GreetKeeper vs PATLive
PATLive publishes eleven live-answering tiers with the per-minute rate printed on every one, which is more than almost anyone else in this market will show you. So this comparison isn't about transparency, where they do well. It's about whether you want people answering your phone by the minute or software answering it by the call.
| GreetKeeper | PATLive | |
|---|---|---|
| Billing unit | Per answered call | Per minute |
| Entry plan | $49/mo for 200 answered calls | $49/mo pay as you go with no minutes included, at $2.99 a minute; $99 for 50 minutes |
| Higher tiers | $149 for 750, $349 for 2000 | $189 (100 min), $349 (200), $479 (300), $759 (500), $1,499 (1,000), $2,899 (2,000), up to $6,899 (5,000) |
| Overage rate | $0.45 a call on Starter, published | Published on every tier, from $2.99 down to $1.49 a minute |
| Appointment booking | Included on every plan | Check current plan terms |
| Human fallback | Transfers to your team | Their own receptionists |
PATLive figures read from their own pricing page in September 2026. Check before you buy.
Why people move off PATLive
One vendor's specific wall, not a general complaint about the category.
The ladder itself. PATLive's tiers step $759, then $1,499, then $2,899, so a business sitting at 600 minutes either buys a thousand or pays $1.79 for each of the extra hundred. Both feel wrong. The other trigger is the pay-as-you-go tier at the bottom: $49 sounds like an entry plan until you notice it includes no minutes at all, and thirty minutes of calls bills at $138.70.
Where we differ
The right-hand column is the honest one. A comparison that finds no fault with itself is worth nothing.
What GreetKeeper does differently
- Their $99 plan buys 50 staffed minutes, roughly seventeen conversations. Ours is $49 for 200 answered calls.
- They meter minutes, so the call that goes well costs more than the wrong number.
- Their pay-as-you-go tier is $49 for zero minutes at $2.99 each; our $49 includes 200 answered calls.
What you give up leaving PATLive
- Trained people answer every call, at any hour, and they have decades of doing it behind them.
- They publish more of their pricing than almost anyone in this market: eleven live-answering tiers with the overage rate on each, plus separate published cards for web chat and outbound calls.
- A 14-day free trial on any plan, stated on their pricing page.
- Their unit price genuinely falls with volume, from $2.29 a minute at the $99 tier to $1.49 at the top.
What a busy month costs on each meter
The headline price tells you about a quiet month. This is the other one.
PATLive's meter improves steadily and publicly: $2.29 a minute on the $99 plan, $1.99 at $349, $1.79 at $759, $1.49 at the $6,899 top tier. Credit where it's due, because Ruby, Rosie and Abby Connect publish none of that. It's still a minute rate that never drops below about a dollar fifty. Our Scale plan works out near $0.17 a call included and $0.25 past 2,000, and a nine-minute conversation costs the same as a nine-second one.
| 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 |
Moving off PATLive in practice
The technical part is a forwarding change. The rest is the part nobody warns you about.
PATLive builds your script with you, which means the script exists and someone there wrote it down. Ask for a copy before you give notice, along with your call logs. That document is genuinely useful and it's the thing most businesses discover they don't have when they move off a staffed service. Then it's a forwarding change, and two weeks of split forwarding to read both sets of transcripts side by side.
What we cannot show you
Questions people ask about this comparison
PATLive publishes everything. What's left to compare?
The unit. They sell minutes with a person on them; we sell answered calls handled by software. At 200 calls averaging three minutes, their $759 plan covers you and ours is $49. The gap is the receptionist, and whether you need one is the actual question.
Is PATLive's $49 plan comparable to yours?
No, and it's the easiest mistake on their page. Their $49 is pay-as-you-go with zero minutes included at $2.99 each. Our $49 includes 200 answered calls. Thirty minutes of talking costs $138.70 on theirs and nothing extra on ours.
Which is cheaper if my calls are very short?
Theirs gets closer. A business with lots of forty-second calls uses few minutes, and PATLive's $99 for 50 minutes covers about seventy such calls. Under that volume they're competitive; past it, per-call billing pulls ahead quickly.
Price 200 calls both ways
Their minutes against our answered calls. Their own card gives you everything you need for the sum.