The best AI receptionists, compared on what you actually pay
We rank ourselves first here on one argument: $49 covers 200 answered calls, booking is on every tier, and the overage is published at $0.45 a call. Those four numbers let you price a busy month before it happens. We also have no customers, so weigh the numbers rather than our reputation.
Rosie at $49 for 250 minutes is the anchor everyone else is priced against. Read the fine print first: booking and live transfer sit behind its $149 tier, so the plan most people want is the second one.
Goodcall bills per unique customer with uncapped minutes, so a caller who rings four times is one unit. On a trade with high repeat contact that structure beats every per-call and per-minute meter here.
Smith.ai puts a trained human team behind the AI at $150 a month for its Pro plan. Ruby staffs people first, from $250 for 50 minutes, and some callers can tell. We do neither, and we employ no receptionists at all.
If long calls are normal for you, stop comparing headline prices and compare units. A four-minute booking costs a per-minute vendor four times what a one-minute call costs and costs a per-call vendor exactly the same. That single difference moves more money than any discount on this page.
How this was put together
Written in September 2026 by the team behind one of the products on this list, which is a conflict we would rather disclose than bury.
What we compared
- The billing unit each vendor uses, because it decides the bill more than the headline does.
- The published entry price and what the allowance actually includes.
- The overage rate, where the vendor publishes one at all.
- Whether appointment booking is included or sold as a higher tier.
- What happens when the assistant cannot handle the call.
What we could not test
- Voice quality and how each one handles interruptions. We have not run a controlled comparison and will not imply one from a demo.
- Reliability. Nobody publishes measurements you can verify, including us, so any uptime figure on a page like this is decoration.
- How well each handles accents or noisy lines, which is exactly where these systems differ most and where we have no fair test.
- Service quality over time, which needs customers. We have none, so our own row has nothing to show you on this.
The shortlist at a glance
Billing unit first, because it decides more of the final bill than the headline price does.
| Charges by | Entry plan | After the allowance | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GreetKeeper | per answered call | $49/mo for 200 answered calls | $0.45 a call on Starter, published |
| Rosie | per minute | Professional $49/mo for 250 minutes | Not published |
| Goodcall | per unique caller | Starter $79/mo ($66 annual) for 100 unique customers | $0.50 per additional unique customer, published |
| Smith.ai | per call | Free tier at $0 for 25 calls, then $3.00 a call | Published, and the per-call rate falls as the tier rises |
| Dialzara | per minute | Business Lite $29/mo for 60 minutes | Published on every tier, from $0.48 a minute down to $0.35 |
| Ruby | per minute | $250/mo for 50 minutes | Not published on their pricing page |
| Abby Connect | per minute (half-rate AI) | Starter $165/mo for 50 Abby Minutes | Not published; one Abby Minute buys two minutes of AI handling |
| AnswerConnect | per minute | Does not publish pricing | Does not publish pricing |
Read from each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026.
GreetKeeper
Four numbers you can check before you buy: $49, 200 calls, $0.45 over, booking on every tier.
Worth it for: A business that wants booking at the entry price and wants to price a busy month in advance rather than discover it on an invoice.
Not for: Anyone who needs a reference, a review or a case study, because there are none. Anyone whose callers speak Spanish, since English is what we handle at launch. There are no certifications behind us, no HIPAA claim, and no uptime figure.
Charges per answered call. Entry plan $49/mo for 200 answered calls. After the allowance: $0.45 a call on Starter, published.
Rosie
The price anchor for the whole category, with a gate in the middle of it.
Worth it for: A single-location business with short calls that wants the cheapest credible way to stop missing them.
Not for: Anyone who needs appointment booking or live transfer on the entry plan, because both sit behind the $149 tier, and anyone who wants to know the overage rate before a busy month arrives.
Charges per minute. Entry plan Professional $49/mo for 250 minutes. After the allowance: Not published.
Goodcall
The strongest answer to the minute meter, if your callers repeat.
Worth it for: Trades where the same customer rings several times about one job, since a repeat caller is one unit and minutes are uncapped.
Not for: A business running several phone numbers, because pricing is per agent and each number is an agent. Also a poor fit where nearly every caller is new, since unique-customer counting then offers no advantage.
Charges per unique caller. Entry plan Starter $79/mo ($66 annual) for 100 unique customers. After the allowance: $0.50 per additional unique customer, published.
Smith.ai
AI with a real human team behind it, priced accordingly.
Worth it for: Law firms and anyone whose worst call is one the assistant cannot handle, where the fallback reaching a trained person matters more than the monthly price.
Not for: Price-led buyers. The Pro plan is $150 a month against entry plans here at a third of that, and the free tier stops at 25 calls.
Charges per call. Entry plan Free tier at $0 for 25 calls, then $3.00 a call. After the allowance: Published, and the per-call rate falls as the tier rises.
Dialzara
The lowest entry price here, and unusually honest about overages.
Worth it for: Trying the category cheaply, or a business whose callers speak Spanish as well as English.
Not for: Anyone with real volume. The $29 plan covers 60 minutes, which is roughly fifteen to twenty actual conversations before the meter starts.
Charges per minute. Entry plan Business Lite $29/mo for 60 minutes. After the allowance: Published on every tier, from $0.48 a minute down to $0.35.
Ruby
Real people answering, with the price that implies.
Worth it for: A low volume of high-value calls where a human answering every one is worth several hundred dollars a month, and for callers who can tell the difference.
Not for: High call volume on a small budget. The entry plan is $250 for 50 minutes, and the overage rate is not on the pricing page.
Charges per minute. Entry plan $250/mo for 50 minutes. After the allowance: Not published on their pricing page.
Abby Connect
The cleanest pricing mechanic in the category.
Worth it for: A business that wants to shift work between humans and AI without renegotiating a plan, since one currency covers both and an Abby Minute buys two minutes of AI handling.
Not for: A tight budget. Entry is $165 for 50 Abby Minutes, and the overage rate is not published.
Charges per minute (half-rate AI). Entry plan Starter $165/mo for 50 Abby Minutes. After the allowance: Not published; one Abby Minute buys two minutes of AI handling.
AnswerConnect
Human answering around the clock, with pricing you have to ask for.
Worth it for: A business that wants 24/7 human cover from an established operator and is willing to run a sales call to find out the price.
Not for: Anyone comparing on published numbers. They gate pricing behind a form, and third-party figures should not be treated as fact.
AnswerConnect does not publish its rates, so the cost is whatever the sales call produces.
When none of these is the answer
If the phone is not where your customers actually reach you, buying an answering service is solving the wrong problem. Plenty of businesses discover that most inquiries arrive by text or form and the phone rings mainly with suppliers and spam. Look at where the inquiries come from before you buy anything on this page.
If your calls need judgment rather than information, none of the AI options here will do. A call that requires reading someone's tone, negotiating, or deciding something with money attached needs a person. Ruby and Smith.ai exist for that reason.
And if you take fewer than thirty calls a month, the honest answer is that a good voicemail greeting plus a fast callback habit will get you most of the way. The cheapest plan on this page is $29 a month, which is not a lot, but neither is the problem you would be solving.
Our own pricing, in full
Including the rate after the allowance, which is the number most of this list leaves off.
| Plan | Monthly | Calls included | After that |
|---|---|---|---|
| StarterFor a single location taking calls one line at a time. | $49 | 200 | $0.45 per call |
| ProfessionalBooking, routing and transfers included, not an add-on. | $149 | 750 | $0.35 per call |
| ScaleFor busy phones and longer opening hours. | $349 | 2,000 | $0.25 per call |
The short version
- Booking is included on every tier. Rosie keeps booking and live transfer behind its $149 plan.
- The overage rate is on the pricing page. Rosie, Ruby, Slang and AnswerConnect do not publish theirs.
- Calls are counted, not minutes, so a long useful conversation costs the same as a short one.
Questions people ask about this list
Why is GreetKeeper first on a list it wrote?
Because of one thing you can verify without us: booking sits on every tier and the overage rate is printed at $0.45 a call. Four vendors here publish no rate at all. What we cannot offer is evidence of service quality. We have no customers and no reviews, so check the numbers rather than take our word.
Why is there no winner overall?
Because the billing units are different, so the winner changes with your call pattern. Short calls favor per-minute pricing, long calls favor per-call, and repeat callers favor Goodcall's unique-customer model. Work out which describes your phone.
Why are some prices missing?
AnswerConnect gates pricing behind a form. We could repeat a third-party figure, but presenting a reported number as a vendor price is how wrong prices spread. A blank cell and an explanation is more use.
Who did you leave out?
Developer platforms like Vapi, Retell and Bland, which are sold to people building a product rather than to a business buying a receptionist. Slang.ai is on our restaurant list instead, since it is restaurant-specific and priced per location.
Hear one of these handle your own call
Your scenario, your greeting, a couple of minutes.