How much does an AI receptionist cost? Real price bands and the fees nobody lists up front.

What you are paying for

Every AI receptionist bill is made of the same parts, even when the pricing page bundles them:

• Usage. Minutes of talk time, number of calls, or number of unique callers. This is the biggest variable.
• Features by tier. Taking messages is cheap. Booking into a calendar, transferring calls and texting usually sit on higher tiers.
• Phone and texting costs. A number, plus carrier fees and registration if it sends texts.
• Integrations. Connecting to Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, a CRM or a dental system.
• Setup and upkeep. Writing the script, testing it and fixing weak answers. You either do this yourself or pay someone.

The four price bands below differ mostly in the last two.

Band 1: DIY apps under $100 a month

Plan	Price	Includes
Dialzara Business Lite	$29/mo	60 minutes, then $0.48/min
Jobber AI Receptionist	$29/mo add-on	Answers calls and texts, takes requests, books into Jobber; included on Jobber Plus
Rosie Professional	$49/mo	250 minutes, 24/7 answering, message-taking, booking links by text, no transfers
Smith.ai AI Receptionist	Free	25 calls a month, then $3.00 per call

These work when calls are simple and you’re willing to set it up yourself: upload your hours, services and FAQ, record a greeting, forward your line. The limits are real, though. Low tiers often take messages instead of booking, and the included minutes run out fast in a busy week.

Band 2: self-serve plans from $100 to $350

Plan	Price	Includes
Dialzara Business Pro / Plus / Elite	$99 / $199 / $349	220 / 500 / 1,000 minutes; $0.45 / $0.40 / $0.35 per extra minute
Rosie Scale / Growth	$149 / $299	1,000 / 2,000 minutes; calendar booking, warm and live transfers
Smith.ai AI Pro	$150	75 calls, then $2.50 per call

This is where most self-serve tools put calendar booking, call transfers and more minutes. You still do the setup and the tuning yourself.

Band 3: trade platforms from about $450

Some platforms are built for one kind of business and connect deeply to its software. Sameday, aimed at home services, lists Launch at $449 a month for 500 minutes and three locations, and Scale at $789 for 1,000 minutes, both with scheduling into field-service tools like ServiceTitan. Its Enterprise plan is priced on request. Many trade platforms don’t publish prices at all, so expect a sales call.

You pay for the integration. If your business runs on ServiceTitan or a dental practice system, booking straight into it is worth a lot more than a message you retype the next morning.

Band 4: done-for-you, setup fee plus monthly

At this level someone else builds and runs it: they learn your business, write the script and emergency rules, connect your tools, test it and review calls every month. Dialzara’s Done for You starts at $1,500 a month. Agencies typically charge a one-time setup fee plus a monthly fee.

Our own plans sit in this band. We list them here so you can compare, not because they fit everyone:

Ammett plan	Monthly	Setup	Usage included	Over the limit
Answer	$249	$500	300 voice minutes	$0.25 per minute
Book	$590	$1,500	600 minutes + 500 texts or chats	$0.22 per minute, $0.05 per message
Front Desk	$1,190	$2,500	1,200 minutes + 1,500 messages	$0.20 per minute, $0.04 per message

Answer covers calls and sends you summaries. Book adds booking into your calendar, Jobber or Housecall Pro, and texting. Front Desk covers every channel, including web forms and Google Local Services leads. Every plan says it’s an AI assistant and that the call is recorded. Details are on the AI receptionist page and plans.

Hidden costs to check before you sign

• Overage. Read the per-minute or per-call rate past your allowance. Dialzara lists $0.35 to $0.48 per extra minute by plan; Smith.ai’s AI plans list $2.10 to $3.00 per extra call. Some pricing pages don’t state overage at all, so ask.
• What counts. Minutes, calls and unique callers are different units. A plan that counts calls costs more if your calls are short and frequent; one that counts minutes costs more if they’re long.
• Phone numbers. If the vendor gives you a number, it’s often included. If you build on a carrier like Twilio, a local number is $1.15 a month and each text segment costs $0.0083 plus carrier fees.
• A2P 10DLC registration. Any business texting from a regular 10-digit number must register its brand and campaign with US carriers. Twilio lists a one-time brand fee from $4 ($44 for standard brands), a one-time $15 campaign vetting fee and $1.50 to $10 a month per campaign. Registration is not instant, so start before launch.
• Integrations. Booking into field-service or practice software is often on a higher tier, a separate fee, or not possible without API access on your own account.
• Your time. A self-serve app is cheap partly because you are the one writing and fixing the script.

How to estimate your minutes

1. Pull a month of call logs from your phone provider: number of calls and average length.
2. Decide which calls the AI takes. All of them, only after hours, or only overflow when the office is busy. For after-hours only, count only those calls.
3. Multiply. For example, 150 after-hours calls a month at about 3 minutes each is roughly 450 minutes. This is an illustration, not a benchmark; use your own numbers.
4. Add a buffer for your busiest month, a heat wave or storm season for trades, January for dental.
5. Compare plans at that number, including overage, not just the sticker price.

When a cheap app is enough

A plan under $100 is often enough if most calls are simple questions or requests for a callback, you don’t need booking into specialized software, you have no emergency routing, and you’re willing to spend a few hours setting it up and reading transcripts each week.

Pay more when a missed or mishandled call is expensive: emergency trades where callers move on to the next company if nobody answers, offices that need bookings in their field-service or practice software, or businesses running ads where every lead costs money. If you’d rather compare the AI options with a live answering service first, read AI receptionist vs answering service.

Not sure what your calls look like? A free audit looks at how your business answers today and what to fix first.