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.
It is also a metered add-on with specific limits. Here is how it works, what it costs past the included minutes, and what users report.
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. If you want an AI receptionist that already knows the caller from your inbox and CRM, qualifies them and books the right person on a real calendar, and is set up for you, book a call with the Carly team to see Carly Phone.
RingCentral AIR at a glance
| RingCentral AIR (RingEX add-on) | RingCentral AIR (standalone) | Quo Sona | Carly Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $39/mo on top of RingEX seats | $49/mo | Included on every Quo plan | Set on a short call |
| Usage included | 100 minutes | 100 minutes | 1,000 credits (about 10 calls) | Scoped to your call volume |
| Past the included usage | $0.50/min, 30-second increments | $0.50/min, 30-second increments | Packs: $25, $49, $99, $199 for 40, 100, 250, 600 calls | Scoped on the call |
| Channels | Calls, inbound texts | Calls, inbound texts | Inbound calls | Calls and texts on one number, plus email and calendar |
| Books meetings | Google, Outlook, Calendly | Google, Outlook, Calendly | See Quo vs RingCentral | Checks your real calendars and books the right person |
| Setup | You, in the Admin Portal | You, in the Admin Portal | Configured in Quo | The Carly team sets it up with you |
Prices checked September 14, 2026.
What RingCentral AIR is
RingCentral launched AIR in February 2025 as a replacement for the press-1-for-sales phone tree. Instead of a menu, the caller says what they need and AIR responds: it answers the question, captures the lead, books the appointment, texts a link or transfers the call with a summary attached. By May 2026 RingCentral said more than 11,800 businesses were using it.
You can buy it as an add-on to RingEX, RingCentral’s business phone system, or standalone, which RingCentral pitches as working with any phone system.
RingCentral’s support docs list AIR as available in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and Europe. Pricing below is the US offer in USD.
How AIR answers and routes a call
AIR is configured as a set of skills in the Admin Portal. RingCentral’s documentation lists nine:
- Company greeting: what callers hear first.
- Location and business hours: answers “are you open” and “where are you.”
- Frequently asked questions: generated from the company description you enter at setup, and editable.
- Knowledge bases: upload PDF, DOC, DOCX, CSV or TXT files, or add website URLs.
- Send text messages: texts callers links or details. RingCentral’s docs say this works “if your account includes text messages,” and US business texting requires TCR registration.
- Appointment booking: books on a connected calendar or texts the caller a booking link.
- Transfer by name: on by default, using your company directory.
- Transfer by context: routes by what the caller is asking about.
- Lead capture: asks your intake questions and, when connected to Salesforce, creates or updates the lead record. HubSpot and Zoho sync the answers after the call.
For routing, AIR gets its own extension. You can point a number straight at it, make it the “if no answer” destination on a user’s incoming call rules, or, since May 2026, set it as the overflow destination in a call queue so it steps in when agents are busy. The May 2026 release also added answering inbound texts around the clock, a Shopify integration for order status questions and automatic language detection across 10 languages, with WhatsApp announced as coming.
It is a real receptionist feature set, but AIR works from what the caller tells it on that call. Carly starts from what your business already knows about the caller. See the difference on a call with the Carly team.
What AIR can’t do, per RingCentral’s own docs
RingCentral’s calendar booking article is specific, and worth reading before an appointment-heavy rollout:
- Bookings can’t be scheduled more than 30 days in advance.
- One account per calendar provider. You can connect one Google account and one Outlook account to AIR, and teammates’ calendars are added from there.
- Appointments use your main site’s time zone, and that can’t be customized. Multi-location businesses across time zones should test this first.
- Calendly booking, rescheduling and cancelling arrived in May 2026 as a separate integration.
And AIR is not part of RingEX. A RingCentral community manager told an admin who couldn’t find it as a forwarding destination that “the AI Receptionist is actually a separate paid add-on and isn’t automatically included with RingEX plans.”
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, which run Core $20/user annual or $30 monthly, Advanced $25 or $35, Ultra $35 or $45. Texting through the Business SMS Booster is listed at $25, and taxes and regulatory fees are extra.
What that looks like for a five-person office on RingEX Core, billed annually:
- 5 seats × $20 = $100
- AIR add-on = $39, covering the first 100 minutes
- If AIR handles 400 minutes in a month (roughly 130 three-minute calls), the 300 extra minutes add $150
That comes to about $289 a month before taxes and fees, and the AIR line moves with call volume. RingCentral contracts also auto-renew for the same term unless you give notice 30 days before the end. The full plan breakdown is in our RingCentral pricing guide, and cancelling RingCentral covers the notice window.
Carly Phone is priced differently: it is scoped to how your team actually takes calls, and pricing is set on a short call. Get a walkthrough and a quote.
How to set up RingCentral AI Receptionist
From RingCentral’s Admin Portal documentation (you need admin access):
- Sign in to the Admin Portal, click the AI tab, then AI Receptionist.
- Click Start.
- Add business details from your website, Google Business Profile or an existing IVR. AIR pre-fills your greeting, hours and FAQs.
- Pick a primary language, then set the profile: name, personality (Friendly, Neutral or Formal) and voice.
- Review the company description, greeting, locations and hours, FAQs and transfer-by-name settings.
- Click Start test call and listen to it handle a few real questions.
- Connect a phone number or your call handling rules. AIR can’t answer anything until it is connected to a number or extension.
- Under Integrations, connect Google or Outlook Calendar, Calendly, Salesforce, HubSpot or Zoho as needed.
What early AIR users report
- Interrupting callers. In March 2026 an admin posted in RingCentral’s community forum that AIR “is interrupting callers when they are answering questions,” such as while giving an email address, and “is also not ending calls after scheduling the appointment.” The community manager suggested opening a support case.
- Routing setup confusion. An admin following the forum’s no-answer routing steps couldn’t find AIR as a destination, and RingCentral’s support chat told them the forum instructions didn’t apply. The actual cause was that the add-on hadn’t been purchased.
- Good conversation, some hiccups. CX Foundation tested AIR’s demo line in March 2026. When the tester refused a transfer, it texted a sign-up link instead. Repeated talking-over caused “a few moments of confusion,” and it confirmed it sends standard SMS with links, not media files.
- Feature requests on RingCentral’s own board. Customers have asked for post-call notes and summaries on calls AIR handles by itself, for AIR to route calls to an IVR automatically before minutes run over, and for keypad dialing to an extension during the AIR greeting.
- Billing and contracts dominate the wider complaints. RingCentral’s Trustpilot reviews skew toward auto-renewals, overages and cancellation trouble. Our RingCentral review goes deeper.
Where AIR sits among RingCentral’s other AI
RingCentral’s three-letter AI products are not interchangeable:
- AIR (AI Receptionist) faces your customers. It answers and handles inbound calls and texts.
- AVA (AI Virtual Assistant) faces your employees: notes, summaries and translations from calls, meetings and messages, plus drafted follow-ups.
- ACE (AI Conversation Expert) is conversation analytics for sales leaders: scoring and call summaries. The pricing page lists Conversational Intelligence from $60, and RingCentral’s feature-request board files ACE under “formerly RingSense.”
- AIR Pro is the enterprise agent platform unveiled March 10, 2026, starting with healthcare and in controlled availability for selected US businesses.
For “the AI that answers our phone,” AIR is the one to look at. If you want that AI to also know your customers, get a walkthrough of Carly Phone.
Where Carly fits
AIR is a solid add-on for a team already on RingEX. The trade-off is that it starts every call cold, knowing your website, your FAQ and whatever the caller tells it.
Carly Phone is a business line run by an AI that already knows your business. Carly is the assistant that works across your email, calendar and CRM, so when a call comes in it has context before the caller says a word.
- It knows the caller. Carly sees their email thread and CRM history, so Emily, a returning client, doesn’t get asked for her name, company and reason for calling all over again.
- It qualifies against your criteria. You tell Carly what a good lead looks like (budget, location, service, timeline) and it asks the right questions, not a generic intake script.
- It books the right person on their real calendar. Carly checks actual availability across your team and books the meeting with whoever should take it, then texts the caller a booking page or application link if that’s the next step.
- It logs everything. Every call lands in Carly’s built-in CRM and in HubSpot, Salesforce or Dynamics 365, with a summary and outcome.
- Calls and texts on one number. Bring the number you have or get a new local one. A shared SMS inbox lets Carly answer texts, and anyone on the team can take a conversation over.
- Routing built around how you work. Ring the team at once or in order, with business-hours and after-hours rules, phone menus and call flows.
- Voicemail with transcripts and a call inbox where every outcome can be resolved or reopened for follow-up.
Picture Josh, who runs a three-person HVAC company. With AIR, an after-hours caller gets a friendly answer, a callback note and maybe a booking link. With Carly, the caller who emailed a quote request last week gets recognized, gets asked the two questions Josh cares about, and gets booked into Michael’s open Thursday slot, with the job logged in the CRM before Josh wakes up. See that exact flow on a call.
Carly also handles email, scheduling and follow-ups, and connects to thousands of apps. Shared numbers, routing, phone menus, voicemail transcription, call summaries, texting, AI answering, CRM sync: the Carly team sets it all up for you, and Carly Phone is live after one call.
Pricing is set on a short call, based on your team and call volume. Still comparing? See RingCentral alternatives, the AI answering service guide and best AI receptionists. Ready now? Book a call with the Carly team and get a Carly Phone walkthrough built on your own call scenarios.
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.” RingEX does include other AI features, but the receptionist is purchased from the AI section of the Admin Portal. If you’d rather have the receptionist, routing and CRM logging scoped as one setup, book a call with the Carly team.
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.
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