How much does an AI receptionist cost in 2026?

How do AI receptionists charge?

AI receptionists charge a monthly fee that includes an allowance of minutes, calls or unique callers, plus an overage rate when you go over. The billing unit matters as much as the headline price.

Each vendor argues for its own model: Smith.ai's pricing FAQ argues against per-minute billing, and Goodcall's pricing headline is "No per-minute charges." Neither model is cheaper in general. It depends on how long your calls run and how many callers ring more than once.

What counts also differs. According to their pricing pages on October 19, 2026, Upfirst doesn't bill spam or robocalls, calls under 15 seconds or calls where the caller never speaks; Goodcall counts each phone number once a month and doesn't count spam or wrong numbers; and Smith.ai counts every call its AI answers by default, filters known spammers first and lets you remove up to 10% of calls a cycle as spam.

AI receptionist prices compared (2026)

These are the entry plans of named AI receptionists and two live services, as listed on each vendor's pricing page on October 19, 2026. The effective rate is our arithmetic: the monthly price divided by what it includes.

Smith.ai also has a Free AI plan with 25 calls a month and $3.00 for each extra call. Rosie's pricing page offers "2 months free" on annual billing; according to Quo (September 2026), that makes its plans $41, $124 and $249 a month.

What drives the cost of an AI receptionist?

Five things set what you actually pay: how many calls you get and how long they last, the billing unit, what counts toward the allowance, which features sit on higher tiers, and whether you need live people behind the AI.

• Volume and call length. A shop with 40 short calls a month and a firm with 400 long intake calls need very different plans.
• Feature tiers. On Rosie, direct booking and transfers start on the $149 Scale plan. Goodcall's tiers set the number of team seats and how long call history is kept (30 days on Starter, 90 on Growth, unlimited on Scale). Upfirst puts white-glove onboarding on Pro ($159.95) and above.
• Calls at the same time. Some plans cap how many calls are answered at once. Julius Answer plans differ in exactly this and in minutes.
• Live people. Smith.ai's AI plans can transfer callers to its live receptionists, but the pricing page doesn't state a price for it. Fully live service starts at $250 to $300 a month.
• Annual billing. Upfirst and Frontdesk take 20% off for paying a year ahead and Smith.ai's live plans 10%. Julius Answer gives two months free (about 17% off) on yearly billing.

How to estimate your monthly minutes

Multiply your monthly calls by your average call length, allow for rounding, and add a buffer for busy months. Your phone bill or call log has both numbers; if you don't have them, count the calls in a typical week.

Here is a worked example with illustrative numbers. Replace them with your own.

1. Calls: 9 calls each weekday × 22 weekdays = 198, plus 12 evening and weekend calls = 210 calls a month.
2. Average call: 2 minutes 15 seconds, or 2.25 minutes.
3. Rounding: plans that round each call up to a whole minute add about half a minute per call on average, so 2.75 billed minutes a call.
4. Billed minutes: 210 × 2.75 = 577.5, about 578 minutes.
5. Buffer: 578 × 1.15 = about 665 minutes in a busy month.
6. Unique callers: if 1 in 4 calls comes from someone who already called that month, 210 × 0.75 = about 158 unique callers.

The same month costs anywhere from $124.82 to $487.50 on these AI plans. Per-call plans would cost less if some calls are spam or very short (Upfirst doesn't bill those). On Smith.ai, the 150-call Pro tier is cheaper than the 75-call tier for this month: it lists $1.80 a call, so its 150 included calls come to about $270, and the other 60 calls at its $2.30 overage add $138, for about $408 in all. That is our arithmetic, because Smith.ai doesn't publish the 150-call tier's monthly total. A business with long calls or few repeat callers would rank these plans differently, so run your own numbers.

On Julius Answer, 578 minutes is more than Starter's 300 and well within Pro's 1,000. Starter plus extra-minute packs can cost less for a month like this, but Starter answers 1 call at a time and Pro answers 3, so Pro suits a business whose callers often ring at the same moment.

AI receptionist vs a full-time receptionist: cost

A full-time receptionist costs a median $38,010 a year in wages, or about $55,300 with benefits by our estimate; the AI plans in the example above cost about $1,500 to $5,850 a year. A person also covers far fewer hours.

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts median pay for receptionists at $38,010 a year, or $18.27 an hour, in May 2025, across 947,500 jobs. In BLS employer-cost data for June 2026, wages were 68.7% of total compensation for private-industry office and administrative support workers, with benefits making up the other 31.3%. Dividing $38,010 by 0.687 gives about $55,300 a year, or about $4,600 a month. That is our calculation, and it leaves out recruiting, training, overtime and cover for breaks, sick days and nights.

A receptionist does more than answer the phone: greeting visitors, paperwork, handling a difficult caller with judgment. An AI receptionist replaces the phone part. For the trade-offs, see AI receptionist vs answering service vs human receptionist.

Hidden costs to watch for

The headline price leaves out how calls are rounded, what overage costs, whether spam counts, which features need a higher tier, and the terms for cancelling or downgrading. Check each one before you sign up.

• Rounding. Ruby bills in 60-second increments and rounds calls up; Julius Answer counts each call in whole minutes, rounded up. On both, a 61-second call counts as two minutes. Per-call plans avoid rounding but charge the same for a 20-second call as for a 10-minute one, unless they exclude short calls as Upfirst does.
• Overage. As listed on October 19, 2026: Smith.ai AI Pro $2.50 a call, Smith.ai's live Starter $11.50 a call, Dialzara $0.35 to $0.48 a minute and Upfirst $0.70 to $1.50 a call. Ruby bills overage "at your plan's overage rate" but doesn't publish it. Rosie's pricing page doesn't state overage; Quo reports that Rosie moves you up to the next plan instead.
• Spam and wrong numbers. Ask whether they count. Julius Answer handles sales calls and robocalls without bothering your team, and every call it answers counts toward your minutes, so block numbers that keep calling.
• Features held back for higher tiers. Rosie's $49 plan texts a booking link rather than booking on your calendar and lists no transfers. Smith.ai's live plans charge per call for add-ons, such as $1.50 for appointment booking and $0.50 for an SMS or Slack notification. Ruby and Julius Answer include every feature on every plan.
• Unused minutes. Ruby and Julius Answer don't roll unused included minutes into the next month.
• Payment and contract terms. Ruby adds a 3% fee for credit-card payments and allows a downgrade only after 3 billing periods on the same plan. Smith.ai's AI plans ask for 30 days' notice to cancel. Julius Answer is month to month, and you cancel in the console.

What does Julius Answer cost?

Julius Answer has three plans from $79 a month, each with every feature. Plans differ only in included minutes and how many calls are answered at the same time.

Each call counts in whole minutes, rounded up. Unused included minutes don't roll over, but extra minutes bought on top never expire:

There is no free plan; paying yearly gives two months free. Every plan starts with a 7-day free trial that includes up to 150 call minutes. It starts when you add a card in the console (payments go through Stripe), nothing is charged until it ends, and you can cancel anytime. See pricing for the full details.