A built-in AI agent is priced by the platform it lives in

RingCentral's AI Receptionist page says it answers calls, sends texts and books appointments. It's sold as a standalone or add-on licence, and RingCentral says it can sit on top of an existing phone system. We read that page on 24 September 2026.

ServiceTitan's AI Virtual Agent is listed under ServiceTitan Pro. Its page describes booking jobs by job type, location and skill set against technician availability, plus confirming and rescheduling appointments. There's no price on the page; you request a demo.

If you already run one of these platforms, the agent shows up as an upgrade inside software you know. That's the pitch, and for many shops it's a fair one to hear out.

A platform sells its agent as part of a bigger account. The number you're quoted can depend on your seats, your tier and what else you buy that year. Two shops can pay very different prices for the same agent.

That makes a straight comparison hard. You can't price your busiest month from a demo, and a quote rarely shows what the 301st call costs.

So ask for it in writing. Is the agent billed per call, per minute or per seat? What does a call past the allowance cost? Does a booked appointment add a fee?

A dedicated AI receptionist sits in front of whatever phone system you have. You forward your existing number to it, and it answers every inbound call, at any hour. It works the same from a cell phone, a VoIP line or a desk system.

GreetKeeper works that way. Every plan includes a dedicated local number, area code chosen at signup. Your carrier forwards to it in any of four modes: all calls, busy, no-answer or unreachable. The ring count is set where the forwarding is set, and GreetKeeper answers the moment the call arrives.

Because the answering sits outside your software, you can change phone providers without rebuilding it. Your greeting, hours and trained answers stay where they are.

The main reason to want a built-in agent is that it writes straight into the platform. A dedicated receptionist gets the same information to your team by a different road.

GreetKeeper books into Google Calendar or Outlook on every plan. Every call arrives as a transcript and a short summary. A signed webhook sends the caller's details, the reason for calling and the booked time to a URL you set.

From that webhook, you can reach the rest of your stack. Webhooks by Zapier catches it on a paid Zapier plan, and Make or n8n catch it with their own webhook trigger. Our integration pages list each app's route.

Put any built-in agent and any dedicated receptionist on the same sheet. Write down the billing unit, the monthly price, the rate past the allowance, and whether booking costs extra.

GreetKeeper's four are on the pricing page. It bills per answered call: Starter $49 for 200 calls, Professional $149 for 750, and Scale $349 for 2,000. Past the allowance a call costs $0.45, $0.35 or $0.25, and booking is on every plan.

You can also run it on your own line before you sign anything. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial with every feature on, and you don't need a card.

Forward your line to a trial for one normal week, then read every transcript on Friday. Count the calls that became bookings and the ones that needed a person.

Ask the platform for a written quote on that same call count. With both numbers in front of you, the choice usually makes itself.