AI Receptionist Cost: What Drives the Bill
You want a number. Every page you have opened this week talks about peace of mind for four paragraphs and then asks you to book a call to discuss pricing. So here is the honest structure of what this costs, including the parts that are not on the sticker, and enough arithmetic that you can work out your own answer instead of waiting for a sales rep to work it out for you.
Our own plans are on the pricing page and in the table below, next to what other AI receptionists publish. The more useful thing is still knowing what makes any number on any vendor invoice go up.
Key facts
- US receptionists earned a median $18.27 an hour, about $38,010 a year, in May 2025. (Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics, checked )
- Jobber’s AI Receptionist add-on costs $29 a month for 30 conversations, then $0.79 per extra conversation. (Source: Jobber help center, checked )
- Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist has a free plan with 25 calls a month; paid plans run from $150 for 75 calls to $500 for 300 calls. (Source: Smith.ai pricing, checked )
- Goodcall charges $79, $129 or $299 a month for 100, 500 or 2,000 unique callers, then 79¢, 26¢ or 15¢ per extra caller. (Source: Goodcall pricing, checked )
Published prices, checked against each vendor’s own page
The short answer: published entry prices for AI receptionists run from a free 25-call plan to a few hundred dollars a month, and the bigger difference is what each price counts. Some vendors count conversations, some count calls, some count minutes and one counts customers. A live answering service costs several times as much per minute. The table lists what each vendor publishes on its own pricing page, with the date each row was last checked there; the table is re-checked every month. Prices change, so check the source before you decide.
| Product | Published price | What the price includes | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jobber Receptionist (add-on) | $29 a month | 30 conversations, then $0.79 each. Needs a Jobber subscription; included with unlimited use on Jobber's Plus plan ($499 a month, 5 users). | Jobber help center | |
| Dialzara | $29 to $349 a month | 60 to 1,000 minutes, then $0.35 to $0.48 a minute. 7-day free trial. | dialzara.com | |
| Rosie | $49, $149 or $299 a month | 250, 1,000 or 2,000 minutes. Going over moves you to the next plan. 7-day free trial. | heyrosie.com | |
| Goodcall | $79, $129 or $299 a month | Plans cover 100, 500 or 2,000 unique callers a month (one phone number counts once a month), then 79¢, 26¢ or 15¢ per extra caller. No per-minute charges. A free demo agent; no trial length is stated. | goodcall.com | |
| My AI Front Desk | $99 a month, or $79 billed annually | 200 voice minutes, then $0.25 a minute. 7-day free trial. | myaifrontdesk.com | |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Free, $150, $270 or $500 a month | 25, 75, 150 or 300 calls, then $2.17 to $3.00 per extra call. Billed per call, not per minute. | smith.ai | |
| Newo.ai | $299 a month | 200 units, where a unit is roughly one call, then $1.50 per unit. | newo.ai | |
| Sameday AI | From $449 a month | 500 minutes. | sameday.ai | |
| DispatchLine | $149, $299 or $549 a month, by how many trucks you run. No per-minute charge, no minute bundle to run out of, no setup fee. Taxes where applicable. | 3-day free trial with 150 minutes, then month to month. | Our pricing page | Live from our pricing |
| Housecall Pro CSR AI | Not published | The help center sends buyers to sales. | Housecall Pro help center | |
| ServiceTitan AI Virtual Agent | Not published | Every package says "Request Pricing". | servicetitan.com | |
| Avoca | Not published | The site offers a demo, not a price. | avoca.ai |
For comparison, the people-staffed options, from the same kind of source:
| Option | Published price | What the price includes | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby live receptionists | $250 to $1,725 a month | 50 to 500 minutes. No setup fee. | ruby.com | |
| Smith.ai live receptionists | $300, $810 or $2,100 a month | 30, 90 or 300 calls, then $8.50 to $11.50 per extra call. | smith.ai | |
| A receptionist on your payroll | $18.27 an hour median wage (May 2025) | About $38,010 a year before payroll taxes and benefits. | US Bureau of Labor Statistics |
None of these numbers tells you which one costs less for your shop. That depends on how many calls you get, how long they run and what each vendor counts, which is what the rest of this guide works through.
The three shapes a bill comes in
There are three billing shapes you will run into, and each one quietly rewards a different kind of caller.
- Per minute. You pay for talk time. This punishes long greetings, chatty callers and any intake that wanders. It rewards a tight script.
- Per call. A flat amount every time the line is answered. This punishes volume you did not want, robocalls and wrong numbers included, and it rewards a business with few long calls.
- Flat monthly with an included bucket. A base fee covering so many minutes or calls, then overage. This is the easiest to budget and the easiest to be surprised by in month one, because the bucket was sized from a guess about your volume.
None of the three is a trick. But a shop with a lot of short spam calls and one with a few long emergency intakes will get very different answers from the same price sheet, which is why comparing headline rates between vendors tells you almost nothing. The per minute versus per call comparison works through that trade in more depth.
What drives an AI receptionist cost up, line by line
Go down this list against any quote you have been given and ask which items are billable.
- Your greeting. Every single call pays for it. Trimming eight seconds off a greeting on a plan that bills by the minute is free money, and it improves the call besides.
- Spam and robocalls. Ask directly whether an answered robocall is billed. On a per call plan this is often the largest line nobody predicted.
- Intake efficiency. A script that asks for the zip code before it asks what is broken makes people ramble, and rambling is billed. This is a writing problem with a dollar value.
- Hold time. Seconds spent checking a calendar are still seconds on the call.
- Live transfers. If you turn on transferring to a human, the leg to that human may be billed as well. Ask.
- Text messages. Confirmations, reminders and reschedules. Usually small, occasionally not, and worth knowing which of the three you are paying for.
- Extra numbers. A second line for a second brand or a second city is often priced separately.
- After hours. Some providers charge a premium for nights and weekends, which happens to be when the calls you most want are arriving.
- Onboarding. A one time setup fee, or not. Ask before you sign, not after.
Rounding is the fine print that actually matters
Ask one question in every sales call: what increment do minutes round to. Six seconds, thirty seconds and a full minute are three genuinely different products at the same advertised rate.
Do the arithmetic. Say you take three hundred calls a month and a real intake averages two minutes ten seconds, which is a hundred and thirty seconds. Rounded to six second increments you are billed for a hundred and thirty two seconds. Rounded to a full minute you are billed for a hundred and eighty. That is forty eight extra seconds on every call, four hours a month, and roughly a third more minutes for identical traffic. Nothing about the service changed. Only the rounding rule did.
Substitute your own call count and your own average length and the shape holds. If a vendor will not tell you the increment, that is your answer.
The break-even, on your numbers
Sticker price is the wrong question. The right one is how many extra jobs a month make this free, and that is arithmetic you can do in your head.
Take your average ticket, then take the gross profit left after parts and the technician hours, because revenue is not what pays for a subscription. Suppose a job leaves you a hundred and fifty dollars after those costs, and suppose the plan runs two hundred a month. Two extra booked jobs cover it. The third one is profit and so is every one after it.
Now the other side of that. Count the calls you missed after five o’clock last month, put your own conversion guess against them, and see whether two extra jobs is a stretch or a rounding error. With any real evening volume it tends to be a rounding error, and the conclusion in the other direction matters just as much: if you missed three calls all month, none of this is worth your attention and you should close the tab. The missed-call calculator does the same sum with your numbers in it.
The costs that never appear on an invoice
Two of these are why owners buy, and one is why some of them should not.
Answering while you work has a price you never write down: the job that takes twenty minutes longer, the fitting you cross-thread, the customer standing in front of you watching you take somebody else’s call. A wrong booking has a harder price, because a truck roll to a bad address is fuel, an hour, and a slot a paying customer wanted. And a missed emergency at eleven at night is not a lost job, it is a lost customer and everyone they talk to.
Against that, the cost of getting this wrong. A system configured badly books jobs you cannot reach and quotes prices you did not authorize, and unwinding that costs more than the subscription. That is a real risk and it is worth being plain about it, which is why the first-week setup work is not optional. How the agent handles a call shows what has to be decided before anything goes live.
Six questions that produce a real quote
- What increment do minutes round to?
- Are robocalls, wrong numbers and hangups billed?
- Is there a setup fee, and is there a minimum term?
- What happens if I go over the included bucket, and what is the overage rate?
- Are texts, extra numbers and live transfers billed separately?
- Can I see last month’s itemized usage before I renew?
Get those answers in writing from anyone you are considering, including us. Then run your own break-even with your own gross profit per job, and if the answer is two jobs a month or fewer, request a demo or start a free trial and hear it on your own line before you argue about the price.
FAQ
Is it cheaper than hiring somebody?
Against a full time person, almost always, because the comparison includes payroll taxes, training and the weeks that person is sick or on vacation. Against a part time person who answers only during business hours, it is closer, and the honest framing is coverage rather than price: you are buying nights, weekends and simultaneous calls.
Do I pay for calls that were not real leads?
That depends entirely on the plan, which is why it is worth asking rather than assuming. It is a good idea to look at how much of your line is robocalls and vendors before you sign anything, because on some billing shapes that traffic is the difference between two plans.
What is a fair setup fee?
There is no standard, and some providers charge nothing. What matters more is what the fee buys. Setup that includes writing your emergency list, your price facts and your arrival window rules with you is worth paying for. Setup that is an account being switched on is not.
Will my bill spike in the busy season?
If you are billed by usage, yes, in the same month your revenue spikes. That is the right direction for the cost to move. Ask what a heavy month looks like before you sign so it is a plan and not a surprise.
Can I try it before committing to a year?
Ask about the term before anything else, because a long minimum on a service you have not heard yet is the actual risk in this purchase. Any provider confident in the product can let you run it on a real line for a period short enough that leaving is cheap.
How do I compare two quotes that are priced differently?
Convert both to a cost per answered call using your own volume, not the vendor’s example volume. Take last month’s actual call count and average length, run it through each price sheet including rounding and overage, and compare the two totals. That is a twenty minute job and it regularly changes the answer.
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