AI receptionists for HVAC, compared on the 2am call
A seasonal trade lives or dies on the surge, so we lead on the number that prices one. Our $49 plan routes emergencies to the on-call tech, books the rest, and charges $0.45 a call after 200. A shop can multiply that and know what a bad January costs. No shop has yet run a Chicago January through this product.
Goodcall bills per unique customer with uncapped minutes, which suits a trade where one homeowner rings three times about the same failing furnace. At $79 for 100 unique customers, a shop with heavy repeat contact can land below every per-call plan here.
On surge pricing, Dialzara publishes its rate on every tier, from $0.48 a minute down to $0.35. Rosie, Ruby, Slang and AnswerConnect publish none, which means a January surge is priced after the fact.
Smith.ai keeps a human team behind the assistant at $150 a month, reachable when the assistant cannot help at 2am. How much that is worth depends on how many of your overnight calls genuinely need a person.
How this was put together
Compared in September 2026 on the things that decide an HVAC deployment, by the team behind one of the entries.
What we compared
- How each vendor bills a seasonal surge, and whether the overage rate is published at all.
- Whether calls can be routed differently at 2am than at 2pm.
- Whether booking into a real calendar is included at the entry price.
- How repeat callers about the same job are counted.
What we could not test
- How well each handles a distressed caller with a failing furnace and a cold house, which is the call that matters most.
- Dispatch integration depth, since most vendors describe it in a single word.
- Whether any of them route correctly at 2am in practice, because that needs a season of real calls and we have none.
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 |
| Goodcall | per unique caller | Starter $79/mo ($66 annual) for 100 unique customers | $0.50 per additional unique customer, published |
| Dialzara | per minute | Business Lite $29/mo for 60 minutes | Published on every tier, from $0.48 a minute down to $0.35 |
| 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 |
| Rosie | per minute | Professional $49/mo for 250 minutes | Not published |
| AnswerConnect | per minute | Does not publish pricing | Does not publish pricing |
Read from each vendor's own pricing page in September 2026.
GreetKeeper
Emergency routing and booking on the $49 plan, with the surge cost published in advance.
Worth it for: A shop that wants overnight no-heat calls routed to the on-call tech, normal work booked, and the ability to work out what a bad January costs before January arrives.
Not for: A shop that wants a reference from another contractor, because there is none. We have no customers, no reviews, and no season of real data behind any of this. No certifications, no uptime figure, and English only at launch.
Charges per answered call. Entry plan $49/mo for 200 answered calls. After the allowance: $0.45 a call on Starter, published.
Goodcall
The counting model fits this trade better than anyone else's.
Worth it for: A shop where the same homeowner rings several times about one job, since uncapped minutes and unique-customer billing reward exactly that pattern.
Not for: A shop running several phone numbers, because pricing is per agent and every number is an agent. Also poor value where nearly every caller is new.
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.
Dialzara
Published overage on every tier, which in a seasonal trade is worth more than it sounds.
Worth it for: A small shop that wants to know the cost of a spike in advance and does not need much included volume.
Not for: Peak season on a low tier. Sixty minutes on the $29 plan is a handful of real conversations, and heating calls run long.
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.
Smith.ai
A human team behind the assistant, at a price that suits larger shops.
Worth it for: A business where enough overnight calls need a person that having one available changes the outcome.
Not for: A one-van operation. $150 a month for Pro is a lot when the quiet months are genuinely quiet.
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.
Rosie
The cheapest entry, with two gaps that matter in this trade.
Worth it for: A shop that mostly needs accurate messages out of hours and does its own callbacks and booking.
Not for: Routing an emergency to an on-call tech, since live transfer starts at the $149 tier along with booking. The unpublished overage rate is a second problem in a seasonal business.
Charges per minute. Entry plan Professional $49/mo for 250 minutes. After the allowance: Not published.
AnswerConnect
Humans answering overnight, priced privately.
Worth it for: A larger operation that wants round-the-clock human cover and will run a sales call to price it.
Not for: Comparing on published rates, which they do not provide. Short calls also cost more than they look when billing rounds up to the minute.
AnswerConnect does not publish its rates, so the cost is whatever the sales call produces.
When the answering service is not your problem
If your techs are already booked three days out, answering more calls does not help and may hurt. A caller told they can be seen on Thursday when they have no heat tonight will ring someone else anyway, and you have paid for the privilege. Fix capacity before you fix the phone.
If your calls arrive mainly through a home-services marketplace or a warranty company, the phone may not be where your work comes from at all. Check the source of last month's jobs before buying anything on this page.
And if you are the only tech, an assistant that books appointments into a calendar you cannot honor creates a different problem. Some one-van shops are better served by an assistant that captures and flags rather than one that books.
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
What does a bad January actually cost?
On our Starter plan, $49 covers 200 answered calls and each one after that is $0.45. Twelve hundred calls in January is $49 plus $450. That arithmetic is only possible where the vendor publishes the rate, and four of the ones we track do not.
Can it route an emergency differently at 2am?
With every vendor here that offers live transfer, yes, though Rosie gates transfer to its $149 tier. The rules are yours: which job types count as urgent, who is on call, and what gets asked before routing.
Which is cheapest for a seasonal business?
It depends on the shape of your season rather than the headline price. Heavy repeat callers favor Goodcall. Predictable spikes favor whoever publishes an overage rate you can multiply. Steady volume favors the cheapest included allowance.
Why is GreetKeeper first on a list it wrote?
Because a seasonal shop can price its worst month from our published rate before committing, and emergency routing sits on the entry plan. That arithmetic is on the pricing page. What we lack is a season of real calls. No Chicago January has run through this product, and Goodcall has years of shops behind it.
Hear one of these handle your own call
Your scenario, your greeting, a couple of minutes.