What an answering service costs: 18 services billed for the same calls

What 18 answering services cost for the same calls

Answering services charge for different things. Most sell minutes, some sell calls, one sells callers and one sells a flat month. To compare them, we gave all 18 services with public prices the same three months: one of 50 calls, one of 150 and one of 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.

We took two and a half minutes from the services' own figures. PATLive's plans count 50 minutes as about 20 calls,¹ and Answering Service Care says answering service calls last roughly three minutes.⁷

Live receptionists

VoiceNation sells plans of calls next to its plans of minutes, and its call plans came out cheaper at all three volumes: $99 for 50 calls, then $1.69 to $2.39 for each call beyond a plan.³ Answering Service Care rounds every call up to whole minutes, so we billed it three minutes a call.⁷ ReceptionHQ's MessageExpress plan costs $25 a month plus $1.99 for each call answered, and it takes messages only.¹¹

Ruby publishes no rate for minutes beyond a plan, so we used the smallest plan that covers the calls: 200 minutes for $720 at 50 calls, and its largest listed plan, 500 minutes for $1,725, at 150.⁸ At 400 calls, the 1,000 minutes run past every plan Ruby lists.

AI receptionists

Goodcall counts unique callers in a month, and says 100 of them come to about 150 calls, so we used that ratio.¹³ NextPhone charges a flat rate of $199 a month for unlimited calls.¹⁴ Rosie moves you up to its next plan when you run past your minutes, with no charge per extra minute.¹⁵ Conecto's row uses its cheapest number at $2 a month, and we left it out of every range and median in this guide.¹⁸

Across the ten live services, the median bill is $253 for 50 calls, $630 for 150 and $1,499 for 400. Across the seven AI services other than ours, it is $75, $149 and $235.

A live receptionist costs about four times as much per call

At 150 calls a month, the median live service charges $4.20 a call and the median AI service $0.99. The gap is smallest for a business with few calls: at 50 calls a month the medians are $5.05 and $1.50 a call, about three and a half times apart. At 400 calls they are $3.75 and $0.59, more than six times apart.

The bills also spread widely inside each group. For the same 150 calls, the most expensive live service charges 5.6 times as much as the cheapest, and the most expensive AI service 3.4 times as much. Choosing the service moves the bill about as much as choosing between people and software.

Some services sell both AI and live agents. On Abby Connect, one plan minute buys two minutes of AI answering.⁴ Answering Service Care charges $0.65 to $0.80 for each extra AI minute, and its live rate for any call an AI hands to a person.⁷ 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'.¹⁰

How long your calls last decides which plan is cheapest

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 every second of talk. So the cheapest service changes with the length of your calls. Here is the same 150 calls a month at three average lengths.

With short calls of a minute and a half, Specialty Answering Service, which bills by the second, is the cheapest live service at $276.⁵ At four minutes a call, the per-call plans of VoiceNation ($309) and ReceptionHQ ($324) cost less than half of any per-minute plan.^3,11 Among AI services, Rosie's 250-minute plan for $49 covers 150 short calls, and Goodcall's flat count of callers stays at $79 however long people talk.^15,13

The fine print that moves the bill

Rounding

A call of 2 minutes 30 seconds billed in whole minutes counts as 3 minutes, which adds 20 percent to the bill. Three services say on their pricing pages that they count by the second: Specialty Answering Service ("Rounding to the nearest minute stinks"), ReceptionHQ on its per-minute plans, and Dialzara.^5,11,16 Answering Service Care counts each call from the moment it reaches its system to the end of the work done after it, and rounds every part of a minute up.⁷ PATLive says it bills only the time a receptionist is live on your call, and none of the notes or wrap-up after it.¹ The other per-minute services we priced state no rule on their pricing pages. Our tables bill them by the second, which flatters any that round up. Conecto bills each started minute, so a call of 2 minutes 30 seconds costs 3 minutes.¹⁹

Extra minutes and calls

The overage rate, the price of use beyond a plan, can sit above or below the plan's own rate. PATLive's 200-minute plan works out to $1.75 a minute, and its extra minutes cost $1.99.¹ MAP's 125-minute plan works out to $1.43 a minute, and its extra minutes cost $1.30.⁶ Ruby lists no extra-minute rate at all.⁸ Rosie moves you up a plan instead.¹⁵

Charges per task

Per-call prices can grow with add-ons. Smith.ai charges $1.50 a call for appointment scheduling, $0.25 for call recording and transcription, $1.00 to take a payment and $0.50 a call for each CRM integration after the first, on top of the call itself.⁹ Our tables leave add-ons out.

Spanish and bilingual support

Ruby offers bilingual answering on every plan at no extra cost, and MAP lists English and Spanish in every plan.^8,6 Smith.ai charges $1.00 a call for a dedicated Spanish line, and Answering Service Care $1 a minute for live translation, on top of the live minutes.^9,7

Spam, wrong numbers and hang-ups

Smith.ai doesn't count spam or sales calls toward its plans when the caller ID comes through.⁹ Upfirst blocks spam and doesn't bill calls under 15 seconds or calls where the caller never speaks.¹² Goodcall doesn't count spam or wrong numbers.¹³

Nights, weekends and holidays

Ruby, PATLive and Answering Service Care include round-the-clock answering in every plan, holidays included. MAP lists 24/7 coverage in every plan, and Smith.ai charges the same for a call at 2 a.m. as at 2 p.m.^8,1,7,6,9 For these services the bills in our tables are already 24-hour bills.

Setup and long-term discounts

Answering Service Care charges a one-time setup fee of $50 for live plans and $100 for AI plans.⁷ Smith.ai, Abby Connect, Specialty Answering Service, ReceptionHQ, Dialzara and NextPhone list no setup fee.^{9,4,5,11,16,14} 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).^9,12,17

What an in-house receptionist costs

The median receptionist in the US earned $18.27 an hour in May 2025, or $38,010 a year.²⁰ In private industry, wages make up 70 percent of what an employer pays for a worker, and benefits the other 30 percent.²¹ On those figures, hiring a full-time in-house receptionist costs a business about $54,300 a year, or $4,525 a month, for the 40 or so hours a week they are at the desk.

That is about seven times the median live service's bill for 150 calls, and about 30 times the median AI service's. A receptionist also receives visitors and gives out information in person, which no answering service does.²⁰

Three services that only quote

Three of the 21 services we checked publish no prices. AnswerConnect's pricing page is a form that asks for your name, company email and phone number.²² Nexa's plans page lists 100, 300 and 500 voice minutes with no prices beside them.²³ AnswerForce's "See Prices" button leads to its registration page.²⁴

How to work out your own bill

1. Count last month's calls and their average length. Your phone provider's call log shows both.
2. Multiply calls by minutes, and round each call up to a whole minute if the service doesn't say it bills by the second.
3. Price that month per minute or per call, on one plan of each kind. Short calls favor the minute, long calls the call.
4. Add the extra-use rate for the months you run over, and any setup fee.
5. Add any task you pay for per call, such as booking appointments.

A business that gets most of its calls in working hours can also pay only for the overflow. Smith.ai's per-call price stays the same whatever hours it answers, and calls outside your chosen hours can go to voicemail.⁹

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.¹⁹ Answered calls cost $0.25 per started minute, numbers cost $2 to $25 a month, quoted before you rent one, and a call nobody answered costs nothing.¹⁸ Calls end after five minutes unless you raise the limit, up to ten.¹⁹

For 150 calls of two and a half minutes, that comes to $114.50 with a $2 number. Because it bills by the started minute, it costs less than most per-minute services when calls are short and more than the flat ones when calls run long: $77 at a minute and a half, $152 at four minutes. When your agent answers live, its own costs come on top. AI answering service lists every tool and its price, and AI receptionist shows the line that books appointments.

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. Where a service publishes no extra-use rate, we used the smallest plan that covers the month. We billed per-minute services by the exact second unless their page says otherwise (Answering Service Care rounds each call up to whole minutes), 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.

The 18 priced services are the ten live services and the eight AI services in the tables. We also checked AnswerConnect, Nexa and AnswerForce, which quote only. 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 answering service cost?

For 50 calls a month of two and a half minutes, live answering services charge $99 to $720 and AI services $49 to $199. For 150 calls, live services charge $309 to $1,725, with a median of $630, and AI services $79 to $270, with a median of $149. Those figures come from the published prices of 17 services on November 5, 2026.

How much does an answering service cost per call?

Answering service per-call pricing works out, at 150 calls a month, to $4.20 a call for the median live service and $0.99 for the median AI service. Plans sold by the call charge $1.69 to $2.39 for each call beyond a plan at VoiceNation, $1.99 a call at ReceptionHQ and $8.50 to $11.50 at Smith.ai.^3,11,9 Among AI services, Upfirst charges 70 cents to $1.50 for each call beyond a plan.¹²

What is the most cost-effective answering service?

The lowest-cost answering service depends on how long your calls last. With 150 calls of two and a half minutes, VoiceNation's call plans cost the least among live services, at $309, and Goodcall the least among AI services, at $79.^3,13 With calls of a minute and a half, Specialty Answering Service, which bills by the second, is the cheapest live service.⁵

How much does a 24-hour answering service cost?

Usually the same as a daytime one, and the same goes for after-hours answering. Ruby, PATLive and Answering Service Care include nights, weekends and holidays in every plan, and MAP and Smith.ai include 24/7 answering at no extra charge, so their bills in our tables are 24-hour bills.^8,1,7,6,9

Is an AI answering service cheaper than a live one?

Yes, by about four times per call at 150 calls a month: $0.99 for the median AI service against $4.20 for the median live one. Some services mix the two, such as Abby Connect, where one plan minute buys two minutes of AI answering, and Smith.ai, whose AI can pass a call to a person.^4,10

How much does a virtual receptionist cost?

Ruby's virtual receptionists cost $250 a month for 50 minutes, $395 for 100, $720 for 200 and $1,725 for 500.⁸ Smith.ai's cost $300 for 30 calls, $810 for 90 and $2,100 for 300.⁹ A receptionist on staff costs about $4,525 a month with benefits, at the US median wage.^20,21

How much does a medical answering service cost?

Among the services we priced, Ruby offers HIPAA-compliant service, MAP says every plan is HIPAA compliant, Specialty Answering Service runs a HIPAA-compliant medical service, Abby Connect lists HIPAA options and Upfirst signs business associate agreements.^8,6,5,4,12 For 150 calls of two and a half minutes, they charge $1,725, $499, $492, $1,123 and $120 a month.

Sources

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

1. Live answering service pricing, PATLive
2. Pricing, Posh
3. Pricing, VoiceNation
4. Virtual receptionist pricing, Abby Connect
5. Pricing, Specialty Answering Service
6. Answering service rates and pricing, MAP Communications
7. Answering service plans and pricing, Answering Service Care
8. Plans and pricing, Ruby
9. Plans and pricing, Smith.ai
10. AI Receptionist pricing, Smith.ai
11. Pricing, ReceptionHQ
12. Pricing, Upfirst
13. Pricing, Goodcall
14. Pricing, NextPhone
15. Plans and pricing, Rosie
16. Pricing, Dialzara
17. Pricing, My AI Front Desk
18. AI answering service, Conecto
19. Set up how calls are answered (phone_setup_assistant), Conecto
20. Receptionists, Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
21. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
22. View pricing, AnswerConnect
23. Plans, Nexa
24. Register, AnswerForce

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