AI receptionist vs answering service vs voicemail: costs and trade-offs

Voicemail: free, until you count the lost jobs

Voicemail is included with nearly every business line, so it costs nothing extra. The cost shows up elsewhere. A caller who needs a plumber tonight, or a new patient choosing a dentist, may hang up and call the next name in the results instead of leaving a message. When they do leave one, you call back later, and by then they may have booked someone else.

Voicemail works when callers are already your customers and expect a callback. It works poorly for new business, for urgent after-hours work, and for any job that goes to whoever answers first.

What a live answering service costs

Live answering services sell bundles of minutes or calls each month. Two of the best known publish their prices: Ruby’s receptionist plans start at $250 a month for 50 minutes, and Smith.ai’s live receptionist plans start at $300 a month for 30 calls, with $11.50 for each call over. Both were checked on their own sites in October 2026; plans and overage rates change, so confirm before you buy.

What you get is a person: good with an upset caller and flexible with an odd question. The trade-offs are the cost per call, which adds up in a busy month, and the script. The agent knows what you wrote down for them, and books into your calendar only if the plan and your software support it.

What an AI receptionist costs

Ours starts from $750 for setup, half when you sign and half at launch, then $249 a month from launch. That includes 300 call-minutes a month; past that, minutes are $0.25 each. The phone number and texts are passed through at cost on your invoice. Month to month, with no minimum term; cancel with 30 days’ notice.

For that, it answers calls on your number, day or night. It asks the questions you would ask, books an open time from Google Calendar or Cal.com, sends urgent calls to your on-call number and texts you a summary. Every call is recorded and transcribed, so you can read exactly what was said.

It is set up not to guess. It does not diagnose a fault, quote a price you have not given it, or take a payment; when it does not know, it offers a callback. It says it is an automated assistant in the first sentence of every call. The full details and an example call are on the AI receptionist page.

How to compare prices for your own calls

Start from your call log. Count the calls you miss in a month and how long a typical call runs. A plan priced per call gets expensive with many short calls. A plan priced per minute gets expensive when calls run long. A flat monthly with included minutes is the easiest to predict.

• Few missed calls, mostly from existing customers: voicemail and a fast callback may be enough
• Calls that need a human every time, such as upset clients or sensitive intake: a live service, or a receptionist that transfers those calls to you
• After-hours and on-the-job calls from new customers who want a time booked: an AI receptionist

Can you combine them?

Yes. A common setup is the AI receptionist after hours and during the rush, with urgent calls transferred to your on-call phone. Some owners forward only when the front desk is busy. You keep your number either way: you forward it, and you can cancel the forwarding yourself at any time.

If you want a text to go out the moment a call rings out, that is missed-call text-back, quoted after a free call. We set up the receptionist for dentists, HVAC companies, plumbers, salons, law firms and auto repair shops. To see what a missed call costs before you choose, read how to stop missing customer calls.