Answering service overage calculator
Enter your quote and two call counts. See what a busy month adds to the bill, and what that month costs per call.
What your busiest month adds to the quote
$562.50
On GreetKeeper Starter, the same month adds $67.50.
Ordinary month
- The quote700 minutes over, 87.9% of the bill is overage$995
- GreetKeeper StarterLowest100 calls over at $0.45$94
Busiest month
- The quote1,150 minutes over, 92.3% of the bill is overage$1,557.50
- GreetKeeper StarterLowest250 calls over at $0.45$161.50
- Quote, cost per answered call
- $3.32
- GreetKeeper Starter, cost per call
- $0.31
- Cheapest plan for the busy month
- Professional, $149
- Professional is cheaper from
- 423 calls
Calls round up to whole calls, and money is worked in whole cents. GreetKeeper prices come from the published plan table, and screened robocalls never count toward the plan.
What you get back
- Your quote's bill for an ordinary month and for your busiest one, with the share of each bill that is overage.
- The GreetKeeper plan your ordinary month fits, billed for both months at its printed rate.
- The call count where the next plan up turns cheaper, so a busy season never catches you on the wrong tier.
It takes about a minute, and you don't need an email. If the busy-month jump is a few dollars, your plan fits. If it runs to hundreds, the rate card is doing the damage, and that's worth a call to your provider or a look at a per-call plan.
How the calculator prices each month
When your quote bills by the minute, usage is your call count times your average call length. When it bills by the call, usage is simply the call count, and call length drops out of the sum.
The GreetKeeper side runs on the published table: Starter at $49 for 200 calls, Professional at $149 for 750, and Scale at $349 for 2,000. The tool picks whichever plan is cheapest for your ordinary month. Then it bills that same plan for the busy month, because that's the plan you'd really be on when the rush hits.
Money is worked in whole cents and calls round up. A half call is still a call you answered.
A worked example
These are the numbers the calculator opens with. They describe no real vendor or business.
Turn calls into minutes
300 calls at 3 minutes each is 900 minutes. The quote includes 200, so 700 minutes are over.
Price the ordinary month
700 minutes at $1.25 is $875. Add the $120 base and the bill is $995, of which 87.9% is overage.
Price the busy month
450 calls is 1,350 minutes and a $1,557.50 bill. The rush alone adds $562.50.
Run the same months per call
Starter fits 300 calls best at $94. In the busy month the same plan bills $161.50, a jump of $67.50. From 423 calls, Professional is the cheaper tier, and at 450 it costs $149.
Published per-minute rate cards you can load
Read on patlive.com/pricing, September 2026. Each button in the calculator fills in one row.
| Plan | Monthly price | Minutes included | Each extra minute |
|---|---|---|---|
| PATLive $99 plan | $99 | 50 | $2.29 |
| PATLive $349 plan | $349 | 200 | $1.99 |
| PATLive $759 plan | $759 | 500 | $1.79 |
Vendor figures as of September 2026. Check the vendor's page before you sign; rate cards change.
Look at how the rate falls as the plan grows. That's how a minute ladder pulls you up a tier: overage on the smaller plan costs more than the jump to the bigger one. Load each card with your own call counts and watch where the busy-month bill lands.
Where to find your two call counts
Your phone provider's call log has both. Export the last twelve months, then pick a typical month and your worst one. For a contractor that's often a storm week; for an accountant it's the weeks before the filing deadline.
Average call length sits in the same log as total talk time. Divide it by answered calls. If your current service sends invoices, use the minutes billed there, since that's the figure your overage is worked from.
Got the counts? The plan picker shows the right tier for a whole year of them, and the per-minute vs per-call calculator tests how call length moves the bill.
Questions about overage fees
What are typical overage fees for AI answering services?
Published overage rates we read in September 2026 run from $0.25 to $0.45 a call on GreetKeeper, $0.50 per extra unique caller on Goodcall, and $2.99 down to $1.49 a minute on PATLive's live-answering tiers. Many vendors print no rate at all, so ask for it in writing before you sign.
How is answering service overage calculated?
Take what you used in the month, subtract what the plan includes, and multiply the rest by the overage rate. Add the base price and you have the bill. On a per-minute plan, what you used is your calls times the average call length.
What happens if I go over my GreetKeeper plan?
Every call past the allowance bills at your plan's printed rate: $0.45 on Starter, $0.35 on Professional and $0.25 on Scale. Robocalls and spam calls are screened out before the greeting and never count toward the plan.
Does a longer call cost more in overage?
On a per-minute plan, yes: a nine-minute call burns three times the allowance of a three-minute one. On a per-call plan, no. GreetKeeper counts answered calls, so a caller who needs a few extra minutes to explain a leak costs the same as a quick booking.
Should I choose a plan for my busiest month or my normal one?
Run both through the calculator. On GreetKeeper, Professional becomes cheaper than Starter at 423 calls in a month, so a business near that line may do better a tier up. Below it, paying a few dollars of overage in a busy month usually beats a bigger plan all year.
Every overage rate is on the pricing page
From $49 a month for 200 calls. Try any plan free for 14 days, no card.