AI receptionist pricing in 2026 runs from $29 to about $300 a month for the entry plan, and the headline number tells you less than three other figures: how many minutes or calls are included, what each extra minute costs, and whether the service is software or people. Self-serve AI receptionists charge $29 to $99 for 60 to 250 minutes, with overage of $0.13 to $0.48 a minute. Services staffed by people start at $250 to $300 a month for 30 calls or 50 minutes. Below is every major provider’s published price as of 25 October 2026, what a realistic month costs on each, and the costs that do not appear on the pricing page.
The three ways AI receptionists charge
Per minute. The most common model. A monthly plan includes a block of minutes; every minute above it is billed at a per-minute rate. The thing to check is the overage rate, because a busy month is where the bill moves. Ultatel, Dialzara, My AI Front Desk and Rosie price this way.
Per call. The plan includes a number of calls and each extra call has a fixed price. This is how human answering services have always billed, and some AI products copy it. A 20-second wrong number costs the same as a 12-minute intake.
Per unique customer. Goodcall charges by the number of different people who call in a month rather than by minutes, which suits a business with a small, repeat customer base and penalises one with many new callers.
Human services (Smith.ai, Ruby) charge per call or per minute at roughly ten times the AI rate, because a person is on the line.
What the main providers charge (published prices, 25 October 2026)
| Provider | Entry plan | Included | Next plan | Overage | Trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ultatel Voice AI Agent | $49 a month | 250 minutes | $149 for 1,000 minutes; $399 for 3,000 | $0.20, $0.15, $0.13 a minute by plan | 14 days, card required |
| Rosie | $49 a month | 250 minutes | $149 for 1,000; $299 for 2,000 | Not published | 7 days |
| Dialzara | $29 a month | 60 minutes | $99 for 220; $199 for 500; $349 for 1,000 | $0.48 to $0.35 a minute by plan | 7 days |
| My AI Front Desk | $99 a month ($79 billed annually) | 200 minutes | Custom | $0.25 a minute, via credits | 7 days |
| Goodcall | $79 a month | 100 unique customers, minutes not metered | $129 for 500; $299 for 2,000 | $0.79 to $0.15 per extra customer | Free demo agent; pay when you connect a number |
| Smith.ai (human receptionists) | $300 a month | 30 calls | $810 for 90 calls; $2,100 for 300 | $11.50 to $8.50 a call | None published |
| Ruby (human receptionists) | $250 a month | 50 minutes | $395 for 100; $720 for 200; $1,725 for 500 | Not published | None published |
Prices are taken from each provider’s public pricing page on the date shown and are refreshed quarterly; check the provider’s page before you buy. Where a provider does not publish an overage rate, ask for it in writing before you sign up, because it is the number that decides a busy month.
What a realistic month costs
Take a business that gets 120 answered calls a month at an average of three and a half minutes, which is 420 minutes. A dental practice with two chairs or a three-truck HVAC company is in this range.
| Provider | Plan that fits | Monthly cost at 420 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Ultatel Starter | $49 + 170 minutes at $0.20 | $83 |
| Ultatel Growth | $149, 1,000 minutes included | $149 |
| Dialzara Business Plus | $199, 500 minutes included | $199 |
| Dialzara Business Pro | $99 + 200 minutes at $0.45 | $189 |
| My AI Front Desk | $99 + 220 minutes at $0.25 | $154 |
| Goodcall Growth | $129 (if those calls come from under 500 unique customers) | $129 |
| Smith.ai Basic (human) | $810 for 90 calls + 30 calls at $10.50 | $1,125 |
| Ruby (human) | $1,725 for 500 minutes | $1,725 |
Two things stand out. The entry plan with the lowest price is rarely the cheapest month once you pass its allowance; the overage rate matters more than the sticker. And the gap between software and people is not 20 or 30 percent, it is ten to twenty times, which is why the question for most small businesses is not “AI or a human service” but “AI or voicemail”.
The costs that are not on the pricing page
- Annual commitments. Several providers show the annual price by default and the monthly price in small type. Pay monthly until you have seen two or three real months of usage.
- Credits instead of minutes. Overage billed in “credits” with an auto-reload hides the per-minute rate. Convert it: My AI Front Desk’s 25 credits a minute at $10 per 1,000 credits is $0.25 a minute.
- Minimum call length and rounding. Some services round every call up to the next minute, or count a call that reached voicemail. Ask how a 15-second hang-up is billed.
- Add-ons. A second language, SMS follow-up, web chat and CRM connections are often extra. On Ultatel, English or Spanish is included (one language per agent), Zapier, Make and webhooks are on every plan, and web chat and SMS channels come with Growth and Scale.
- Setup and onboarding fees. Human services sometimes charge them; self-serve AI products do not, because you set it up yourself.
- Per-call pricing on short calls. On a per-call plan, every wrong number and every “are you open?” costs the same as a full intake. If a third of your calls are under a minute, per-minute pricing wins.
- The cost of not answering. This is the one that dwarfs the rest. If one missed call a month was a $300 job or a $900 patient, the plan paid for itself before the second week.
What Ultatel charges, in full
| Plan | Price | Minutes | Overage | Includes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $49 a month | 250 | $0.20 a minute | Answers 24/7, books into Google Calendar, FAQs from your website and documents, messages and text summaries, hand-off to a human, HubSpot (one-way), Zapier, Make and webhooks |
| Growth | $149 a month | 1,000 | $0.15 a minute | Everything in Starter plus Microsoft 365, Calendly and GoHighLevel booking; HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, Zoho, Zendesk, GHL and ServiceNow; web chat and SMS channels |
| Scale | $399 a month | 3,000 | $0.13 a minute | Everything in Growth plus priority support and an onboarding call |
Every plan: 14-day free trial (card required, nothing is charged until day 15), no contract, cancel any time from your billing page, English or Spanish, HIPAA compliant, built on the business phone platform Ultatel has run since 2016 for more than 50,000 users.
How to size your plan
- Count last month’s inbound calls. Your phone system or carrier shows it; if not, count a normal week and multiply by 4.3.
- Multiply by three and a half minutes unless you know your average. Intake-heavy businesses (law firms, clinics taking new patients) run four to five minutes; retail and trades run two to three.
- Decide what the AI answers. Everything, or only after-hours and overflow? Many businesses start with after-hours, which is typically 25 to 35 percent of calls, and widen from there.
- Pick the plan whose included minutes are just above that number. With a 14-day trial you will know your real minutes before the first invoice.
A two-dentist practice with 300 calls a month that starts with after-hours and overflow is around 100 calls, 350 minutes: Starter plus about $20 of overage, or Growth for headroom. A solo attorney with 60 calls a month at four and a half minutes is 270 minutes: Starter, with a few dollars of overage in a busy month.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free AI receptionist?
Not a usable one for a business line. Some providers offer a free demo agent you can call but not connect to your number, and most offer a seven to fourteen day trial. Free tiers that exist cap minutes so low that a normal week exhausts them.
Why is Ultatel cheaper than an answering service?
Because no person is on the call. An answering service pays an agent for every minute, so it needs $250 a month to cover 50 minutes. Software costs the same whether it takes one call or forty at once, so the price can follow the minutes you actually use.
What happens if I go over my minutes?
On Ultatel the extra minutes are billed at the plan’s overage rate ($0.20, $0.15 or $0.13 a minute) and the agent keeps answering; it never stops taking calls because an allowance ran out. If you go over regularly, moving up a plan is cheaper than the overage.
Start a free trial of Ultatel’s AI receptionist: set it up yourself in under ten minutes. 14-day trial, card required, nothing charged until day 15, cancel any time from your billing page. New to the category? Start with what an AI receptionist is and how it works.
