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How much does an AI receptionist cost?
Published AI receptionist plans start at $29 a month for 60 minutes and run to $699 a month for the agency tier. Most small businesses land between $99 and $199. The number that matters is not the headline, it is what your actual call volume costs, and that answer changes vendor by vendor.
Short answer: $29 to $699 a month published, with the realistic working band at $99 to $199. At 300 minutes a month the same job costs $99 at the cheapest vendor and $199 at the dearest of the four we priced below. Verified July 2026 against vendor pricing pages.
What do you get at each price point?
This is every AI answering plan we could verify, sorted by monthly price. The included column is the vendor's own wording, because the units differ on purpose: some sell minutes, some sell calls, some sell unique callers, and one sells locations. Comparing $99 against $99 across those units tells you nothing until you know what the unit is.
| Vendor and plan | Price | What is included | How they bill |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist Free | Free | 25 calls | per call |
| Dialzara Business Lite | $29/mo | 60 minutes | per minute |
| Rosie Professional | $49/mo | 250 minutes | per minute |
| Goodcall Starter | $79/mo or $66/mo annual | 100 unique customers | per customer |
| Answrr Starter | $99/mo | 300 minutes (5 hours) | per minute |
| Abby Connect AI Starter | $99/mo | AI plan | per minute |
| My AI Front Desk Business-in-a-Box | $99/mo or $79/mo annual | 200 voice minutes | credits |
| Nextiva XBert XBert AI Receptionist | $99/mo | 100 interactions | per conversation |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist Pro | $150/mo | 75 calls | per call |
| NextPhone Pro | $199/mo | unlimited calls | flat rate |
| Slang.ai Core | $399/mo | per location | per location |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist Enterprise | $500/mo | 300 calls | per call |
| NextPhone Scale | $599/mo | unlimited calls | flat rate |
| Abby Connect AI Growth | $690/mo | AI plan | per minute |
| Answrr Agency | $699/mo | 5,000 minutes (83 hours) | per minute |
Prices read from each vendor's pricing page on 2026-07-28. Four more vendors publish no usable price at all and are listed on the full pricing index.
Is the cheapest plan actually usable?
Usually not, and this is where most buyers get burned. Dialzara Business Lite at $29 holds 60 minutes. At a three-minute average call that is 20 calls a month, roughly one call a working day. It is a paid trial, not a plan. Their own overage rate of $0.48 a minute confirms it: run 100 minutes through that tier and you pay $48.20, which is more than a plan built for the volume.
My AI Front Desk goes one step further. Its $20 Basic tier is the cheapest number on this page and
it answers no phone calls at all. In the vendor's own words the plan covers
email, SMS and chat only, no phone answering
. Voice starts at $99 with 200 voice minutes. If you want a genuinely free
way to test, Smith.ai runs an AI tier at no cost for 25 calls, then $3.00 a call.
How do the three billing models change what you pay?
Nearly every vendor here uses one of three shapes. Picking the wrong shape costs more than picking the wrong brand, because the shape decides whether a busy month is a rounding error or a bill you have to explain.
Per minute
You buy a bundle of minutes and pay a published rate on anything above it. Rosie, Dialzara and Answrr work this way. Overage runs from $0.12 a minute at Answrr's largest tier to $0.48 at Dialzara's smallest. Cheap when calls are short and volume is steady, punishing when both go up at once.
Flat rate
One price, unlimited calls, no overage line at all. NextPhone is the only pure example here, from $199 a month. Higher entry price, but the bill is the same in your worst month as in your quietest, which is worth real money to a business that cannot forecast call volume.
Per caller or per call
You pay for people or conversations, not time. Goodcall charges $79 for 100 unique customers with unlimited minutes. Smith.ai and Nextiva bill per call and per conversation. Long calls cost nothing extra, so this suits businesses that talk properly to each caller.
Two vendors sit outside those three. Slang.ai charges per restaurant location, so a four-site group multiplies the price by four. My AI Front Desk uses a credit pool where voice costs 25 credits a minute and $10 buys 1,000 credits, which works out near $0.25 a minute once you do the division. Neither is worse, but neither compares cleanly to a minute bundle until you convert it.
What do 100, 300 and 600 minutes really cost?
Here is the same workload priced at four vendors. For each volume we picked the cheapest combination that vendor can sell you, including buying a smaller plan and paying overage where that comes out lower. The working is in the table so you can check it against the plan data on each vendor page.
| Vendor | 100 minutes a month | 300 minutes a month | 600 minutes a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rosie | $49 Professional $49, 250 min included | $149 Scale $149, 1,000 min included | $149 Scale $149, 1,000 min included |
| Dialzara | $48.20 Business Lite $29 + 40 min x $0.48 | $135 Business Pro $99 + 80 min x $0.45 | $239 Business Plus $199 + 100 min x $0.40 |
| Answrr | $99 Starter $99, 300 min included | $99 Starter $99, 300 min included | $174 Starter $99 + 300 min x $0.25 |
| NextPhone | $199 Pro $199, unlimited calls | $199 Pro $199, unlimited calls | $199 Pro $199, unlimited calls |
Rosie publishes no overage rate, so we never assume one. At 300 minutes their 250-minute Professional plan runs out and the only price we can stand behind is the $149 Scale tier. That gap is the vendor's choice, not ours.
Why does the cheapest vendor change with volume?
Because the plan ladders are built at different steps. At 100 minutes Dialzara wins at $48.20 against Rosie's $49, a difference of $0.80. Move the same business to 600 minutes and Dialzara costs $239 while Rosie costs $149, so Dialzara now loses by $90. Nothing about the product changed. The reason is Rosie Scale: $149 for 1,000 minutes works out at $0.15 a minute inside the plan, the best included rate of the four.
This is why "which AI receptionist is cheapest" has no answer without your minute count. Estimate your volume first, then price it. If you cannot estimate it, that argues for flat rate, and we walk through exactly where the crossover sits in per minute against flat rate.
What else moves the price besides minutes?
Feature gating, and it is not consistent. Rosie's $49 tier takes messages only. Appointment booking and warm transfer to a person do not appear until the $149 Scale plan, so a business that needs booking pays three times the entry price whatever its call volume. NextPhone gates CRM integrations behind the $299 Growth plan, which matters if you run Clio, ServiceTitan or HubSpot.
Two vendors do the opposite. Dialzara puts booking, lead qualification and CRM in its $29 entry tier and only sells you more minutes as you climb. Answrr states plainly that every plan includes every feature, so its tiers differ by minutes and agent count alone. That makes both easy to compare and it is worth real money when the feature you need sits two tiers up somewhere else.
What does an AI receptionist have to be worth to justify the price?
More than it costs, and the gap is usually enormous. Put your own numbers in below. If the monthly figure it returns is smaller than $29, you do not need any of these products yet, and we would rather tell you that than sell you one.
You miss about 10 calls a week. Roughly 3 of them would have booked.
Two entry points worth testing first
Rosie Professional at $49 for 250 minutes is the cheapest plan with usable volume. Answrr Starter at $99 for 300 minutes (5 hours) includes every feature on every tier and runs a 14-day trial with no credit card, so you can test before you decide.
Check Rosie pricing Check Answrr pricing
Some links here are affiliate links. They never change what we say about a price or a plan.
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Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI receptionist cost per month?
Published plans run from $29 a month at the bottom (Dialzara Business Lite, 60 minutes) to $699 a month at the top (Answrr Agency). The working range for a small business that takes real call volume is $99 to $199 a month. Smith.ai also runs a free AI tier covering 25 calls, then $3.00 a call. Every figure here was read from the vendor's own pricing page in July 2026.
What is the cheapest AI receptionist that actually answers the phone?
Dialzara Business Lite at $29 a month, which holds 60 minutes. Watch out for My AI Front Desk Basic at $20: it looks cheaper, but it covers email, SMS and chat only and answers no phone calls. Their real voice entry point is Business-in-a-Box at $99 a month.
What does 300 minutes of AI answering cost?
Between $99 and $199 a month depending on who you pick. Answrr Starter covers 300 minutes inside its $99 plan. Dialzara costs $135 because you buy the Business Pro plan and pay overage on 80 minutes. Rosie costs $149, because their 250-minute plan runs out at 300 and they publish no overage rate, so the next tier up is the only price you can rely on.
Are there setup fees or contracts on AI receptionists?
Mostly no. Dialzara states no setup fees and includes white glove setup, My AI Front Desk advertises setup in five minutes, and NextPhone, Rosie, Dialzara and My AI Front Desk all run 7-day free trials. Answrr goes further with a 14-day trial and no credit card. The fees appear on the human side of this market instead: AnswerConnect charges a $49.99 one-time setup on its entry plan.
Prices come from vendor pricing pages and change without notice. Confirm the current price with the vendor before buying.