How much does an AI receptionist cost?

Based on prices published in October 2026, entry plans for an AI receptionist start between $0 and $99 a month and include a small allowance of minutes, calls or callers. In the worked examples below, a business with 50 two-minute calls a month pays between $41 and $99 depending on the vendor, and a business with 400 calls a month pays between $129 and about $720.

The range is wide because vendors bill in different units. Two plans with the same monthly price can produce very different bills once your real call pattern is applied, so the useful question is not which plan is cheapest on the pricing page but which billing unit matches how your phone actually rings.

AI receptionist pricing models explained

Almost every AI receptionist uses one of four pricing models. Knowing which one you are looking at tells you what makes the bill go up.

Per-minute bundles are the most common. You buy a block of minutes each month, and every second the AI spends on a call draws it down. This suits businesses with short calls and punishes long ones. A two-minute booking and a nine-minute conversation about a warranty problem are the same call to you, but not to the meter.

Per-call pricing charges for each conversation regardless of length. It is easy to forecast if you know your call count, and it favors businesses whose calls run long. Check what the vendor counts as a call: some exclude spam, wrong numbers and hang-ups under a few seconds, and some do not.

Per-unique-caller pricing counts people rather than conversations. A customer who calls four times in a month counts once. This is good value for businesses with repeat callers, such as clinics and salons, and less so for businesses where nearly every call is a new person.

Flat fee plus usage separates the platform from the consumption. You pay a low monthly fee, then a published rate for each minute or message. There is no bundle to outgrow and no tier to jump, which makes quiet months cheap, but the cost per minute can be higher than a large bundle at steady high volume.

• Per minute: predictable if your calls are short and similar in length.
• Per call: predictable if your call count is stable. Long calls cost nothing extra.
• Per unique caller: rewards repeat callers. Minutes are usually unlimited.
• Flat fee plus usage: you pay for what you use, with no tiers. Best for low or uneven volume.

Published AI receptionist prices in October 2026

The table below lists only prices that vendors publish on their own pricing pages. Many other vendors quote on request, and those are left out because there is nothing to verify. Prices change often, so treat this as a snapshot and confirm before you buy.

What an AI receptionist costs at 50, 150 and 400 calls a month

Headline prices are hard to compare, so here is the same workload priced across vendors. The examples assume calls average two minutes, which makes 50 calls equal to 100 minutes, 150 calls equal to 300 minutes, and 400 calls equal to 800 minutes. Your average may be shorter or longer, and the next section shows how to find it.

For each vendor the example uses the lowest published total: a plan plus that plan's published overage, or a larger plan, whichever costs less. Where a vendor does not publish an overage rate, the example uses the smallest plan whose allowance covers the volume.

• Masheev Starter at 50 calls: 100 minutes x $0.30 = $30 of usage, minus $7 included = $23, plus the $18 fee = $41. At 150 calls: 300 x $0.30 = $90, minus $7 = $83, plus $18 = $101. At 400 calls: 800 x $0.30 = $240, minus $7 = $233, plus $18 = $251.
• Rosie: 100 minutes fits the $49 plan (250 minutes). 300 minutes exceeds 250, so the plan upgrades to $149 (1,000 minutes). 800 minutes also fits the $149 plan.
• Dialzara at 50 calls: the $29 plan covers 60 minutes, and 40 extra minutes x $0.48 = $19.20, for a total of $48.20. At 300 minutes, the $99 plan plus 80 minutes at $0.45 is $135. At 800 minutes, the $199 plan plus 300 minutes at $0.40 is $319.
• Upfirst at 50 calls: the $24.95 plan covers 30 calls, and 20 extra calls x $1.50 = $30, for a total of $54.95. At 150 calls, the $59.95 plan plus 60 extra calls at $1.00 is $119.95. At 400 calls, the $159.95 plan plus 100 extra calls at $0.75 is $234.95.
• Smith.ai AI Receptionist at 50 calls: the Free plan covers 25, and 25 extra calls x $3.00 = $75. At 150 calls the Free plan would be 125 x $3.00 = $375, so a paid plan makes more sense: Pro's 150-call option is $270. At 400 calls, Enterprise at $500 covers 300, and 100 extra calls at $2.17 make $717.
• Goodcall: billed on unique customers, so 50 calls is at most 50 customers and fits the $79 plan. 150 calls costs $79 if they come from 100 or fewer people, and $129 if not. 400 calls costs $129 if they come from 250 or fewer people, and $249 for up to 500.
• My AI Front Desk: 100 minutes fits the $99 plan (200 voice minutes). At 300 minutes, 100 extra minutes at $0.25 add $25, less the $10 of included credits, for $114. At 800 minutes, 600 extra minutes add $150, less $10, for $239.

Hidden costs to check before you sign up

The monthly price is only part of the bill. These are the items that most often change the real total, and all of them can be found by reading the pricing page and terms before you start a trial.

• Overage rates. The price of the minute or call after your allowance runs out is often higher than the effective rate inside the bundle. Dialzara's entry plan, for example, charges $0.48 per extra minute, and Smith.ai's free plan charges $3.00 per extra call.
• Automatic upgrades. Some vendors move you to the next plan when you exceed your allowance rather than billing overage. Rosie's terms of service state this. One busy month can triple the bill, so ask whether the plan drops back down on its own.
• Setup and onboarding fees. Some services charge a one-time fee to configure the agent or port a number. Ask for the full first-month total, not just the recurring price.
• Per-seat fees. If the product charges for each team member who logs in to read transcripts or take handoffs, a five-person office pays more than a solo operator on the same plan.
• Add-on channels and numbers. SMS, web chat, extra phone numbers, extra languages and call recording are included on some plans and sold separately on others. SMS in particular is often billed per message and varies by destination.
• What counts as billable. Ask whether spam calls, wrong numbers, hang-ups and transfer time are billed. On per-minute plans, ask whether minutes are rounded up per call.
• Annual commitments. A lower annual price is a real saving only if you are confident in the product. My AI Front Desk, for example, lists $79 a month on annual billing against $99 monthly.

How to estimate your own monthly cost

You need two numbers: how many calls the AI will answer in a month, and how long they last. Your phone carrier's call log or your phone system's report has both. Pull the last full month, remove obvious spam and internal calls, and count what is left.

Decide which calls the AI will take. If it answers only when you are busy or closed, count only the calls you currently miss or send to voicemail. If it answers everything, count everything. Then multiply calls by average length to get minutes. A business with 150 answered calls averaging two minutes needs about 300 minutes a month.

Price that workload under each billing unit. For per-minute plans, use minutes. For per-call plans, use calls. For per-caller plans, estimate how many different people call you in a month, which your call log can show if you count distinct numbers. Then add a margin for a busy month and look at what the overage or upgrade rule would do to the bill.

Finally, run a trial with your real number forwarded for at least a week. Estimates of call length are often wrong in both directions, and a week of real calls will show you the actual minutes, the share of spam, and how many calls end in a handoff to your team.

Related: Estimate savings with the ROI calculator

AI receptionist cost vs a human receptionist

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics puts median pay for receptionists at $38,010 a year, or $18.27 an hour, as of May 2025. That works out to about $3,168 a month in wages for one full-time person. The total cost of employing someone is higher once payroll taxes and benefits are added, and one person covers roughly 40 hours a week, not evenings and weekends.

That comparison is only fair up to a point. A receptionist greets visitors, handles mail, manages the waiting room, solves problems nobody wrote a procedure for, and notices when something is wrong. An AI receptionist answers calls and messages. If the phone is a small part of the job, an AI will not replace the role. If the phone is what keeps interrupting skilled staff, it can take most of that load for a small fraction of a salary.

Human answering services sit in between. Published plans from Ruby start at $250 a month for 50 minutes, and Smith.ai's human Virtual Receptionists start at $300 a month for 30 calls. You pay several dollars a minute for a trained person. An AI plan at the same volume costs a fraction of that, with the trade-off that complex or emotional calls still need to reach a person on your team.

Related: Virtual receptionist and answering service costs, AI receptionist vs answering service

Where Masheev fits on price

Masheev uses the flat fee plus usage model: $18 a month on Starter, which includes $7 of usage and one phone number, then $0.30 per voice minute and $0.10 per web chat message, with SMS priced by destination. Growth is $126 a month with $26 of usage and two numbers. Seats are unlimited on both, and Starter has a 14-day trial.

This is not always the lowest price per minute. At 250 minutes a month, Rosie's $49 plan works out to about $0.20 a minute, while the same minutes on Masheev Starter cost 250 x $0.30 = $75, minus $7, plus $18, for $86. At 800 minutes, Rosie's $149 plan is also lower than Masheev's $251, and Upfirst ($234.95) and My AI Front Desk ($239) are below it at that volume too. If you only need phone answering at steady volume, a minute bundle can be the better deal.

What differs is the shape of the bill and what is included. There are no tiers, so a busy month costs exactly the extra minutes and never triggers an upgrade. Phone, SMS and web chat land in one inbox, and anyone on your team can log in without a per-seat charge. At low or uneven volume, the examples above show it at or near the lowest total.

Related: Masheev pricing

Common questions

Sources

Prices and figures in this guide come from the publishers' own pages, checked on October 5, 2026. They change, so confirm before you rely on them. Product names are trademarks of their owners. Masheev is not affiliated with or endorsed by the other services named.

• US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Receptionists
• Smith.ai AI Receptionist pricing
• Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists pricing
• Upfirst pricing
• Goodcall pricing
• Rosie pricing
• Rosie terms of service
• My AI Front Desk pricing
• Dialzara pricing
• Abby Connect pricing
• Ruby plans and pricing