AI receptionist pricing

I run a renovation company, Buildme.ie, and missed calls are lost jobs. That is why I am testing AI receptionists properly, and this page is the pricing half of that work in my AI for business series. Every price below comes from the vendor’s own pricing page, checked on 4 Nov 2026, with the URL in the table note. Where a vendor hides its price, I say so.

My own call tests are coming on a separate page, the AI receptionist test, where I phone each of these as a customer and record how they handle a real renovation enquiry.

AI receptionist pricing at a glance

Here is what each vendor charges on its entry plan, plus the rest of the range.

• Smith.ai AI Receptionist: a Free plan at $0 with 25 calls a month, then $3.00 per extra call. Pro starts at $150 a month for 75 calls ($2.00 a call), with 150-call ($1.80 a call) and 300-call ($1.67 a call) options, and extra calls from $2.50. Enterprise starts at $500 a month. Month to month, 30 days’ notice to cancel. Known spam calls are filtered out and do not count. Source: smith.ai/pricing/ai-receptionist.
• Dialzara: Business Lite $29 a month for 60 minutes ($0.48 a minute after), Business Pro $99 for 220 minutes ($0.45), Business Plus $199 for 500 minutes ($0.40), Business Elite $349 for 1,000 minutes ($0.35). A Done for You option starts from $1,500 by quote. 7-day free trial, monthly billing. Source: dialzara.com/pricing.
• Rosie: Professional $49 a month for 250 minutes, Scale $149 for 1,000 minutes, Growth $299 for 2,000 minutes. 7-day free trial, and annual billing gives “2 months free”. The page does not list an overage rate. Source: heyrosie.com/pricing.
• RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR): standalone from $49 a month with 100 minutes, or $39 a month on top of a $30 RingEX Core phone plan, also with 100 minutes. Then $0.50 a minute, rounded up to the next 30 seconds. Source: ringcentral.com/pricing/ai-receptionist.
• Goodcall: Starter $79 a month for 100 unique customers (about 150 calls), Growth $129 for 500 (about 750 calls), Scale $299 for 2,000 (about 3,000 calls). Extra customers cost 79¢, 26¢ or 15¢ depending on plan. Call length does not affect the bill. Source: goodcall.com/pricing.
• My AI Front Desk: Business-in-a-Box at $99 a month, or $79 a month billed annually, with 200 voice minutes, 100 chatbot conversations and 400 SMS. Extra voice is $0.25 a minute. 7-day free trial. Source: myaifrontdesk.com/pricing.
• Synthflow: no public price. Every new deployment is an annual Enterprise contract, priced after a scoping call, with no free plan or trial. Source: synthflow.ai/pricing.
• Ruby: a human virtual receptionist, included here for comparison. $250 a month for 50 minutes, $395 for 100, $720 for 200 and $1,725 for 500. AI features are included at no extra cost, but the receptionists are people. Source: ruby.com/pricing.

Is there a free AI receptionist?

Yes, one on this list. Smith.ai has an ongoing Free plan at $0 with 25 real calls a month, plus test and simulated calls, and charges $3.00 for each call over 25. That is enough to try it on a quiet line or an after-hours number.

Goodcall lets you build and test a free demo agent, and you only start paying when you connect a phone number. Dialzara, Rosie and My AI Front Desk each offer a 7-day free trial. RingCentral shows a “Try free” option but does not state the trial length on the pricing page. Synthflow says it has no free plan or trial.

What minutes, calls and customers mean in real calls

The billing unit is where people get caught. A cheap plan with few minutes can cost more than a pricier plan with lots of them.

To compare, I am using an example average call length of 3 minutes. This is my working assumption for illustration, not a vendor figure, and I will replace it with real Buildme numbers.

At 3 minutes a call:

• Dialzara Business Lite, 60 minutes: about 20 calls a month, so roughly $1.45 a call at $29.
• RingCentral AIR, 100 minutes: about 33 calls a month for $49, roughly $1.48 a call.
• My AI Front Desk, 200 minutes: about 66 calls a month for $99 (or $79 annually).
• Dialzara Business Pro, 220 minutes: about 73 calls a month for $99.
• Rosie Professional, 250 minutes: about 83 calls a month for $49, roughly 59 cents a call.
• Ruby, 50 minutes: about 16 calls a month for $250, roughly $16 a call, with a human answering.

Per-call and per-customer plans are easier to read:

• Smith.ai Pro is $2.00 a call at 75 calls, no matter how long each call lasts.
• Goodcall Starter counts unique customers, so a customer who rings you three times about the same job counts once. Goodcall’s own estimate is about 150 calls for 100 customers.

If your calls are long, for example detailed quote enquiries, per-call or per-customer pricing works in your favor. If your calls are short and frequent, per-minute plans with a big allowance usually win.

RingCentral AI receptionist pricing

RingCentral’s AI Receptionist, called AIR, is sold two ways on its US pricing page. Standalone, it starts at $49 a month with 100 minutes included. If you already use RingCentral, or want its phone system too, it is $39 a month for AIR plus $30 a month for the RingEX Core plan, still with 100 minutes.

After the 100 minutes, pay-as-you-go is $0.50 a minute, with partial minutes rounded up to the next 30-second block. You can also buy extra minute bundles. At my example 3-minute call length, 100 minutes is about 33 calls, which is light for a busy trade business. RingCentral makes most sense if you already run your phones on it and want one bill.

Virtual receptionist pricing (human)

A human virtual receptionist is a different product at a different price. Ruby starts at $250 a month for 50 minutes, then $395 for 100 minutes, $720 for 200 minutes and $1,725 for 500 minutes. Ruby says there are no extra fees for setup, onboarding or coverage at certain times, and it includes AI features at no extra cost. It also sells live chat plans from $143 a month for 10 chats.

Smith.ai also sells human-first and hybrid plans, but its AI receptionist pricing page only covers the AI-first plans, so I have only listed those.

Compared with hiring, the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median pay for a US receptionist at $38,010 a year, or $18.27 an hour, as of May 2025, before taxes and benefits. That is roughly $3,170 a month in pay alone. A human service or an AI receptionist covers evenings and weekends that one employee cannot.

The cheapest way to use an AI receptionist

1. Start with the free or trial tier. Smith.ai’s Free plan gives 25 calls a month at $0. Goodcall lets you build a free demo agent before you connect a number. Use these to see whether callers will talk to an AI at all.
2. Pick the billing unit that matches your calls. Short, frequent calls suit a big minute bundle like Rosie’s 250 minutes for $49. Long calls suit per-call or per-customer pricing.
3. Point only overflow and after-hours calls at it. You keep answering when you can, and the AI only takes what you would have missed, which keeps you on a smaller plan.
4. Check the overage rate before the headline price. Dialzara publishes $0.35 to $0.48 a minute, RingCentral $0.50, My AI Front Desk $0.25. Rosie does not list one on the pricing page, so ask before you commit.
5. Pay annually only after a month of real use. My AI Front Desk drops from $99 to $79 a month on annual billing, and Rosie offers “2 months free”, but only lock in once you know your volume.

If you would rather have someone set this up for you, my list of AI automation companies covers who does it. And once calls turn into jobs, reviews follow, so see how to respond to Google reviews too.

What I could not verify

Rosie’s overage rate is not shown on its pricing page. Synthflow publishes no prices at all. Ruby does not list overage rates or a free trial. I have left those blank rather than guess.