AI receptionist pricing: plans and usage costs (2026)

Most AI receptionist vendors publish their prices, but they bill in different units, so the headline price rarely matches the invoice. This guide lines up 8 vendors, computes the real monthly cost at 3 call volumes and shows which billing model suits which kind of business. Every price was checked on 5 November 2026.

How do AI receptionist vendors bill in 2026?

There are 4 billing models. Knowing which one a vendor uses matters more than its entry price.

• Per minute. You buy a bundle of minutes and pay a rate for each extra minute. RingCentral, Rosie, My AI Front Desk and Dialzara work this way.
• Per call. You buy a bundle of calls, whatever their length. Upfirst, Smith.ai and IONOS (Flex plans) bill per call.
• Per unique customer. Goodcall counts distinct callers in the month. A client who calls 4 times counts once, and minutes are not metered.
• Flat. One price, no overage. IONOS Unlimited at $99 per month is the clearest example.

Human services use the same logic. Ruby and PATLive sell minutes. Smith.ai sells its human receptionists per call. That is why any ai receptionist vs virtual receptionist comparison has to convert everything to one unit first.

Key terms

• Included allowance: the minutes, calls or customers covered by the monthly fee.
• Overage: the price of each unit above the allowance.
• Billing increment: the smallest unit of time a vendor charges. A 30-second increment rounds a 61-second call up to 90 seconds.
• Billable call: a call the vendor counts. Some vendors exclude very short calls.
• Total cost of ownership (TCO): subscription plus overage plus one-off fees, over a given period.
• Break-even call length: the call duration at which per-call and per-minute pricing cost the same.

How much does each AI receptionist cost?

For one vendor at a time, our sourced side-by-side comparisons set each offer against VocalReception, point by point.

The table lists every public plan for the 8 ai receptionist vendors we track. Prices are in USD per month, monthly billing, checked on 5 November 2026.

Annual billing lowers some prices: Rosie gives 2 months free, Upfirst drops to $20, $48, $128 and $240, and My AI Front Desk to $79.

What does an AI receptionist really cost at 100, 300 and 1,000 minutes?

Headline prices only tell you the entry point. To compare, we fixed 3 monthly volumes and assumed an average call of 2 minutes. That gives 50 calls at 100 minutes, 150 calls at 300 minutes and 500 calls at 1,000 minutes. For VocalReception, these are exact two-minute calls, billed per started minute, excluding SMS and assuming the cap permits the usage. For each vendor we took the cheapest option: the smallest plan that covers the volume, or a smaller plan plus overage when that costs less.

Prices are USD per month, monthly billing, checked on 5 November 2026. The last row is in EUR, excluding VAT, and is not converted.

Notes on the logic:

• Rosie does not publish an overage rate, so we used the smallest plan that covers each volume. At 300 minutes that is Scale, not Professional plus overage.
• Ruby publishes 4 plans (50, 100, 200 and 500 minutes) and no overage rate. No plan matches 300 minutes: the closest that covers it is the 500-minute plan at $1,725, shown for reference. No published plan covers 1,000 minutes.
• PATLive at 300 minutes: the 100-minute plan plus overage costs $607 and the 500-minute plan $759, so the 200-minute plan plus overage ($548) wins.
• Smith.ai at 500 calls: Pro plus overage costs $1,212.50, so Enterprise wins.
• Goodcall is left out because it bills per unique customer, which depends on how many callers repeat. If every call came from a new customer, the cheapest option would be $79, $118.50 and $129.

Three patterns stand out. At low volume, most AI plans cost between $48 and $99, and the choice should rest on features, not price. At high volume, flat or large bundles (IONOS Unlimited, Rosie Scale) pull far ahead. And wherever a human service publishes a price, it costs more than every AI plan: PATLive’s cheapest overage is $1.79 per minute, and Ruby publishes no plan above 500 minutes.

When does per-call pricing beat per-minute pricing?

Use one division: price of an extra call ÷ price of an extra minute = break-even call length. If your calls are longer than that, per-call is cheaper. If they are shorter, per-minute is cheaper.

Per-call pricing tends to suit businesses with long, detailed calls: a tradesperson hearing a description of a job, a clinic booking with questions, an estate agent qualifying a buyer. Per-minute pricing suits short, repetitive calls: opening hours, directions, “is my order ready”. Per-customer pricing suits businesses where the same clients call often.

Measure before you choose. Export 30 days of calls from your phone system and note 3 numbers: total calls, average duration, and the share of repeat callers.

Which hidden costs change the bill?

• Rounding. RingCentral bills in 30-second increments, rounded up. A 70-second call is billed as 90 seconds, so $0.75 at the overage rate instead of about $0.58.
• Short and spam calls. Upfirst does not bill calls under 15 seconds. On other per-call plans, ask whether hang-ups and robocalls count.
• Unpublished overage. Rosie and Ruby do not publish what happens above the plan. Ask for it in writing.
• Notice periods. Smith.ai plans are month-to-month with 30 days notice.
• Annual commitment. The annual discounts above only pay off if your volume is stable for 12 months.
• Add-ons. Extra numbers, calendar or CRM integrations, SMS and extra languages are sometimes billed separately. Check each one on your shortlist.
• The cost of the calls you still miss. A cheaper plan that sends overflow to voicemail is not cheaper. Our guide to the cost of missed calls shows why.

Which vendors charge setup fees or offer free trials?

“Not confirmed” means we could not verify the point on the vendor’s pricing page; ask before you sign. Human services in our sample state no setup fee: Ruby, PATLive and Smith.ai’s human receptionists. PATLive offers 14 days free. All checked on 5 November 2026.

Some vendors go further with free AI receptionist plans, usually capped at a few dozen calls. A trial is only useful if you test real calls. Forward your line for a few days, call it yourself with hard questions, and read every summary.

How do you estimate your own monthly cost?

1. Count calls and minutes for the last 30 days, including the ones you missed. The phone answering checklist lists what to record.
2. Split by time of day. If most of the volume you want to cover is evenings and weekends, see our after hours answering service guide.
3. Pick the billing unit with the break-even rule above.
4. Run the numbers in the pricing simulator, which applies each vendor’s plans and overage to your volume.
5. Compare against the value of a recovered call with the missed call cost calculator.

For features beyond price, the ai receptionist comparison tool and our ranking of the best ai receptionist for small business cover languages, transfers and integrations.

How VocalReception handles this

VocalReception offers a managed receptionist with setup and testing by the team. The plan costs €79 per month excluding VAT and includes 400 minutes. Additional usage costs €0.25 per started minute, subject to a monthly spending cap you set. SMS costs €0.10 each, with none included. Done-for-you setup costs €199 once, credited on invoice 7 after 6 paid months. The first month is paid, with a 30-day money-back guarantee on its €79 plan fee; setup is excluded. There is no commitment. The team sets up and tests your line to go live in 7 days. Self-serve setup is coming soon, with a waitlist. Each month, an agent reviews transcripts and sends recurring unanswered questions for you to answer and update the FAQ. At 100 or 300 billed minutes the monthly plan is €79; at 1,000 it is €229, before SMS and assuming the cap allows the usage. Large self-serve bundles can cost less above roughly 500 minutes. Compare the included done-for-you setup and monthly report as well as price. Every line item is on the VocalReception pricing page. No audio is kept. Text transcripts are kept in the EU for about one month to produce the monthly unanswered-questions report, then deleted. To check what you get for the money, see a sample call and the lead sheet it produces, or send us your call volume for a quote check.