What an AI receptionist actually costs
Six services, every published plan, read off their own pricing pages on 29 September 2026. Ours is in the table too, in the places where it loses as well as the places where it wins.
The short answer
Entry prices run from $29 to $300 a month. Rosie is the cheapest per minute. Dialzara has the lowest entry price. Goodcall has the most predictable bill. Smith.ai is the only one that will put a trained person on the call, and is priced like it. We are the only one that charges a build fee, and the only one that gives you a fortnight on your own number with every call recorded.
Every plan on the market
| Service | Plan | A month | Included | Per unit | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dialzara | Business Lite | $29 | 60 minutes | $0.483 | none |
| Rosie | Professional | $49 | 250 minutes | $0.196 | none |
| Call Marlin | Single line | $49 | 120 minutes | $0.408 | $800 |
| Goodcall | Starter | $79 | 100 unique callers | $0.79 | none |
| Dialzara | Business Pro | $99 | 220 minutes | $0.45 | none |
| My AI Front Desk | Business-in-a-Box | $99 | 200 minutes | $0.495 | none |
| Call Marlin | Starter | $120 | 300 minutes | $0.40 | $800 |
| Goodcall | Growth | $129 | 250 unique callers | $0.516 | none |
| Rosie | Scale | $149 | 1,000 minutes | $0.149 | none |
| Dialzara | Business Plus | $199 | 500 minutes | $0.398 | none |
| Call Marlin | Busy line | $216 | 600 minutes | $0.36 | $800 |
| Goodcall | Scale | $249 | 500 unique callers | $0.498 | none |
| Rosie | Growth | $299 | 2,000 minutes | $0.149 | none |
| Smith.ai | Starter | $300 | 30 calls | $10.00 | none |
| Call Marlin | Practice | $300 | 900 minutes | $0.333 | $800 |
| Dialzara | Business Elite | $349 | 1,000 minutes | $0.349 | none |
| Slang.ai | Core | $399 | not published | n/a | none |
| Call Marlin | Multi-line | $400 | 1,200 minutes | $0.333 | $800 |
| Call Marlin | Volume | $500 | 1,800 minutes | $0.278 | $800 |
| Slang.ai | Premium | $599 | not published | n/a | none |
| Smith.ai | Basic | $810 | 90 calls | $9.00 | none |
| Smith.ai | Pro | $2,100 | 300 calls | $7.00 | none |
The three billing models, and when each one bites
Per minute is what most of the category uses, including us. It is honest and it is unpredictable: a month with a few long calls costs more, and you do not find out until the invoice. Check whether a vendor meters ringing and voicemail as well as talk time. We do not; minutes here are connected talk time.
Per unique caller is Goodcall's model, and it is the best answer to "what will this cost me", because how many people ring you is more predictable than how long they stay on. It is cheapest for businesses whose calls run long.
Per call is Smith.ai's model and it is only cheap at low volume. Thirty calls at $300 is $10 a call. Three hundred calls a month on the same plan is $3,405, because the overage is $11.50 each. Nobody is hiding this; it is on their pricing page. It is simply a model built for a different business to yours.
Setup fees
Of the six services here, none charges one. We charge $800, and it varies with what has to be built. That is a real difference and it deserves a real answer: on a self-serve product the setup work still exists, it is just yours to do. If your calls are simple enough to configure from a form in an afternoon, a service with no build fee is the better buy and we will say so.
Free trials
Rosie, Dialzara and My AI Front Desk each offer 7 days. Goodcall offers a trial without publishing a length. Smith.ai offers a 30-day money-back guarantee instead. Ours is 14 days or 60 connected minutes, on your own number with your own callers, with no card asked for and every call recorded and transcribed so you can judge it rather than take our word for it.
A warning about the trust signals
Every service in this category advertises a customer count, and several advertise live counters of calls handled and hours saved. Almost none of them have meaningful independent reviews on G2, Capterra or Trustpilot. Those numbers are self-reported and unaudited, and that applies to anything we publish about ourselves too. The only claim on this site you do not have to take on trust is the recordings, because you can listen to them.
Head to head
- Call Marlin vs Rosie. The cheapest per minute in the category and the closest thing it has to a category leader.
- Call Marlin vs Smith.ai. Human-staffed as well as AI, and priced accordingly. This is the comparison that flatters us, which is exactly why it has to be printed next to the one that does not.
- Call Marlin vs Goodcall. Bills per unique caller with unlimited minutes, which is the one model that answers "what will this cost me" without arithmetic.
- Call Marlin vs Dialzara. The lowest entry price on the list. Overage falls from $0.48 to $0.35 as the tiers climb.
Questions people actually ask
How much does an AI receptionist cost?
Published entry prices run from $29 to $300 a month. The cheapest rate per included minute is Rosie's, at about $0.15 on its larger plans. Most self-serve services land between $0.25 and $0.50 a minute, and managed services that put a person behind the agent cost several times that. Call Marlin starts at $49 a month for 120 connected minutes plus a one-time build.
Is there a setup fee for an AI receptionist?
Usually not. Of the six services surveyed here, none charges one. Call Marlin does, because the agent is built, connected and tested by a person before it answers a call, rather than configured by the customer. It is the largest single difference between a managed service and a self-serve one.
Which AI receptionist has a free trial?
Rosie, Dialzara and My AI Front Desk each offer 7 days. Goodcall offers a trial without stating a length. Smith.ai offers a 30-day money-back guarantee rather than a trial. Call Marlin offers 14 days or 60 connected minutes and does not ask for a card.
Per-minute, per-call or per-caller: which billing model is cheapest?
It depends on your call shape, and the difference is large enough to matter. Per-caller billing is cheapest when calls run long. Per-minute is cheapest when calls are short and numerous. Per-call billing is only cheap at low volume: an $11.50 overage per call is fine at thirty calls a month and ruinous at three hundred.
Are AI receptionists reviewed anywhere independent?
Barely. As of September 2026 the largest services in this category have little or no presence on G2, Capterra or Trustpilot, and almost every trust signal you will read is a number the vendor published about itself. Treat customer counts and minutes-saved counters accordingly, including ours.
The part you can check
Whichever of these you end up buying, do not buy it off a table. Ours runs on your own number for 14 days or 60 connected minutes, with your own callers, and we do not ask for a card, so there is nothing to cancel. Every call is recorded and transcribed, so at the end of it you are judging the thing rather than the sales page.