TL;DR
An AI receptionist for a small business costs $29 to $349 a month in 2026, against $250 to $2,100 for a human answering service with a tenth of the capacity. Nine products are priced below from their live pricing pages on October 9, 2026, and they bill three different ways: by the minute (Dialzara from $29, Rosie from $49, RingCentral $49), by the call (Upfirst from $24.95, Smith.ai from free) or by the unique caller (Goodcall from $79). For a business taking 120 calls a month, the cheapest adequate plan is $99 to $160 on any of them. The question that decides the purchase is not the price. It is whether the thing books the job on your real calendar or just takes a message, and only Jobber's $29 Receptionist, Rosie's Scale plan and an integrated phone agent do the first one.
Disclosure: Skill Mammoth sells an integrated AI phone agent at $1,500 a month, and it is on this list in the row where it belongs, which is the expensive one. We are also a Jobber partner (readers get 20 percent off through our link, and we earn a commission). We have no arrangement with any other vendor here. Every price was read from the vendor's own pricing page on October 9, 2026, and the two pages that would not load for an automated reader were read by hand.
What an AI receptionist does, and the one thing to check first
Every product on this page answers the phone 24 hours a day with a synthetic voice, asks the caller what they need, captures a name and number, and sends you a transcript and summary by text or email. That part is a commodity now. The products diverge on four things: whether the agent can transfer a live call to you, whether it can text the caller a booking link, whether it can book an appointment on your actual calendar, and whether it can read your scheduling software so the booking lands on the right crew at the right time. Those are four separate price tiers across most vendors, and the vendors' marketing pages blur them.
So before comparing prices, decide which of three jobs you are hiring for. Message-taking, where the agent captures the lead and you call back inside the hour, is the cheapest and any plan below does it. Scheduling, where the agent puts a visit on a shared calendar, needs a mid-tier plan from most vendors. Dispatch, where the booking lands inside Jobber or Housecall Pro with the right duration and technician, needs either the software vendor's own add-on or an agent built on top of your system. The answering service guide for contractors covers the human versus AI decision; this page is the price list for the AI side.
2026 prices, nine AI receptionists and two human benchmarks
| Product | Entry price | What it includes | Billing unit | Books on a calendar? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jobber Receptionist | $29 a month on top of a Jobber plan | Answers calls and texts, books visits using your online booking rules, creates requests, transfers urgent calls by keyword, texts back hang-ups | Flat add-on | Yes, inside Jobber |
| Dialzara | $29 for 60 minutes; $99 for 220; $199 for 500; $349 for 1,000 | Message taking, blind transfer at every tier, warm transfer from $99, overage $0.48 down to $0.35 a minute, 7-day trial, no contract | Minutes | Via Zapier or Make, not native |
| Upfirst | $24.95 for 30 calls; $59.95 for 90; $159.95 for 300; $299 for 600 | Overage $1.50 down to $0.70 a call, 14-day trial, 20 percent off annual | Calls | Scheduling on the mid tiers |
| Rosie | $49 for 250 minutes; $149 for 1,000; $299 for 2,000 | Appointment links by text and spam screening at $49; calendar booking, warm and live transfers at $149; custom training and onboarding at $299. Two months free on annual. Website texting add-on $50 for 25 conversations. | Minutes | Yes, from $149 |
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | $49 standalone or $39 as a RingEX add-on, 100 minutes | Overage $0.50 a minute, rounded up to 30 seconds, 14-day trial | Minutes | Transfers and messages; booking depends on RingEX setup |
| Goodcall | $79 for 100 unique customers; $129 for 500; $299 for 2,000 | Unlimited minutes, extra customers at 79, 26 or 15 cents, 1 to 15 connected tools by tier, free demo agent until you connect a number | Unique callers | Yes, through connected tools on Growth and up |
| My AI Front Desk | $99 a month or $79 annually, 200 minutes | Overage $0.25 a minute from a credit pool, auto-reload 1,000 credits for $10, 7-day trial | Minutes | Yes, with calendar links |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Free for 25 calls a month; Pro $150; Enterprise $500 | $3 a call past 25 on Free (overage off by default), about $2 a call on Pro, $1.67 on Enterprise | Calls | Yes, with calendar integrations |
| Skill Mammoth AI phone agent | $1,500 a month; setup $3,000 to $15,000, $750 on the founding offer | Built on your scheduling software, books the real job with the right duration and tech, texts the confirmation, alerts on-call, logs to the CRM | Flat | Yes, inside your dispatch system |
| Smith.ai human receptionists | $300 for 30 calls; $810 for 90; $2,100 for 300 | Live agents, overage $11.50 down to $8.50 a call, no setup fee | Calls | Yes, by a person |
| Ruby (human) | $250 for 50 minutes; $395 for 100; $720 for 200; $1,725 for 500 | Live US receptionists, overage not published | Minutes | Yes, by a person |
| Verdict | Under $50 a month buys a machine that never sends a caller to voicemail, which beats what most small businesses have today. $99 to $160 buys calendar booking and live transfer. Human services cost 5 to 15 times more per call and only win when callers need judgment, like a law firm intake or a medical office. If you run Jobber, the $29 Receptionist makes the rest of the table academic. | |||
The three billing models, and which one is cheaper for you
The vendors chose different meters on purpose, and the meter decides your bill more than the headline price does.
Per minute (Dialzara, Rosie, RingCentral, My AI Front Desk, Ruby) suits short calls. A 2-minute "are you open Saturday" call costs you a dollar on RingCentral's overage; a 9-minute call from a confused homeowner describing a leak costs $4.50. If your calls average under three minutes, per-minute plans are the cheapest on the table.
Per call (Upfirst, Smith.ai) suits long calls and punishes wrong numbers, spam and hang-ups, which all count. Smith.ai's human plans are the extreme: $10 a call for a 20-second robocall. Ask what counts as a call before you sign; some vendors exclude calls under 10 seconds and some do not.
Per unique customer (Goodcall) suits businesses whose customers call repeatedly, like a clinic or a property manager, because the second and fifth calls from the same number are free. It is the worst deal for a business with one-time callers, like a tow truck.
The same 120 calls a month on each product
Take a three-truck service company: 120 inbound calls a month, averaging 3 minutes, so 360 minutes, with about 95 unique callers. Here is the cheapest plan on each product that covers it without overage, or the plan plus overage where that is cheaper.
| Product | Plan that fits | Monthly cost | Cost per call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jobber Receptionist | Add-on (Jobber Core at $29 already required) | $29 | $0.24 |
| Upfirst | Pro, 300 calls | $159.95 ($128 annual) | $1.33 |
| Rosie | Scale, 1,000 minutes | $149 | $1.24 |
| Goodcall | Starter is 100 customers; 95 fits, barely | $79 | $0.66 |
| Dialzara | Business Plus, 500 minutes | $199 | $1.66 |
| My AI Front Desk | 200 minutes plus 160 minutes of overage | $99 plus $40 | $1.16 |
| RingCentral | 100 minutes plus 260 minutes at $0.50 | $179 | $1.49 |
| Smith.ai AI | Pro, at about $2 a call | $150 base, up to $240 at the per-call rate | $1.25 to $2.00 |
| Smith.ai human | Basic 90 calls plus 30 at $10.50 | $1,125 | $9.38 |
| Ruby human | 500 minutes | $1,725 | $14.38 |
| Verdict | The AI column clusters at $80 to $200 for a volume that costs $1,100 to $1,700 with people on the line. The spread inside the AI column is smaller than the difference in what the plans do, so pick by feature, then confirm the meter fits your call length. | ||
Want to hear what a booked job sounds like?
Two unedited recordings of an integrated agent qualifying a caller and putting the visit on a real calendar are on the AI phone agent page. Fifteen minutes on a call will tell you whether a $49 message-taker or a $1,500 dispatcher is the right spend for your call volume.
What the cheap tier actually misses
A $29 to $49 AI receptionist answers, captures and summarizes. Here is what it does not do, in order of how often it costs a job.
It does not book. A caller who wants Thursday morning gets "someone will call you back," and 30 to 40 percent of service callers phone the next company on the list rather than wait. That number comes from the missed-call studies covered in the missed-call text-back guide, and an AI message-taker is a better voicemail, not a scheduler.
It does not transfer warm. Dialzara's $29 plan does a blind transfer (the call lands on your cell with no context); warm transfer, where the agent briefs you first, starts at $99. Rosie's warm transfer starts at $149. For an emergency trade, blind transfer is fine; for a sales call, the briefing is the whole point.
It does not know your calendar rules. The mid-tier products book against a shared Google or Outlook calendar. They do not know that a water heater swap is a 3-hour slot, that Tuesday is the north side of town, or that the new tech cannot do gas. That knowledge lives in Jobber or Housecall Pro, which is why the software vendor's own add-on or an agent built on the dispatch system books cleaner jobs than a general-purpose receptionist with a calendar link.
Which one, by business type
| Business | Pick | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Any Jobber shop | Jobber Receptionist, $29 | Books inside the calendar you already run, with your booking rules. See Jobber pricing. |
| Solo operator, under 60 calls a month | Dialzara Lite $29 or Upfirst Starter $24.95 | Cheapest way to stop losing calls to voicemail; you call back within the hour yourself |
| Office with repeat callers (clinic, property management, salon) | Goodcall Starter or Growth | Unique-customer billing makes the fifth call from the same patient free |
| Service business that wants booking without changing software | Rosie Scale $149 or My AI Front Desk $99 | Calendar booking and transfers at the lowest price on the table |
| Already on RingCentral | RingCentral AI Receptionist add-on, $39 | Same bill, same phone system, 14-day trial |
| Law firm, medical, anything with intake judgment | Smith.ai human plans or Ruby | A person handles the "is this a case" call; the AI tier screens the rest. See how trades split the two. |
| Multi-truck trade where a booked call is worth $300 or more | Integrated phone agent | Dispatch-aware booking, texted confirmation, on-call alerts; the $1,500 pays back on five saved jobs |
| Verdict | Match the product to what a missed call costs you. A $40 lawn-mowing call justifies $29 of software. A $4,000 furnace call justifies a system that books it correctly the first time. | |
Three to skip
A free tier with overage switched off. Smith.ai's free plan takes 25 calls and then, unless you flip the overage on, stops answering. The 26th caller of the month gets whatever your phone did before, which is the problem you were solving. Free is a trial, not a plan.
Per-minute AI for a trade with long calls. Restoration, remodeling and anything where the caller narrates the problem runs 6 to 10 minutes a call. On RingCentral's $0.50 overage that is $3 to $5 a call, which is Upfirst's per-call price with none of the certainty. Measure your average call length in your phone system's log before choosing a meter.
Any receptionist that books on a calendar your dispatcher does not look at. The agent puts a Thursday 9 a.m. on a Google Calendar nobody checks, the customer waits, and the review writes itself. If you cannot connect the booking to the system that runs your day, stay on message-taking and call back fast. The HVAC answering guide has the triage script that makes a callback plan work.
The setup that takes an afternoon
Every vendor above goes live in under an hour; the afternoon is spent on what you give it. Write the ten questions callers ask most and the answers, in plain words, with prices where you quote them. Set the transfer rules: which words (gas, flooding, no heat, sparking) ring your cell and which take a message. Record a human greeting if the product allows it, because callers tolerate a synthetic voice better after a real one says the company name. Forward on no-answer after 4 rings rather than forwarding everything, so the agent catches what you miss instead of replacing you. Then call it yourself from a friend's phone, badly, and listen to the recording.
Want the missed-call math for your business?
Bring last month's call log. We will show you how many calls went to voicemail, what a booked job is worth in your trade, and which tier on this page pays for itself in the first week.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI receptionist cost for a small business?
$24.95 to $349 a month in 2026 depending on volume, read from vendor pricing pages on October 9. Entry plans: Upfirst $24.95 for 30 calls, Dialzara $29 for 60 minutes, Jobber's Receptionist $29 as an add-on, Rosie $49 for 250 minutes, RingCentral $49 for 100 minutes, Goodcall $79 for 100 unique callers, My AI Front Desk $99 for 200 minutes. A business taking 120 calls a month pays $80 to $200 on any of them, against $1,100 to $1,700 for a human service at the same volume.
What is the best AI receptionist for a small business?
For a Jobber user, Jobber's own Receptionist at $29, because it books inside your calendar. For calendar booking without changing software, Rosie's $149 Scale plan or My AI Front Desk at $99. For the cheapest adequate message-taker, Dialzara at $29 or Upfirst at $24.95. For repeat callers, Goodcall's unique-customer billing. For a trade where a booked call is worth $300 or more, an agent built on your dispatch software.
Is an AI receptionist better than an answering service?
On price and availability, yes: 5 to 15 times cheaper per call and never busy. On judgment, no: a live receptionist handles an upset caller, an ambiguous legal intake or a medical question better. Most small businesses are best served by AI for the 90 percent of calls that are "are you open," "how much" and "can you come Thursday," with a human callback for the rest.
Can an AI receptionist book appointments?
The mid-tier plans can: Rosie from $149, Goodcall from $129 with a connected calendar, My AI Front Desk at $99, Smith.ai's Pro plan, and Jobber's Receptionist at $29 inside Jobber. The $25 to $49 entry plans take messages and text a booking link rather than booking. None of the general-purpose products knows job durations or technician skills; that needs the scheduling software's own add-on or an integrated agent.
Do AI receptionists work for contractors and home services?
Yes, and the fit is better than for most industries because the calls are repetitive and the cost of a missed one is high. The trade-specific issue is booking: a plumbing call needs a duration, a service area and a qualified tech, which only Jobber's add-on or a dispatch-integrated agent handles. Everything else on the page captures the lead and texts you, which still beats voicemail.
Do customers hang up on AI receptionists?
Fewer than hang up on voicemail, which is the real comparison. Callers hang up on AI when it loops, mishears a street name or cannot transfer. Products with warm transfer (Dialzara from $99, Rosie from $149) and spam screening keep the hang-up rate low, and recording a human greeting before the agent answers helps more than any voice setting. Review the first month's recordings and fix the three questions it stumbles on.