How much does an AI receptionist cost?

An AI receptionist usually costs from free entry tiers to $150 per month on entry AI receptionist plans (higher tiers reach $299 per month), or from $0.07–$0.99 per minute on usage-based models in the United States, based on vendor pricing verified October 4, 2026. The cheapest structure depends on whether the vendor bills per minute, per call, per conversation, or per unique caller, so the real answer to how much does an AI receptionist cost is volume- and call-length-dependent. For buyers comparing AI receptionist pricing with an AI phone answering service or live answering service, the main variables are included usage, overage rates, billing granularity, and add-on costs such as phone numbers, telephony, integrations, or seat licenses.

How much does an AI receptionist cost per month?

A public-market answer is that AI receptionist cost starts at free or low-cost plans and runs into hundreds of dollars per month before enterprise custom pricing. In the United States, as of October 2026, public entry points range from Free for ElevenLabs Agents with 15 minutes, Free for Smith.ai AI Receptionist with 25 calls per month, and $24.95 per month for Upfirst with 30 calls, up to $99 per month for My AI Front Desk with 200 minutes and $49 per month for RingCentral AI Receptionist standalone with 100 minutes.

Monthly plans vary because usage is packaged differently.

Some AI answering service cost models are usage-based rather than monthly-plan-first. Retell AI lists $0 per month platform and $0.07–$0.31 per minute, verified October 4, 2026 on the vendor pricing page. Bland AI lists Start at $0.14 per minute with $0 platform and Build at $299 per month plus $0.12 per minute, verified October 4, 2026 on the vendor pricing page.

In practice: if your call volume is predictable, a monthly plan can be easier to budget, but if your call volume swings by season or after hours, a pure usage model can be cheaper.

Which AI receptionist is the cheapest?

The cheapest AI receptionist is not one vendor in all cases, because units differ across plans. A free AI receptionist tier exists on public pricing from ElevenLabs Agents at 15 minutes and Smith.ai AI Receptionist at 25 calls per month, both verified October 4, 2026.

Among paid plans, the lowest advertised monthly entry price in the provided market set is ElevenLabs Agents Starter at $6 per month for 75 minutes, verified October 4, 2026. Among usage-based minute rates, the lowest public starting platform-hosting figure in the set is Vapi at $0.05 per minute hosting, but Vapi also states STT, LLM, and TTS are passed through at cost and estimates an all-in range of $0.082–$0.129 per minute for 1,000 minutes, verified October 4, 2026.

For more complete per-minute pricing, Retell AI shows $0.11 per minute for a default build in its calculator and $0.125 per minute with Retell US telephony, verified October 4, 2026. Rosie lists $49 per month for 250 minutes, which implies $0.196 per minute on the included allowance, verified October 4, 2026 from the vendor pricing page.

A caution on “cheapest ai receptionist” comparisons: Smith.ai AI Receptionist is $2.00 per call on its $150 per month Pro plan for 75 calls, but that is not directly comparable with a per-minute vendor unless you know average call duration. Goodcall lists $79 per month per agent for 100 unique callers, which the dataset derives as $0.79 per unique caller, but unique callers are not the same as minutes or calls.

In practice: the cheapest option for short, simple calls may be per-call pricing, while the cheapest option for longer calls is often per-minute billing with low rounding.

Is there a free AI receptionist?

Yes, there are free public entry tiers, but they are limited. ElevenLabs Agents lists Free with 15 minutes, verified October 4, 2026, and Smith.ai AI Receptionist lists Free with 25 calls per month, verified October 4, 2026.

Free does not usually mean fully free deployment at scale. ElevenLabs states LLM costs are billed separately and burst minutes cost $0.16 per minute, verified October 4, 2026. Smith.ai AI Receptionist bills extra calls at $2.17–$2.50, verified October 4, 2026.

There are also “free platform” structures that still charge for usage. Retell AI lists $0 per month platform with usage from $0.07–$0.31 per minute, plus a phone number at $2 per month and possible charges for premium voices or extra concurrency at $8 per month, verified October 4, 2026. Bland AI lists Start at $0.14 per minute with $0 platform, verified October 4, 2026.

In practice: a free AI receptionist is realistic for testing call flows, but not usually for production volumes once minutes, telephony, or overages start accruing.

Per-minute vs flat monthly plans: which is cheaper at your call volume?

Per-minute pricing is usually cheaper at low or uncertain volume, while flat monthly plans can become cheaper if you consistently use most of the included minutes. The break-even depends on your actual minutes, average call length, and whether the vendor bills per second, per minute, or per conversation.

Below is an illustrative comparison using only public figures from the market set and simple arithmetic.

How we calculated this

The formula for pure usage pricing is minutes × rate. The formula for mixed plans is monthly fee + overage minutes × overage rate, after subtracting the included minutes.

These are illustrative totals, not guaranteed bills. They exclude taxes, implementation, integrations, premium voices, compliance add-ons, phone-system seat licenses, and any rounding effects unless the vendor publicly states them.

Billing granularity matters. Retell AI states per-second billing with no rounding per call, verified October 4, 2026. RingCentral AI Receptionist states 30-second increments rounded up, verified October 4, 2026. As a reference example of transparent usage billing, Yulio states per-second billing and that hold, waiting, and idle time are not billed, with enterprise volume pricing starting from $0.12 per minute, verified October 4, 2026.

In practice: if your calls are short or spiky, favor per-second billing; if your calls are long and stable, focus more on the effective per-minute rate than on the headline monthly fee.

Hidden costs: numbers, overage minutes, integrations, setup

The headline AI receptionist cost is often not the full bill. The most common hidden or less-visible costs in public pricing are telephony, phone numbers, overages, compliance options, transfers, and required base subscriptions.

Examples from public pricing include the following.

• Retell AI lists a phone number at $2 per month, premium voices, and extra concurrency at $8 per month, verified October 4, 2026.
• Bland AI lists transfer time at $0.04–$0.05 per minute, verified October 4, 2026.
• Vapi lists HIPAA at $2,000 per month, verified October 4, 2026.
• JustCall AI Voice Agent requires a JustCall subscription with a minimum of 2 licenses, and the help center says contact sales, verified October 4, 2026.
• RingCentral AI Receptionist add-on requires a RingEX license, verified October 4, 2026.
• Nextiva XBert requires a Nextiva plan, verified October 4, 2026.
• ElevenLabs Agents excludes LLM costs from the stated $0.08 per minute effective rate and charges burst minutes at $0.16 per minute, verified October 4, 2026.
• Synthflow pricing starts from $30,000 per year under an annual enterprise contract, with scoped volume and integrations, verified October 4, 2026.

Some enterprise vendors do not publish enough detail for a reliable self-serve estimate. PolyAI pricing is not public and is contact sales, verified October 4, 2026. For these products, setup, support, and integration costs are Not publicly disclosed.

In practice: before choosing a plan, ask whether the published price includes telephony, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, LLM usage, transfers, CRM integrations, and compliance requirements.

How to estimate your monthly AI receptionist bill

A useful estimate starts with one month of call logs, then applies each vendor’s unit and overage rules. For an AI phone answering service, the key inputs are total minutes, total calls, average call length, percentage of calls transferred, and whether usage is business-hours only or 24/7.

Step-by-step formula

1. Start with your monthly call volume in minutes and calls.
2. Match the vendor’s billing unit: per minute, per call, per conversation, per interaction, or per unique caller.
3. Subtract any included minutes or calls from the plan.
4. Multiply the remaining usage by the overage rate.
5. Add fixed monthly fees, required licenses, phone numbers, and any compliance add-ons.

Human benchmark comparison

An AI receptionist is often cheaper than a live answering service or in-house labor on a direct usage basis, but the comparison should be made carefully.

One illustrative public cost model from Yulio states that at 20,000 calls a month, 5-minute average call, 25 agents at $700 per agent per month, and AI handling 60% of calls, the modeled annual cost reduction is $78,480 and cost per call is $0.88 today vs $0.33 per AI-handled call, with assumptions that AI calls take 60% of today’s average call time and that payroll falls in proportion to calls moved to AI; implementation, telephony, taxes, and retained staff are excluded. That is an illustrative vendor model, not a market average or guarantee.

In practice: compare your current cost per answered call against each vendor’s billable unit, and test what happens if only after-hours or overflow calls are automated first.

What is declining?

Legacy “virtual receptionist” demand appears to be losing search share relative to AI-labeled terms. US search data from Google Trends, October 2026, shows interest in “ai receptionist,” “ai call center,” and “ai voice agent” rose from near zero before 2024 to first-half 2026 half-year averages of 47, 65, and 58 on a 0–100 scale, while “virtual receptionist” stayed in a 5–19 range.

US search data from Google Ads datasets summarized in October 2026 shows “virtual receptionist” searches fell about 72% year over year while AI-labeled queries grew. That does not mean live answering services are disappearing, but it does suggest that more buyers now begin cost research under terms such as AI receptionist pricing or AI answering service cost rather than legacy terminology.

In practice: if you are benchmarking vendors, compare AI products against both live answering services and older IVR stacks, because buyer language is shifting faster than operations budgets.

For adjacent benchmarks, see AI voice agent per-minute pricing, compare with a human receptionist, and all AI call center costs.

Bottom line

• Public US pricing for AI receptionist cost ranges from free entry tiers to $150 per month on entry AI receptionist plans and up to $299 per month on higher tiers, or from $0.07–$0.99 per minute on usage-based models, as verified October 4, 2026.
• The cheapest AI receptionist depends on the billing unit and your call pattern, so compare per minute, per call, and per conversation only after stating average call length and overage assumptions.
• Hidden costs matter as much as headline price, so the next step is to map your real call volume and transfer rate before choosing between flat plans and usage billing.

If you want to narrow this to your own call volume, the plan table and break-even math are the right place to start.