The pricing unit is the product you're buying
Two plans can both cost $49 a month and behave nothing alike in a busy week. The difference is the unit on the meter, and that unit decides which of your calls get expensive.
The short version
- AI receptionists bill in four units: the minute, the call, the unique caller and the location. Each one charges a different kind of business more.
- A minute meter costs most for long calls. A caller meter costs most for many one-off callers. A location meter costs most for small extra sites.
- GreetKeeper bills per answered call: $49 for 200, $149 for 750, $349 for 2,000, with $0.45, $0.35 and $0.25 for each call past the allowance.
- Before comparing prices, pull one month of your call log and note three numbers: total calls, average length and repeat callers.
Per minute charges you for the conversation's length
Rosie, Dialzara, Ruby and PATLive all bill by the minute, as of September 2026. Rosie's Professional plan is $49 for 250 minutes. Dialzara's Business Lite is $29 for 60 minutes, with a published $0.48 a minute after that.
A minute meter suits a line full of quick questions. It turns against you when your valuable calls run long, such as a legal intake, a new-patient booking or a quote with measurements.
Abby Connect adds a twist with its own currency. One Abby Minute buys a minute with a person or two minutes with its AI, and the Starter plan is $165 for 50 Abby Minutes.
Per call charges you for how often the phone rings
A call meter ignores length. A ten-minute booking and a one-minute hours question each count once. Smith.ai's AI plans bill this way, with Pro at $150 for 75 to 300 calls, near $2.00 each.
GreetKeeper bills per answered call too. Starter is $49 for 200 calls, and booking is on every plan. Past the allowance, each call costs $0.45 on Starter, $0.35 on Professional and $0.25 on Scale, printed on the pricing page.
The usual worry about a call meter is junk. On GreetKeeper, robocalls and spam are screened out before the greeting, and very short or screened calls don't count toward your plan. You pay for the calls a person made.
Per caller and per location price your customer list
Goodcall counts unique customers instead of calls, with uncapped minutes. Starter is $79 for 100 unique customers, with $0.50 for each one past that. It prices per agent, and each phone number is an agent, as of September 2026.
A caller meter is kind to a customer who rings five times about one job. It costs more when your calls come from many new people, such as a plumber running ads.
Slang.ai prices per location, with Core from $399 a month for each site. That unit tracks your number of doors, not your number of calls. A quiet second site pays what the busy flagship pays.
GreetKeeper runs every number on one account and one allowance. Each number can have its own hours, greeting and calendar, and the Multi-location plan starts from $299 a location with the volumes written into the contract.
Read your own call log before you read a price
Your call log already tells you which unit fits. Export last month and count three things: how many calls came in, how long they ran on average, and how many came from numbers you'd heard from before.
If your calls run long, a minute meter will surprise you in the good months. If you open a second site, check whether the price follows the site or the calls. If you run ads, count new callers as well as calls.
Then ask every vendor one question: what does the call after the allowance cost? GreetKeeper prints that number on the pricing page. Rosie, Ruby, Abby Connect and Slang.ai leave it off theirs, as of September 2026.
Price your busiest month, not your average one
Take the month with your highest call count and run it through each meter. That's the bill you'll actually argue with.
Add a column for the calls that would have been junk. A plan that screens robocalls out of the count is cheaper than its headline once those calls are gone.
Hear it handle one of your own calls
Your scenario, your greeting, a couple of minutes.