The headline rate is not the number that decides your bill
Four different meters are sold under one word. Per call, per minute, per receptionist minute and flat monthly produce wildly different invoices from the same month of phone traffic, and the difference is largest in exactly the month you most needed the cover. This is what each one actually charges, read from their own pages this month.
Every competitor figure on this page was read from their own pricing page on 2026-09-05
Incoming callAlison Trent“You quoted me per call. What actually counts as a call?”
Robocall zero-rated · Not billed
- $10.00
- per call at the entry rung of the largest human service, before any overage
- 4 meters
- sold as one category: per call, per minute, per receptionist minute, flat
- Your worst month
- is when three of those four meters produce their largest bill
What each one charges, and on what
Read from each vendor's own public pricing page on 14 August 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a figure, the cell says so. It is not an estimate.
| Meter | Entry price | Marginal cost | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vandial | Per unique customer | $99/mo, unlimited call flows | None. The plan caps talk time, not calls |
| Smith.ai (AI) | Per call | Free for 25 calls, then $150/mo for 75 | $3.00 per call on Free, $2.00 on Pro, $1.67 on the $500 Enterprise tier |
| Smith.ai (human) | Per call | $300/mo for 30 calls | $11.50 per call over 30 |
| Goodcall | Per unique customer | $79/mo per agent, 100 unique customers | $0.50 per customer over 100; Growth $129 for 250, Scale $249 |
| Slang.ai | Per location | From $399/mo per location | Not published |
| Ruby | Per receptionist minute | $250/mo for 50 receptionist minutes | Next rungs: $395 for 100 min, $720 for 200, $1,725 for 500 |
| AnswerConnect | Per minute | Not published | Not published |
- smith.ai/pricing/ai-receptionist · read 2026-09-05
- smith.ai/pricing, human-first · read 2026-08-14
- goodcall.com/pricing · read 2026-09-05
- slang.ai/pricing · read 2026-08-14
- ruby.com/plans-and-pricing · read 2026-09-05
- answerconnect.com/view-pricing, a lead form rather than a price list (/pricing is a 404) · read 2026-09-05
Per call is the most expensive way to buy cover, and the most common
Smith.ai's human plans start at $300 a month for 30 calls, which is $10.00 a call before anything goes over, and calls beyond the thirtieth are $11.50 each. That is not a criticism of the price. Trained people answering a phone in the United States cost money, and $10 a call is a defensible number for what it buys. It is a statement about the shape of the meter.
The shape matters because call volume is not something you control. A storm, a cold snap, a listing going live, a competitor closing. Every one of those produces a week where your phone does a month's work, and on a per-call meter every one of them produces a bill you did not budget for. The month you most needed somebody answering is the month it costs the most.
There is also a quieter problem with per-call: robocalls. On most per-call plans an auto-dialler that reaches your line and gets answered is a call, and it is billed like one. It is the standard complaint about the model and it is the reason Vandial zero-rates spam and wrong numbers explicitly.
Per minute rewards the vendor for a slower call
AnswerConnect, Ruby and most of the traditional answering-service market meter on minutes, Ruby on "receptionist minutes" specifically, and its own pricing page says the only difference between its plans is how many of those you get.
Per-minute billing has an incentive problem that nobody in the category likes talking about: a longer call is a larger invoice. Nobody is deliberately padding, but the model does not reward the vendor for getting a caller booked in ninety seconds, and rounding is usually to the next whole minute. A 65-second call and a 119-second call cost the same.
It also makes your bill a function of how talkative your customers are, which is the one variable in your business you have no ability to manage.
Several of the largest vendors will not tell you the price at all
AnswerConnect's "view pricing" page is a form asking for your name, company email and phone number. Avoca publishes no pricing page. Ruby's plans require a conversation with sales. This is normal in the category and it is worth naming for what it is: a decision that your price should depend on what you look like you can pay.
It also makes genuine comparison impossible, which is the point. The practical consequence for a small business is that the shopping process costs you three sales calls before you have a single number to compare.
Flat monthly, and the unit that actually fits a service business
Two vendors on this table meter on unique customers rather than on calls or minutes: Goodcall at $79 a month per agent for 100 unique customers, and Vandial from $99 a month. It is worth saying plainly that Goodcall got to that unit independently and is cheaper at the entry rung.
The reason the unit matters is that it matches how a service business actually experiences its phone. A customer who rings four times about the same leak is one job, not four, and a meter that counts them as four is charging you for your own follow-up. Unique customers is the only unit on this table that does not get more expensive when a single job goes badly.
Vandial's plans are $99, $349 and $899, differing only in how many unique customers you answer for and how much talk time is included. Call flows are unlimited on all of them, there is no per-call or per-minute charge, and spam is zero-rated. The trade-off is honest: a shop with very low call volume pays more here than it would on a small per-call plan, and a shop with volatile volume pays dramatically less.
What a missed call costs, which is the number nobody puts on a pricing page
Every figure above is a cost. The comparison that decides the purchase is against the value of the jobs the phone is currently losing, and that number is specific to your trade.
The buyer-intent CPCs we measure are one honest proxy for it, because they are what businesses in that trade are willing to pay for a single click that might become a lead. A click in legal answering services runs $393, in plumbing $283, in contracting $216, in HVAC $148. If a click is worth $200 to somebody in your trade, an answered call is worth considerably more than that, and one recovered job a year covers most of the plans on this table.
We are not going to put a made-up conversion rate next to that. The point is only that the cost side is knowable and the value side is large, and that comparing answering services purely on monthly price is comparing the smallest number in the equation.
Hear it before you decide anything
The free tier builds the agent, takes your services and your prices, and lets you talk to it in the browser. Nobody should hand their phone to something they have not argued with first.
How much does an answering service cost per month?
Between roughly $79 and $2,100 a month depending entirely on the meter. Flat AI plans metered on unique customers start at $79–$99. Per-call human services start around $300 a month for 30 calls. Large per-call plans reach $2,100 a month for 300 calls. Several vendors do not publish a figure at all.
What is a typical cost per call?
On Smith.ai's human plans, $10.00 a call at the entry rung, falling to $7.00 at 300 calls, with overage between $8.50 and $11.50. On their AI plans, $3.00 a call on the free tier and $2.00 on Pro. On a flat plan the per-call cost falls as your volume rises, because the meter is not counting calls.
Which pricing model is cheapest?
For low and predictable volume, a small per-call plan. For volatile volume, which is almost every trade with weather, seasonality or emergencies in it, flat monthly wins by a wide margin, because the per-call meter charges the most in exactly the weeks you are busiest.
Do answering services charge for robocalls?
On a per-call meter, usually yes: an auto-dialler that gets answered is a call. It is the most common complaint about the model. Vandial classifies spam and wrong numbers, zero-rates them, and never creates a customer record for them.
Is there a free answering service?
There are free tiers, and they are worth using to evaluate rather than to run a business on. Smith.ai's AI plan includes 25 calls a month free. Vandial's free tier builds and tests the agent in the browser with 30 minutes of studio time but does not include a phone number, which we would rather state plainly than bury.
Why is answering service pricing so hard to compare?
Because four different meters are sold under one word, and several of the largest vendors gate their numbers behind a sales call. A per-call price and a per-minute price cannot be compared without knowing your average call length, which no vendor asks you for at the quoting stage.
What does Vandial cost?
$99, $349 or $899 a month. The plans differ in how many unique customers you answer for and how much talk time is included; call flows are unlimited on all three, there is no per-call or per-minute charge, and robocalls are never billed.
Still comparing
The rest of what somebody deciding this actually needs to read.
Answered for your trade, in your words
The questions, urgency rules and escalations are configuration. 31 trades have their own page.