What does an AI receptionist cost?
Most AI phone answering is priced as a setup fee, a monthly fee, and per-minute usage. The third one is where quotes stop being comparable.
How is an AI receptionist priced?
Usually a one-off setup fee, a fixed monthly fee, and a per-minute charge for calls handled. Ours is $2,500 to set up standalone, $1,200 if attached to a build we did, then $450 a month, with call minutes billed to your own card at cost.
Whether minutes are marked up is the single most useful question to ask a vendor. A per-minute rate two or three times the underlying cost is common and rarely disclosed.
What do the call minutes actually cost?
At the rates we quote clients, roughly $0.30 a minute, so a business answering 200 minutes a month is around $60. That goes on your own card from your own provider rather than through us.
Where is the cost usually hidden?
Marked-up minutes, and changes. Ask what a knowledge change costs in month six, because a system nobody will update becomes wrong within a quarter and quietly stops being worth the monthly fee.
Also asked
- Is there a cheaper option?
- Yes. Self-serve platforms are meaningfully cheaper and you configure and maintain it yourself. If you are comfortable writing what it knows and deciding what it refuses, that is a genuine saving rather than a downgrade.