
3. Pricing, Goodcall
4. Pricing, NextPhone
5. Plans and pricing, Rosie
6. Pricing, Dialzara
7. Pricing, My AI Front Desk
8. AI receptionist, Conecto
9. Set up how calls are answered (phone_setup_assistant), Conecto
10. Receptionists, Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
11. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
12. Plans and pricing, Ruby
13. Plans and pricing, Smith.ai
14. Answering service plans and pricing, Answering Service Care
15. Virtual receptionist pricing, Abby Connect

Conecto publishes this guide and sells business tools for AI agents. How we write our guides. To report a mistake, write to hello@conecto.chat.

Written by Vadim Dunaevskiy, Co-founder of Conecto. LinkedIn