Ruby receptionist review: minutes, plans and who picks up

Ruby sells blocks of receptionist minutes. You pick a monthly block, and the minutes your callers spend with a receptionist come out of it. Ruby states there's no extra fee for activation, onboarding, setup or coverage at odd hours. Its pricing page doesn't list a rate for minutes past your block.

Every Ruby plan lists the same core: 24/7 live answering, weekends and holidays included. Your receptionists can schedule appointments, take payments and run lead intake. They also make outbound calls for you when you ask.

Ruby can host your phone service, so calls and texts go out from your business number. The plan list names local and toll-free number hosting, voicemail, an online portal and robocall filtering. Ruby also offers Spanish and bilingual call handling.

The AI side is quiet. Ruby uses it for transcripts, sentiment analysis and call flows that help the receptionist gather details. You manage all of it from Ruby's online portal or its mobile app.

This is the path of an inbound call as Ruby describes it on its own homepage and pricing page. It's our reading of Ruby's published material, not a test call we made. Your own call flow depends on the instructions you give Ruby.

Ruby fits a business that wants a person on every call and will pay for staffed minutes. Ruby's own labels point the 50-minute block at startups and the 100-minute block at one-person businesses. The 200-minute block is pitched at small businesses of all kinds.

Low, steady call counts suit the minute blocks. At 50 minutes a month, $250 covers a handful of short conversations each week. A busy line uses a block fast, since every minute of talk counts.

Ruby also fits if you want outbound help. Receptionists can place calls for you, and payment collection is on every plan.

Disclosure: GreetKeeper is our product. GreetKeeper counts calls, not minutes, so a caller who takes six minutes to explain a job costs one call. Starter is $49 for 200 answered calls. Past that, a call costs $0.45, and that rate is printed on our pricing page.

GreetKeeper answers every inbound call at any hour, and calls that arrive together are answered at the same time. It books into Google Calendar or Outlook while the caller is on the line, after reading the name, number and time back.

When a caller wants a person, GreetKeeper transfers to your team and tries a second number if the first isn't picked up. Every call arrives as a transcript and a short summary. Robocalls and spam calls are dropped before the greeting, and they never count toward your plan.

You start with a 14-day free trial, every feature on, and no card. There's no setup fee, and your plan includes a dedicated local number in the area code you pick.