Adam Pichardo 
The Short Answer
How much does an answering service cost? As of October 2026, a live (human) answering service costs about $99 to $400 a month at low volume (50 to 100 minutes, or 30 calls) and about $480 to $2,100 a month once you need 300 to 500 minutes or 300 calls. Per-minute plans work out to roughly $1.50 to $5.00 per minute, per-call plans to about $7.00 to $11.50 per call, and AI answering plans run about $29 to $500 a month. Most of the large services we checked include nights, weekends, and holidays at the listed price and charge no setup fee, but overage rates, minute rounding, and contract terms move the real bill well away from the sticker.
Those numbers come from the published pricing pages of PATLive, Ruby, Abby Connect, Moneypenny, Davinci, Jill's Office, Smith.ai, Dialzara, and Goodcall, all checked on October 13, 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a number, I say so instead of guessing, and the full list is in the sources at the bottom. If you are pricing a virtual receptionist specifically (the same services, sold under a different name), I wrote a companion breakdown on how much a virtual receptionist costs with a worked month for a small plumbing shop.
One disclosure upfront: we set up and run AI answering systems for a living, so I am not neutral on the last section. The market numbers are straight regardless. You cannot make a good call on any option, ours included, without a real picture of what the others cost.
Key Takeaways
| Point | Details |
|---|---|
| Three meters, not one price | Per-minute (most live services), per-call (Smith.ai is the best-known example), and flat or tiered AI plans. Compare within a meter first, then across. |
| Live per-minute plans: about $99 to $1,725 a month | Entry tiers start at 50 minutes. Effective rates land between about $1.50 and $5.00 a minute depending on vendor and tier. |
| Live per-call plans: about $300 to $2,100 a month | 30 calls for $300 up to 300 calls for $2,100, with overage calls at $8.50 to $11.50 each. |
| AI plans: about $29 to $500 a month | Overage is cents per minute or a couple of dollars per call. Watch caps on unique callers and per-agent limits. |
| After-hours is usually included now | PATLive, Ruby, Smith.ai, Abby, and Jill's Office all state nights, weekends, and holidays are covered at the plan price. Ask anyone who does not say so in writing. |
| The bill lives in the fine print | Rounding increments, after-call work, overage tiers, weekly account fees, setup fees on short-term plans, and non-refundable annual prepayment. |
Answering Service Pricing Models
Answering service pricing comes in a handful of shapes. Each one suits a different call pattern, and buying the wrong shape is the most common way owners overpay.
| Pricing model | How it bills | Published examples (October 2026) | Best for | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly minute bundle | A block of receptionist minutes each month, with per-minute overage above it | PATLive $99 for 50 minutes; Ruby $250 for 50; Abby $165 for 50; Moneypenny $165 for 50 | Short, predictable calls | Rounding, after-call work, tier jumps |
| Pay as you go | A small base fee plus every minute at a flat rate | PATLive $49 a month plus $2.99 per minute | Very low or seasonal volume | The per-minute rate is the highest on the ladder |
| Account fee plus usage | A recurring account fee, then minutes billed on a sliding scale | Jill's Office $39 to $89 a week plus $1.30 to $2.50 per minute | Owners who want to pay only for minutes used | The account fee bills whether or not calls come in |
| Per call | A fixed price per handled call, any length | Smith.ai $300 for 30 calls, $810 for 90, $2,100 for 300 | Long calls, like legal intake | What counts as a call |
| AI plan | Flat monthly tiers with minute, call, or unique-caller caps | Dialzara $29 for 60 minutes; Goodcall $79 for 100 unique customers; Smith.ai AI from free to $500 | Routine calls, overflow, after hours | Caps, per-agent limits, notice periods |
Two things are missing from the old rule-of-thumb answer that most pricing guides still repeat. First, the cheap per-minute numbers you see quoted ($0.75 to $1.50 a minute) do not show up on the published pages of the big U.S. live services we checked. The lowest effective rate we found was PATLive at about $1.50 a minute on its 1,000-minute tier. Second, after-hours coverage has mostly stopped being an add-on at the large services. It is built into the plan, which matters if after-hours is the whole reason you are shopping.
Answering Service Cost per Month, by Volume
This is the table I would want if I were shopping. Same minute counts, five live services, list prices from each vendor's pricing page on October 13, 2026. It is a snapshot, not a quote; vendors change these.
| Minutes per month | PATLive | Davinci | Moneypenny | Abby Connect | Ruby |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | $99 | $129 | $165 | $165 | $250 |
| 100 | $189 | $239 | $265 | $329 | $395 |
| 200 | $349 | Not listed | $422 | $599 | $720 |
| 500 | $759 | Not listed | $985 | $1,380 | $1,725 |
| Effective rate, 50 minutes | $1.98/min | $2.58/min | $3.30/min | $3.30/min | $5.00/min |
| Effective rate, 500 minutes | $1.52/min | Not listed | $1.97/min | $2.76/min | $3.45/min |
| Published overage | $2.29 to $1.69/min by tier | Not listed | $2.28 to $1.67/min by tier | Your plan's per-minute rate | Not on the pricing page |
Davinci's figures are its Business plans; its Premium plans are $249 for 50 minutes and $319 for 100. Jill's Office does not fit the table because it bills a weekly account fee plus usage: on its Receptionist plan, minutes run from $2.00 each for the first 49 down to $1.30 past 450 on the weekly plan, or $1.70 down to $1.20 on an annual plan.
So what is the average cost of an answering service? Nobody publishes a true industry average, and I would be wary of anyone who quotes one to the dollar. What the published plans do show: a small business using 100 to 200 minutes a month lands somewhere between about $190 and $720, and the spread inside that range is mostly vendor positioning. Ruby sells a higher-touch, U.S.-based receptionist and prices like it. PATLive sells volume and prices like that. Both are honest about it.
Per-Call Pricing
Per-call billing charges a fixed amount for every call a receptionist handles, however long it runs. Smith.ai is the most visible live service on this model, and its October 2026 pricing page reads:
| Smith.ai plan | Monthly price | Included calls | Effective per call | Overage per call |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $300 | 30 | $10.00 | $11.50 |
| Basic | $810 | 90 | $9.00 | $10.50 |
| Pro | $2,100 | 300 | $7.00 | $8.50 |
The same page says there are no setup fees, a 2pm call and a 2am call cost the same, plans are month to month with a 10 percent discount for a 12-month subscription, and spam and unsolicited sales calls are not charged as long as your forwarded line passes caller ID.
Per-call math favors long conversations. A ten-minute legal intake at $9.00 a call is $0.90 a minute, far below any per-minute plan above. It flips for short calls: a two-minute "are you open Saturday?" at $10.00 a call is $5.00 a minute. Pull your average call length from your phone system before you choose a meter. That one number usually picks the model for you.
The Hidden Costs Below the Sticker
None of these are secrets. Almost all of them are disclosed in a FAQ or a help center article. They just are not on the page with the big price.
- Minute rounding. PATLive's FAQ says it bills the first minute in full, then in six-second increments. Ruby's FAQ and help center say receptionist minutes are billed in 60-second increments, rounded up. Jill's Office bills in 15-second increments and does not bill calls of 15 seconds or less. Across a month of short calls, those three policies produce noticeably different bills for identical traffic.
- Billable time that is not talk time. Ruby's help center says billable time includes time a receptionist spends finishing your call information after the caller hangs up, and includes hold time. That is fair (the notes are work), but a 90-second call can bill as more than two minutes. Jill's Office caps call-note time at three minutes and billable call time at 15 minutes per call. A warm transfer can bill both legs, as the OnceHub cost guide notes.
- Overage priced to push you up a tier. On PATLive, 100 minutes is $189 and every minute past that is $2.09. On Moneypenny, the 200-minute plan's overage is $1.91 a minute. Buy for your busiest month, not your average one.
- Setup and account fees. PATLive, Ruby, Abby, Smith.ai, and Dialzara all say no setup fee. Jill's Office charges a $599 one-time setup on its weekly plans and waives it on annual plans, and its weekly account fee starts on the second Monday after signup whether or not you are onboarded yet. OnceHub puts typical setup at $0 to $99 across the market.
- After-hours and holiday surcharges. Less common than they used to be. PATLive, Ruby, Smith.ai, and Jill's Office all state that nights, weekends, and holidays are included at the plan price, and Abby says its 24/7 option has no weekend upcharge. Where a surcharge does exist, OnceHub reports it can add 20 to 30 percent for a business whose calls skew to evenings. We could not find a published holiday rate on any major U.S. pricing page, so if a vendor quotes one, get it in writing.
- Texting, numbers, and porting. PATLive charges a one-time $50 registration fee to turn on business texting, and its FAQ says porting a number in or out is free. Ask everyone else, because porting is the fee OnceHub flags as most variable.
- Bilingual and add-on modules. OnceHub reports bilingual coverage typically runs 10 to 20 percent more, and appointment setting is often a separate module. Check whether the plan you are quoted already includes the calendar integration you need.
- Contract, notice, and prepayment. Most large services are month to month now. The exceptions sit in the details: Moneypenny and Smith.ai's AI plan ask for 30 days' notice to cancel, and Jill's Office states annual payments are non-refundable. The annual discount is real; so is the lock.
- Spam and wrong numbers. On a per-call or per-minute plan, robocalls cost money unless they are filtered. Smith.ai filters known spammers and does not bill spam; ask every other vendor how they handle it.
Pro tip: ask for a sample invoice for a business your size, with the minute or call count shown, before you sign. A rate card tells you the price of a minute. An invoice tells you how many minutes your calls become.
AI Answering vs Live Agents
AI answering is the fastest-moving part of this market, and the pricing reflects the fact that there is no person on the clock. Here is how the two compare on published October 2026 numbers.
| Live answering service | AI answering plan | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical published price | About $99 to $1,725 a month per minute bundle; $300 to $2,100 a month per call | About $29 to $500 a month |
| Overage | About $1.49 to $2.99 a minute, or $8.50 to $11.50 a call | Dialzara $0.35 to $0.48 a minute; Goodcall $0.15 to $0.79 per extra unique customer; Smith.ai AI $2.17 to $3.00 a call |
| Nights, weekends, holidays | Usually included at the large services | Included; software does not charge overtime |
| Handles well | Judgment calls, upset callers, unusual requests, nuance | Hours and location questions, booking, intake questions, routing, overflow, 2am calls |
| Weak spots | Cost climbs with volume; quality varies by agent and shift | Only as good as its script and setup; edge cases need a human handoff |
| Who configures it | The vendor's onboarding team, from your script | Usually you, unless someone runs it for you |
The line between the two is blurring. Abby counts an AI minute as half of one of its billable minutes. Jill's Office sells an AI Assist overflow add-on at 75 cents a minute that hands off to live rates when a caller needs a person. Moneypenny sells AI answering by the call, from $69 for 25 calls to $435 for 250, with human escalation. Smith.ai's AI receptionist starts free at 25 calls and climbs to $150 and $500 tiers. Most of the market is heading toward the same hybrid shape: AI on the first layer, a person when it matters.
The honest tradeoff on the cheap AI plans is labor. The software is inexpensive because you are writing the script, wiring the calendar, and listening to recordings to figure out why it booked a Sunday. I wrote up how that choice plays out for an HVAC shop, a law firm, and a med spa in AI voice agent vs answering service. If after-hours calls are your specific problem, the after hours answering service page covers how we handle the night shift, and the 24/7 answering service page covers round-the-clock coverage.
Answering Service vs an In-House Receptionist
Every vendor compares itself to a salary, and most get the salary wrong in their own favor. The government's numbers: the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook puts the May 2025 median receptionist wage at $18.27 an hour, or $38,010 a year. The BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation release for June 2026 reports benefits at 30.0 percent of private-industry total compensation. Apply that load to the median wage and a full-time front-desk hire is roughly $54,300 a year, or about $4,525 a month.
That buys 40 hours of a 168-hour week, minus lunch, sick days, and vacation. A person on payroll is the right answer for plenty of businesses, because a person also greets walk-ins, takes payments, and knows your regulars by name. They are the wrong answer for the 6pm to 8am gap, which is where contractors and clinics lose the most calls. That is why so many shops end up with both: a person during the day and a service, live or AI, behind them.
How to Budget Before You Sign
Two numbers decide your plan: monthly call count and average call length. Get both from your phone carrier or system for the last 30 to 60 days rather than estimating them, because owners usually guess low.
- Pull call count and average length. Multiply them for talk minutes, then add a buffer for rounding and after-call notes if you are looking at a per-minute plan, and check that buffer against a sample invoice from the vendor.
- Pick the meter. Work out the break-even. Against a plan that costs about $2.00 a minute, a $9.00 per-call plan breaks even at four and a half minutes; against a $3.45 a minute plan, at about two and a half. Longer calls favor per-call, shorter calls favor per-minute.
- Size for your busiest month. Overage rates are set to make the next tier look cheap.
- Price the after-hours share separately. If a third of your calls come after 5pm, confirm in writing that those minutes cost the same.
- Read the exit. Notice period, refund policy on prepayment, and whether your phone number, call logs, and scripts come with you.
For a side-by-side of how virtual answering services stack up by feature, see the virtual answering service guide. For the AI side specifically, the AI answering service for small business guide goes deeper.
What the Price Tags Don't Tell You
I've worked with enough small business owners to know the monthly fee is rarely the number that matters most. What matters is what a missed call is worth to you.
A contractor who misses three calls in a week because the phone went to voicemail after hours doesn't have a phone coverage problem. He has a revenue problem. The only way to judge any price on this page is to set it next to the value of one booked job in your business, then ask how many of those you are currently sending to voicemail. For an emergency plumber that math is quick. For a shop that mostly gets "what are your hours," it may say a cheaper plan is plenty.
The mistake I see most is shopping for the lowest rate without that number in hand. Owners compare plans like utility bills. Phone coverage is not a utility. It is where new customers either reach you or reach the next listing down.
The other thing worth saying plainly: test before you commit. Start month to month, even if it costs slightly more, and prove the service handles your actual calls before you sign up for a year. The businesses that get the most out of any answering service treat it as a living system. They read the call logs, fix the script, and change tiers when the volume says to.
— Adam
A Plan Run for You, Not Another Tool to Run
Every AI plan in this article shares the same fine print: the software is the cheap part, and you are the labor. Most owners did not lose the lead because a tool was missing. They lost it because nobody had time to run the tool. So we run it for you: a hosted CRM with the AI already wired in, set up and managed for your shop, live in about two weeks, and priced in the same range as the do-it-yourself AI receptionist plans, at one flat monthly price. The pieces most shops start with:
- Voice AI receptionist. Answers, qualifies, and books onto your calendar day or night, connected to the CRM or field software you already use, and hands the call to a person when it needs one. See the after-hours answering service.
- Speed to lead. A new form fill, ad lead, or missed call gets a text back right away, while the customer is still shopping. More on why the first few minutes decide the job.
- Database reactivation. The old leads and past customers already sitting in your system get a conversational text campaign that books the ones who are ready now. Related: why leads go quiet and how to restart them.
- AI social replies. Facebook and Instagram comments and DMs get answered and routed instead of sitting unread until Monday. The AI chatbot guide covers how those replies work.
Your contacts, your conversation history, and your phone number stay yours to export or port out if you leave. For shops that want the whole system on hardware they own, prompts, logs, and models included, the custom build below is the step up (about 30 days, since there is hardware to set up). Most shops start managed and grow into a rig, not the other way around.
When a Custom Build Makes Sense
Some shops want the whole answering system on hardware they control: the prompts, the call logs, and the models. For them we scope a custom build, live in about 30 days with the hardware, software, integrations, and compliance setup, and an optional managed plan after launch. You own the rig. For medical practices, both tiers are on the table: the managed HIPAA-compliant answering service runs on a HIPAA-compliant setup with a signed BAA, encrypted in transit and at rest, and the medical after-hours answering service is also available as a rig for practices that want patient data on hardware they control.
Sources
- BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Receptionists, May 2025 median wage $18.27 per hour, $38,010 per year
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 news release
- OnceHub: Answering Service Cost in 2026 (setup fee range, after-hours surcharge range, bilingual and transfer billing)
- PATLive, pricing page and FAQ (plans, overage, billing increments, texting fee, porting, holiday coverage), checked 2026-10-13
- Ruby, pricing page, FAQ, and help center billing article (plans, setup, 60-second rounding, after-call work), checked 2026-10-13
- Abby Connect, pricing page (plans, overage, AI minute rule), checked 2026-10-13
- Moneypenny US, pricing page (minute and AI call plans, overage, notice period), checked 2026-10-13
- Davinci Virtual, live receptionist page (Business and Premium plans), checked 2026-10-13
- Jill's Office, pricing page (account fees, per-minute tiers, setup, billing increments, refund policy, AI Assist), checked 2026-10-13
- Smith.ai, receptionist pricing page and AI receptionist pricing page (plans, overage, setup, spam, notice), checked 2026-10-13
- Dialzara, pricing page, checked 2026-10-13
- Goodcall, pricing page, checked 2026-10-13
Prices are published list prices on the date checked and change without notice. Confirm with the vendor before you sign, and get the billing policy in writing.
FAQ
How much does an answering service cost?
As of October 2026, published live answering service plans cost about $99 to $1,725 a month on per-minute billing and about $300 to $2,100 a month on per-call billing. AI answering plans run about $29 to $500 a month. Where your bill lands depends on call volume, call length, overage, and how the vendor rounds minutes.
How much does an answering service cost per month?
At 50 minutes a month, published live plans run from $99 (PATLive) to $250 (Ruby). At 200 minutes, they run from $349 to $720, and at 500 minutes from $759 to $1,725. Per-call plans start at $300 for 30 calls. Prices were checked on vendor pricing pages in October 2026.
How much do answering services charge per call or per minute?
Live services on minute bundles work out to roughly $1.50 to $5.00 per minute, with published overage between about $1.67 and $2.99 a minute. Per-call services charge about $7.00 to $10.00 per included call and $8.50 to $11.50 per overage call. AI plans meter in cents per minute or a few dollars per call.
What is the average cost of an answering service?
There is no published industry average. On October 2026 list prices, a small business using 100 to 200 receptionist minutes a month pays roughly $190 to $720 a month, depending mostly on the vendor's service level and positioning.
What is the difference between per-minute and per-call answering service pricing?
Per-minute plans bill receptionist time, usually rounded up in increments from six seconds to a full minute and sometimes including after-call notes. Per-call plans charge a fixed price per handled call regardless of length. Per-call favors long calls such as legal intake, and per-minute favors short calls.
Do answering services charge extra for after-hours, weekends, or holidays?
Most large U.S. services no longer do. PATLive, Ruby, Smith.ai, and Jill's Office state that nights, weekends, and holidays are included at the plan price. Some quote-based services still add surcharges, which one industry guide puts at 20 to 30 percent for evening-heavy businesses, so confirm in writing.
Do answering services charge setup fees?
Many do not. PATLive, Ruby, Abby Connect, Smith.ai, and Dialzara advertise no setup fee. Jill's Office charges $599 on its weekly plans and waives it on annual plans. Also ask about texting registration, number porting, and recurring account fees.
Is an AI answering service cheaper than a live answering service?
On published prices, yes. AI plans run about $29 to $500 a month with overage in cents per minute, while live services charge roughly $1.50 to $5.00 a minute. The tradeoff is setup and upkeep: someone has to write the script, connect the calendar, and review calls, and complex calls still need a human handoff.
Is an answering service cheaper than hiring a receptionist?
Usually. The BLS median receptionist wage was $18.27 an hour in May 2025, and with a 30 percent benefits load a full-time hire costs roughly $54,300 a year, about $4,525 a month, for business-hours coverage only. Most small businesses spend a fraction of that on an answering service that also covers nights and weekends.
What does Pulp AI Studio charge for an answering service?
Pulp AI Studio sets up and manages a hosted CRM with the AI built in: a voice AI receptionist, speed-to-lead text back, database reactivation, and AI social replies, at one flat monthly price in the same range as the do-it-yourself AI receptionist plans. Pricing is confirmed per shop on a short call rather than published as a tier.