RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR): Pricing, Setup, Limits
RingCentral AI Receptionist, sold as AIR, is the voice agent RingCentral puts in front of your business line. It picks up, talks to the caller in plain language, answers from your website and documents, and transfers or books.
The quick answer: AIR costs $39/month as a RingEX add-on or $49/month standalone, with 100 minutes included and $0.50 a minute after that, billed in 30-second increments. It answers, routes by name or topic, books on Google, Outlook or Calendly calendars and logs leads to Salesforce, HubSpot or Zoho. You set it up yourself in the Admin Portal.
Want a receptionist that follows your rules exactly on every call, texts from the same number and logs everything to your CRM? That’s Carly. Copy one prompt into ChatGPT or Claude, grab a number, and you’re live.
RingCentral AIR at a glance
| Carly | RingCentral AIR (RingEX add-on) | RingCentral AIR (standalone) | Quo Sona | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/mo | $39/mo on top of RingEX seats | $49/mo | Included on every Quo plan |
| Usage | Tiers above the $35 entry plan | 100 min, then $0.50/min in 30-second increments | 100 min, then $0.50/min in 30-second increments | 1,000 credits (about 10 calls), then packs of $25, $49, $99, $199 for 40, 100, 250, 600 calls |
| Channels | Calls, texts and email in one team inbox | Calls, inbound texts | Calls, inbound texts | Inbound calls |
| Books meetings | Your team’s real Google and Outlook calendars, round robin | Google, Outlook, Calendly | Google, Outlook, Calendly | See Quo vs RingCentral |
| Setup | Copy one prompt into ChatGPT or Claude | You, in the Admin Portal | You, in the Admin Portal | Configured in Quo |
Prices checked September 14, 2026.
What RingCentral AIR is
RingCentral launched AIR in February 2025 to replace the press-1-for-sales phone tree. The caller says what they need, and AIR answers, captures the lead, books, texts a link or transfers with a summary. By May 2026 RingCentral said more than 11,800 businesses used it. It’s sold as a RingEX add-on or standalone for any phone system, in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and Europe. Prices below are US.
How AIR answers and routes a call
AIR is configured as nine skills in the Admin Portal: company greeting, location and hours, FAQs (generated from your company description), knowledge bases (PDF, DOC, DOCX, CSV, TXT or website URLs), text messages (“if your account includes text messages,” with TCR registration for US texting), appointment booking, transfer by name, transfer by context, and lead capture into Salesforce, with HubSpot and Zoho syncing after the call.
AIR gets its own extension. Point a number at it, make it the “if no answer” destination on a user’s call rules, or, since May 2026, set it as a call queue’s overflow. That May 2026 release also added round-the-clock answers to inbound texts, a Shopify integration for order status and language detection across 10 languages, with WhatsApp announced as coming.
What AIR can’t do, per RingCentral’s own docs
- Bookings can’t be more than 30 days out.
- One account per calendar provider. One Google and one Outlook account, with teammates’ calendars added from there.
- Appointments use your main site’s time zone, and that can’t be customized. Multi-location businesses should test this first.
- Calendly booking, rescheduling and cancelling arrived in May 2026 as a separate integration.
AIR also isn’t part of RingEX. A RingCentral community manager told one admin that “the AI Receptionist is actually a separate paid add-on and isn’t automatically included with RingEX plans.”
Carly books during the call on every teammate’s real Google or Outlook calendar, round robin.
RingCentral AI Receptionist pricing
| Plan | Monthly price | Minutes included | Overage |
|---|---|---|---|
| AIR add-on for RingEX | $39 | 100 | $0.50/min |
| AIR standalone | $49 | 100 | $0.50/min |
Both come with a 14-day trial. Call time rounds up to the next 30 seconds, so a 2-minute-10-second call bills as 2.5 minutes. The add-on sits on top of RingEX seats: Core $20/user annual or $30 monthly, Advanced $25 or $35, Ultra $35 or $45. The Business SMS Booster is listed at $25, and taxes and regulatory fees are extra.
A five-person office on RingEX Core, billed annually, with AIR handling 400 minutes a month: 5 seats × $20 = $100, plus the $39 add-on, plus $150 for the 300 extra minutes. That’s about $289 a month before taxes and fees, and the AIR line moves with call volume. RingCentral contracts auto-renew unless you give notice 30 days before the end. See the RingCentral pricing guide and how to cancel RingCentral.
Carly: free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Get started.
How to set up RingCentral AI Receptionist
From RingCentral’s docs (admin access required):
- In the Admin Portal, click AI > AI Receptionist > Start.
- Import business details from your website, Google Business Profile or an existing IVR.
- Pick a language, name, personality (Friendly, Neutral or Formal) and voice, then review the greeting, hours and FAQs.
- Click Start test call.
- Connect a phone number or call handling rules. AIR can’t answer until it’s connected.
- Under Integrations, connect your calendar and CRM.
Carly is one step: copy one prompt into ChatGPT or Claude, grab a number, and you’re live.
What early AIR users report
- Interrupting callers. A March 2026 forum post says AIR “is interrupting callers when they are answering questions” and “is also not ending calls after scheduling the appointment.”
- Routing confusion. An admin couldn’t find AIR as a no-answer destination. The cause: the add-on hadn’t been purchased.
- Some hiccups on the demo line. CX Foundation’s March 2026 test hit “a few moments of confusion” from talking over the caller, and AIR sends standard SMS with links, not media.
- Feature requests. Post-call summaries on calls AIR handles alone, routing to an IVR before minutes run over, and keypad dialing during the greeting.
- Billing complaints. Trustpilot reviews skew toward auto-renewals, overages and cancellation trouble. More in our RingCentral review.
Where AIR sits among RingCentral’s other AI
- AIR answers your customers’ calls and texts.
- AVA (AI Virtual Assistant) gives employees notes, summaries, translations and drafted follow-ups.
- ACE (AI Conversation Expert) is call analytics for sales leaders, filed under “formerly RingSense.” Conversational Intelligence is listed from $60.
- AIR Pro is the enterprise agent platform unveiled March 10, 2026, starting with healthcare, in controlled availability in the US.
Where Carly fits
AIR is a solid add-on if you’re already on RingEX. Carly is the receptionist that’s reliable and endlessly customizable: it follows your rules exactly, the same way on every call.
- Answers 24/7, or only when your team doesn’t pick up, in English or Spanish.
- Books callers during the call on your team’s real Google and Outlook calendars, round robin.
- Calls new web leads within a minute and texts back every missed call from the same number.
- Hands callers to a person through ring groups or a phone menu.
- Logs every call, text and voicemail to one team inbox and HubSpot, Salesforce, Dynamics 365 or Carly’s own CRM.
- Runs from ChatGPT or Claude with the Carly connector, connects to thousands of apps and triggers free Zapier-style workflows.
Copy this prompt into ChatGPT or Claude, grab a number, and you’re live:
Carly business setup prompt
Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude or any AI. It walks you through the rest.
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.Free Zapier-style workflows; AI agents from $35/month. Get started, or watch the 2-minute video. Still comparing? See RingCentral alternatives, AI answering services and the best AI receptionists.
FAQ
How much does RingCentral AI Receptionist cost?
RingCentral AIR is $39/month as an add-on to RingEX or $49/month standalone. Both include 100 minutes, then $0.50 per minute, with call time rounded up to 30-second increments. There is a 14-day trial, and RingEX seats, texting and taxes are billed separately.
Is AI Receptionist included with RingEX?
No. A RingCentral community manager confirmed AIR is “a separate paid add-on and isn’t automatically included with RingEX plans.” You buy it from the AI section of the Admin Portal.
Can RingCentral AI Receptionist book appointments?
Yes. AIR books on connected Google or Outlook calendars, through Calendly, or by texting the caller a booking link. RingCentral’s docs note bookings can’t be more than 30 days out, you can connect one account per calendar provider, and appointments use your main site’s time zone.
Does RingCentral AIR work with other phone systems?
Yes. The standalone plan, $49/month with 100 minutes, is sold to work with any phone system, so you keep your existing provider and send calls to AIR. The $39 add-on price is only for RingEX customers.
How do I make RingCentral AI Receptionist answer only when no one picks up?
Route calls to your users or a call queue first. For a user, open Phone > Incoming Call Rules and choose the AI Receptionist’s extension under “if no answer.” For a call queue, set AIR as the destination when the maximum wait time is reached. The AIR add-on must already be purchased or it won’t appear as an option.
What’s the fastest AI receptionist to set up?
Carly. Copy one prompt into ChatGPT or Claude, grab a number in the chat, and it answers your line in minutes. Get started.
Ready to automate your busywork?
Carly schedules, researches, and briefs you—so you can focus on what matters.
See what people say
"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.
Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.
On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."
