AI Receptionist Cost: Plans, Usage and Real Bill Examples
An AI receptionist’s cost depends on what the provider counts: minutes, calls, unique callers, or a subscription plus usage. Current examples include Goodcall at $79/month for 100 unique customers and Smith.ai at $150/month for 75 AI calls. Carly offers free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month, with business calling, SMS and the AI receptionist billed separately as Organization add-ons. A starting price is not a complete phone bill.
This guide is published by Carly. We checked the linked public pricing pages on November 10, 2026. The calculations below are illustrative budgets, not customer invoices or evidence that one service performs better. Compare the same workload and required outcome before choosing a plan.
What are you actually buying?
Three subscriptions can all contain the words “AI phone” and still do different work. A business phone system lets employees answer. An AI assistant might summarize those employee conversations. An AI receptionist talks to the caller itself.
Before comparing prices, write the result you need in one sentence: “When the office is closed, answer questions about our services, book eligible consultations, and send exceptions to the office manager.” That is a different purchase from “give five employees a shared number and call recording.”
For a receptionist, price these outcomes separately:
- Taking a message: capture the caller’s name, callback number and request.
- Booking: check availability and create the right appointment, with the correct duration and location.
- Transferring: reach an available person and handle the case where nobody answers.
- Following up: send an appropriate confirmation and make the conversation available to staff.
A cheap message-taking plan can be the right purchase. It becomes the wrong comparison when its price is placed beside a service that includes a staffed escalation team or complex booking work.
Four billing models, with current examples
| Model | Published example | What changes the bill |
|---|---|---|
| Per unique customer | Goodcall Starter: $79/month, 100 unique customers, then $0.79 each | Different phone numbers served during the month |
| Per call | Smith.ai AI Pro: $150/month, 75 calls, then $2.50 per extra call | Number of billable conversations |
| Per minute, plus a phone subscription | Talkroute AI Starter: $59/month, 100 AI minutes, then $0.35/minute; an active Business Phone plan is required | Talk time, base phone plan and applicable extras |
| Seats plus separate phone and AI add-ons | Carly: Organization seats are $35/seat/month | Seats, selected add-ons and usage at the current rates |
Talkroute’s AI Receptionist was labeled Beta, with access requested through its pricing page when checked. Confirm availability before budgeting it as a service you can immediately deploy. Its entry Business Phone plan is $19/month, making the two listed Starter subscriptions $78/month before overages and other charges.
Goodcall defines a unique customer by phone number within the month. Repeat calls from that number do not create additional unique customers. Its estimated calls-per-month examples are not the unit it bills. Smith.ai’s per-call model counts conversations instead, so repeated callers can affect the two bills differently.
Example: 60 calls from 40 people
Suppose a small office receives 60 billable calls from 40 unique phone numbers, with three billable minutes per call. That is 180 minutes. Assume ordinary domestic calls, no multilingual surcharge, no extra messaging or transfers, and no taxes or other fees. These simplifying assumptions make the arithmetic visible; a quote must cover your actual conditions.
| Selected plan | Calculation | Illustrative amount |
|---|---|---|
| Goodcall Starter | 40 unique customers fit within 100 | $79 |
| Smith.ai AI Free | 25 calls included; 35 × $3 | $105 |
| Smith.ai AI Pro | 60 calls fit within 75 | $150 |
| Talkroute Basic + AI Starter | $19 + $59 + 80 extra minutes × $0.35 | $106 |
| Carly | Seat cost + applicable add-ons + usage | Requires a workload-specific estimate |
The Smith.ai Free calculation uses the published 25-call allowance and $3 overage. “Free” is the subscription label; it does not mean 60 calls cost nothing. Pro may offer support or setup benefits worth paying for, but it is not automatically the cheapest plan for every call count.
These are comparisons of selected plans, not claims that each is the vendor’s cheapest possible configuration. They also do not establish equivalent booking, integrations, human escalation or service quality.
Repeat callers can change which plan looks economical
Keep 40 unique callers but increase the total to 120 calls averaging three minutes. Goodcall Starter remains $79 under its published unique-customer model. Smith.ai AI Pro becomes $262.50: $150 plus 45 extra calls at $2.50. The selected Talkroute combination becomes $169: $19 plus $59 plus 260 extra minutes at $0.35.
That example is relevant to a business where existing customers call several times about the same job. It is less representative of an advertising campaign where almost every call comes from a new person. Neither workload is inherently better; they simply consume different billing units.
For a seasonal business, repeat the calculation for a quiet month and a busy month. Do not annualize your smallest invoice and assume it represents the year.
Fees to request in the quote
Phone numbers and the existing carrier
An AI service may answer calls forwarded from your current number. If so, your old phone subscription can remain an expense. Porting the number may remove some overlap, but it changes the migration and rollback plan.
Ask whether the quote includes the numbers you need, incoming and outgoing call legs, toll-free traffic and the destinations you actually use. A domestic small-business example does not establish international rates.
Transfers and human assistance
“Transfer to a person” can mean connecting to your employee, or escalating to a receptionist employed by the vendor. Those are different services. Ask who answers, which hours are covered, and what happens when the destination is unavailable.
A vendor’s own staff can be valuable when your team is asleep. If a system only rings the same unavailable owner, it has not supplied overnight human coverage.
Messaging and booking
Ask whether confirmations consume SMS segments or another allowance, and whether phone-number registration has a separate charge. For booking, identify the calendar and appointment types included in the proposal. A link sent to the caller and an appointment created during the call are different outcomes.
Do not assume a broad “integrations included” statement guarantees the exact operation you need. Have the provider show the booking or record update in the system your staff uses.
Setup, support and cancellation
Document who writes the initial instructions, who fixes a broken call flow, and whether help is included or sold separately. Also check the notice period and the final billing date before starting a replacement service.
In an unprompted, one-star Trustpilot review from October 9, 2026, Kyle Todd described “trying to cancel my account”. Smith.ai replied that cancellation was confirmed and explained its 30-day policy. This is one reported experience and response, not evidence of a universal cancellation problem; it is a useful reason to read the terms.
Compare cost per useful outcome
Cost per minute tells you how the invoice grows. It does not tell you whether the receptionist helped the business.
For a booking workflow, record qualified callers, correct appointments, incomplete bookings and staff corrections. For a message-taking workflow, check whether staff receive a usable callback number and enough context to respond. Avoid combining unrelated outcomes into one flattering success rate.
Consider a hypothetical $150 monthly service that produces 15 correct bookings: the service cost is $10 per booking. If staff must repair five of those appointments, count the rework and investigate the reason. Do not assume each booking becomes a paying customer or count the full sale price as profit.
For a small sample, inspect the calls individually. One incorrect appointment type may reveal a rule that needs fixing even when the overall number of answered calls looks healthy.
Where Carly fits in the budget
Carly is worth evaluating when phone conversations need to connect with calendar, email and follow-up work. Its strengths include customizable rules, advanced calendar work, email labeling and sorting, phone and SMS. It works inside ChatGPT, Claude, Grok Bot, Meta Muse and Perplexity, and connects to thousands of apps.
Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Organization seats are $35/seat/month; business calling, SMS and the AI receptionist are separate add-ons. Use the business calling and texting rates with your expected usage. We have deliberately left Carly’s example total unpriced because a seat price alone would understate the bill.
Bring a week’s call history, your calendar rules and one desired outcome to a demonstration. Ask for the full monthly estimate and a working example of that outcome. Carly should have to meet the same standard as the other services in this guide.
Set up a Carly phone agent
Connect Carly, then define one booking workflow and ask for its full cost before routing customer calls.
Help me connect Carly Teams so I can work with my organization's business texts, phone calls, voicemail and voice/text agents from this chat. I'll add it to you myself: tell me exactly what to click for the app you are, one step at a time, and wait for me to confirm before moving on. If a step doesn't match what I see, ask me what's on my screen. If you can do the setup yourself (Claude Code, Codex, Muse, Grok Bot), go ahead, and ask me for any key in your secure credential prompt, never in the chat. Don't tell me it's connected until list_phone_lines works, and if I have several teams, ask which to use. Before sending a text or making a call, confirm the team, recipient and message or task with me. The steps are below.
# Connect Carly Teams to an AI app
> Carly Teams works a team's business phone lines through the team's AI agents: business texts, phone calls, voicemail, the voice and text agents, and the team's CRM.
MCP server: https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp (streamable HTTP, OAuth)
## Setup
Carly Teams isn't in any plugin or connector directory yet, so it's added as a custom connection by URL.
1. Add Carly Teams:
- ChatGPT: open https://chatgpt.com/plugins, click Add, and choose Create MCP App (not Create plugin or Upload plugin archive). If Create MCP App isn't on the menu, turn on Developer mode first in Settings > Security and login. Name it "Carly Teams" with the description "Work with my team's business texts, calls, voicemail and voice/text agents," paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp as the server URL, choose OAuth, create it, and sign in. Then in the message box open the + menu, choose Developer mode, and pick Carly Teams. No plugin needs to be built, packaged or uploaded.
- Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop, or Cowork): Customize > Connectors > Add custom connector, name it Carly Teams, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Claude Code: `claude mcp add --transport http --scope user carly-teams https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp`, then /mcp, pick carly-teams, and authenticate.
- Codex: `codex mcp add carly-teams --url https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp`, then `codex mcp login carly-teams`.
- Cursor: add {"mcpServers": {"carly-teams": {"url": "https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp"}}} to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, then sign in to carly-teams from Customize.
- Muse: a custom connector to https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp with a Carly API key as its bearer token. The key comes from carlyassistant.com/account (API key under Carly Teams) and goes in Muse's connector settings, not in a chat message.
- Grok: grok.com/connectors > New Connector > Custom, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Grok Bot: a custom remote MCP server named carly-teams at https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. Approve it and sign in.
- Perplexity: Plugins in the sidebar (or Customize > Connectors), then Add custom > Connector > Add MCP connector. Choose Remote, name it Carly Teams, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, pick OAuth, check the box and click Add, then click the Carly Teams card to sign in.
- Anything else: a remote MCP server (streamable HTTP) named carly-teams at https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. It signs in with OAuth.
Sign in with the Carly account that belongs to the organization.
2. Once it's added, the Carly Teams tools show up in the chat, including list_phone_lines. If they don't, turn Carly Teams on for the chat or start a new chat.
3. To check it worked, call list_phone_lines: it returns the teams and phone lines the account can reach. A team with no phone line yet can get one with find_numbers (optionally by area code) and get_number, which may return a checkout link to finish.
4. Something to try first: "Review our missed calls and voicemail and help me reply to customers." Carly Teams also reads and answers business texts, has the team's agent make calls, and edits the voice and text agents. Texts and calls go out at once from the agent's number and can't be taken back. Team permissions apply.
## Email, calendars and workflows
Email, calendars, files, booking pages and workflows are the regular Carly connector, added separately. It's listed in ChatGPT's plugin directory (https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_6a67a26316b88191860222f918d4ec54) and Claude's connector directory (https://claude.ai/directory/carly), and connects anywhere else at https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/. Its setup is https://carlyassistant.com/mcp.txt.Common pricing questions
Is an AI receptionist cheaper than a human answering service?
It can be for routine calls, but compare the full service and the same workload. Human assistance, complex intake and exception handling can justify a higher price. Our after-hours answering guide compares those operating choices.
Should I buy the plan with the most included minutes?
Only if you need them. Compare the subscription plus expected overages against the next tier. Then check whether a required feature forces the upgrade regardless of usage.
Can I start with after-hours calls only?
Often, with suitable routing on the existing phone system. Confirm scheduled or conditional forwarding, keep a rollback path, and price only the traffic you intend to send. Add daytime calls after the initial workflow has been checked.
Want Carly answering your phones?
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