What a virtual receptionist costs: six services priced by the minute
A virtual receptionist costs $159 to $415 a month for 100 minutes of answered calls, going by six services' published prices. The median is $272, or about $2.72 a minute, and the rate falls to about $2.36 a minute at 500 minutes. We read each pricing page on November 10, 2026, and worked out the bill each service would send for the same month.
Virtual receptionist pricing: six services, the same minutes
A virtual receptionist is a person who answers your business's calls from somewhere else, for a service that sells their time. Most services sell a monthly plan of minutes and charge for each minute beyond it. One, Smith.ai, sells calls.
We gave six services the same four months, of 50, 100, 200 and 500 minutes of answered calls, and took the cheapest bill each one's own plans and extra-minute rates would send.
| Service | Sold by | 50 minutes | 100 minutes | 200 minutes | 500 minutes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialty Answering Service6 | The minute | $121 | $159 | $269 | $649 |
| PATLive4 | The minute | $99 | $189 | $349 | $759 |
| Posh5 | The minute | $130 | $215 | $420 | $975 |
| Abby Connect3 | The minute | $164 | $329 | $599 | $1,380 |
| Ruby1 | The minute | $250 | $395 | $720 | $1,725 |
| Smith.ai2 | The call | $300 | $415 | $810 | $1,965 |
Smith.ai sells calls, so we counted a call as two and a half minutes: 20, 40, 80 and 200 calls. Its plans are $300 for 30 calls, $810 for 90 and $2,100 for 300, with extra calls at $11.50, $10.50 and $8.50.2
Across the six, the median bill is $147 for 50 minutes, $272 for 100, $510 for 200 and $1,178 for 500.
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How much a virtual receptionist costs per minute
The price per minute falls as the plan grows. At the median it is $2.94 a minute for a 50-minute month, $2.72 at 100 minutes, $2.55 at 200 and $2.36 at 500.
The services sit far apart. For the same 200 minutes, Specialty Answering Service charges $1.35 a minute and Smith.ai $4.05, three times as much.6,2 So the service you choose moves the bill more than the size of the plan.
| Service | Per minute at 200 minutes |
|---|---|
| Specialty Answering Service6 | $1.35 |
| PATLive4 | $1.75 |
| Posh5 | $2.10 |
| Abby Connect3 | $3.00 |
| Ruby1 | $3.60 |
| Smith.ai2 | $4.05 |
The plans behind the bills
| Service | Plans | Extra minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Specialty Answering Service6 | $44 with no minutes, $159 for 100, $269 for 220, $649 for 500 | $1.34 to $1.54 |
| PATLive4 | $49 with no minutes, $99 for 50, $189 for 100, $349 for 200, $479 for 300, $759 for 500 | $1.79 to $2.99 |
| Posh5 | $65 with no minutes, $130 for 50, $215 for 100, $420 for 200, $700 for 350, $975 for 500 | $1.95 to $2.30 |
| Abby Connect3 | $164 for 50, $329 for 100, $599 for 200, $1,380 for 500 | Ask Abby |
| Ruby1 | $250 for 50, $395 for 100, $720 for 200, $1,725 for 500 | Ask Ruby |
| Smith.ai2 | $300 for 30 calls, $810 for 90, $2,100 for 300 | $8.50 to $11.50 a call |
Ruby says it charges no extra fees for activation, onboarding, setup or coverage at certain hours, and that every plan reaches the same team of receptionists.1 PATLive's 50-minute plan comes to about 20 calls by its own count, which is where our two and a half minutes a call comes from.4
What you get for a higher rate
The cheapest and the dearest service don't sell the same thing, and the pricing pages show some of the difference.
- Hours. Ruby includes 24/7 phone coverage, after hours included, and PATLive describes its receptionists as available 24/7.1,4
- Languages. Ruby lists bilingual answering among its optional features.1
- A mix with AI. On Abby Connect, a plan's minutes double when you choose AI answering.3
- Trying it first. PATLive, Posh and Abby Connect offer a free trial, and Specialty Answering Service offers 14 days with no credit card.4,5,3,6
Virtual receptionist cost against a receptionist on staff
The median receptionist in the US earned $18.27 an hour in 2025, or $38,010 a year.7 Wages are 70 percent of what a private employer pays for a worker, and benefits the other 30 percent.8 On those two figures, a full-time receptionist on staff costs about $54,300 a year, or $4,525 a month.
A 500-minute month with a virtual receptionist costs $649 to $1,965. A receptionist on staff costs two to seven times that, and is at the desk all day, greeting visitors as well as answering the phone.
Virtual receptionist cost against an AI receptionist
An AI receptionist costs far less per call. For 150 calls a month of two and a half minutes, seven AI services charge $79 to $270, with a median of $149, which is about $1 a call. At the median live rate above, the same call costs about $6.40.
The trade is judgment. A person handles an upset caller or an unusual request better. Some services sell both, and what an AI receptionist costs and the best AI receptionists compare the AI side. Conecto, our product, is on that side: it rents your AI agent a phone number, and answered calls cost $0.25 per started minute.9
How to work out your own bill
- Add up last month's answered minutes from your phone provider's call log.
- Find the column nearest to it in the first table.
- For a per-call service, divide your minutes by your average call length to get calls.
- Add the extra-minute rate for busy months. Where a service doesn't publish one, ask before you sign.
For a comparison by number of calls, with ten live services and the fine print on rounding and add-ons, see what an answering service costs. The headline numbers from all of these are on our statistics page.
How we priced them
We read each service's pricing page on November 10, 2026, in US dollars at monthly prices before tax. For each service and each month, we took the cheapest mix of one plan and its published rate for extra minutes or calls. Abby Connect and Ruby publish no extra-minute rate, so we used the plan that matches the minutes. We billed by the exact minute, which flatters any service that rounds calls up. Setup fees, add-ons and yearly discounts are left out.
Questions
How much does a virtual receptionist cost?
For 100 minutes of answered calls a month, six services charge $159 to $415, with a median of $272. For 200 minutes they charge $269 to $810, with a median of $510. Those are published prices read on November 10, 2026.
How much does a virtual receptionist cost per minute?
About $2.72 a minute at the median for a 100-minute plan, and about $2.36 for a 500-minute plan. Across services, a 200-minute plan works out to between $1.35 and $4.05 a minute.6,2
How much does a virtual receptionist cost per hour?
Virtual receptionist services bill for answered minutes, and nothing for the hours between calls. Sixty answered minutes at the median 100-minute rate come to about $163. A receptionist on staff costs about $26 an hour with benefits, at the US median wage, for every hour at the desk.7,8
Is a virtual receptionist cheaper than hiring one?
For most small businesses, yes. A 500-minute month costs $649 to $1,965 across the six services, against about $4,525 a month for a full-time receptionist on staff.7,8
What is the cheapest virtual receptionist service?
Of the six we priced, PATLive costs the least at 50 minutes, at $99, and Specialty Answering Service costs the least at 100, 200 and 500 minutes.4,6
Sources
We read these pages on . Each number in the guide links to the page behind that sentence.
- Plans and pricing, Ruby
- Plans and pricing, Smith.ai
- Virtual receptionist pricing, Abby Connect
- Live answering service pricing, PATLive
- Pricing, Posh
- Pricing, Specialty Answering Service
- Receptionists, Occupational Outlook Handbook, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026, US Bureau of Labor Statistics
- AI receptionist, Conecto
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