What each way of answering the phone costs
In short
Products you sign up for sell minutes by the month, and an answering service or a virtual receptionist bills the minutes its people spend on your calls. A receptionist built for your business costs a setup price once, then care and usage each month.
Dialzara and Rosie, the two AI receptionist products read for this guide, sell monthly plans with a set number of minutes, and both sell larger plans with more. Dialzara lists a rate for each minute over its plan and says it charges no setup fee, while Rosie's page says a plan that runs past its minutes moves up to the next plan, at that plan's standard price, with no charge by the minute.
A person on the line costs more per minute. PATLive, an answering service, sells a plan with no minutes included as well as plans of minutes, each with a rate for every minute after them, and Ruby, a virtual receptionist service, sells monthly plans of receptionist minutes with no fee for setup.
Ours is a build rather than a plan: a setup price once, then care each month for the fixes and the small changes as your hours and prices move. The phone minutes and the AI usage bill at cost to accounts in your name, so each charge comes from the vendor itself.
| How it bills | What a month includes | |
|---|---|---|
| An AI receptionist product: Dialzara | A monthly plan of talk time, then a rate for each minute over | A set number of minutes, more on each plan up |
| An AI receptionist product: Rosie | A monthly plan of minutes, then the next plan up once you run past them | A set number of minutes, more on each plan up |
| An answering service: PATLive | A monthly fee with no minutes, or a plan of minutes, then a rate for each additional minute | Live receptionists, billed only for their time on your calls |
| A virtual receptionist: Ruby | A monthly plan of receptionist minutes | Live receptionists, with no fee for setup |
| An AI receptionist built for you: ours | A setup price once, then care each month, with minutes and AI usage at cost | Care for its fixes and changes, with the minutes and usage billed by each vendor in your name |
| A receptionist on staff | A wage, plus benefits and payroll costs | Every hour they work, busy or quiet |
Swipe sideways to see every column
What moves the price
In short
On a plan, your minutes move the price. On a build, what moves it is how much the receptionist connects to beyond one number, one booking tool and one CRM.
Included minutes go quickly on a busy line with long calls, so look at what the next plan up costs as well as the first. Count a month of calls and their length before you choose, and ask what each plan does once its minutes are used up.
The setup price of ours covers one number, new or your own forwarded, booking into one tool once the written plan confirms the tool takes bookings from software, and a summary of each call it takes in your CRM or inbox. A second number or location, a second tool, texts to your callers, which need your texting registration first, or moving your number over from your carrier are priced in the written plan before anything is built.
Care stays the same each month. The usage is what grows with the calls, and because it bills at cost in your name, a quiet month costs less than a busy one.
A worked example (hypothetical)
In short
A garage door company whose calls come in bursts while its technicians are out could start on a product plan, or pay for a build that books into its own calendar and writes a summary of each call it takes into its CRM.
Picture a garage door repair company in Torrance with three technicians and one office line. Most calls are short, a broken spring or a time for a visit, and they come in bursts on Monday mornings, when nobody in the office is free to pick up.
A product plan would answer those calls and take messages for a monthly fee, and the owner would size the plan by the minutes a busy week uses. A receptionist built for the company, priced in a written plan with its setup and its monthly care, would book visits into the calendar the office already uses, once that plan confirms the calendar takes bookings from software, and leave a summary of each call it takes in the CRM. The minutes and the AI usage would bill at cost in the company's name.
What this means for a small business
In short
Start from your own calls. A month of call times and lengths tells you which plan fits, and whether you need a receptionist that books and writes into your systems or one that takes messages.
Your phone carrier or phone system can usually export a call log, and an hour with it settles most of the pricing question before you talk to anyone. Note when the calls you missed came in, and what those callers wanted.
Projects start at $2,500. Book a call with that month of calls to hand, and the written plan that follows prices the setup and the monthly care for your line, with the minutes and the usage billed at cost in your name.