How much does an AI receptionist cost?

The pricing models you'll run into

Five ways of paying for phone coverage come up again and again. The first three are how AI receptionists are usually sold. The last two are what you're comparing them against.

• Flat monthly plan with included minutes. A set price each month buys a block of minutes, and extra minutes cost a set rate. The bill is predictable as long as the plan is close to your real volume.
• Per minute. You pay only for the minutes the AI spends on calls, sometimes on top of a small base fee. Cheap in a slow month, harder to budget in a busy one.
• Per call. Every answered call costs the same, short or long. That favors long calls and can hurt a business that gets a lot of quick ones, so ask whether hang-ups and wrong numbers count.
• Live answering services. A person answers, and you pay by the minute or by the call. For example, one national service's pricing page (2026) lists 200 minutes for $349 a month with extra minutes at $1.99, and another's (2026) lists 100 minutes for $395 a month. On the per-call side, one service (2026) lists a message-taking plan from $25 a month plus $1.99 per answered call.
• Hiring a receptionist. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts the median receptionist wage at $18.27 an hour, or $38,010 a year (May 2025). Benefits come on top: in private industry they are 30% of total pay costs, per BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (June 2026). At that ratio, a $38,010 salary is roughly $54,300 a year all in, for one person covering about 40 of the week's 168 hours.

A receptionist also greets walk-ins, handles paperwork and knows your regulars, so the comparison isn't only about calls. But if answering the phone is most of the job, those are the numbers to weigh.

What drives the cost

• Call volume. More calls answered means more minutes. Count the calls the service would actually take, not every call you get.
• Minutes per call. "Are you open Saturday?" takes under a minute. Booking a visit, with a name, an address and a description of the problem, takes a few.
• After-hours share. If you forward only the calls you can't pick up and the ones after hours, the service handles a slice of your calls and you pay for that slice. Sending it every call all day costs more.
• Booking and calendars. Booking adds a little time to each call, and some providers price plans by how many calendars they book into.
• Billing increments and overage. Minutes counted by the second cost less than minutes rounded up to the next whole minute. Extra minutes past a plan often cost more than included ones.
• Setup. Some providers charge to set up, some include it. Ask what setup covers: your business facts, the questions it asks callers, and testing before it goes live.

How to estimate your minutes

Start from calls, then convert to minutes. AERIOX's plan picker assumes about 3 minutes a call, a fair middle for calls that book an appointment or take a detailed message. If most of your calls are quick questions, use less. If callers tend to explain a lot, use more.

1. Pull two weeks of call history from your phone carrier or phone app, and work out calls per week.
2. Decide which calls the service will take: all of them, only the ones you miss, or only after hours.
3. Multiply calls a week by 52 and divide by 12 to get calls a month. Multiply by minutes per call.

Example: a shop gets 40 calls a week. That's about 173 calls a month, or 519 minutes at 3 minutes a call if the service answered all of them. If the owner forwards only missed and after-hours calls, about 50% in this example, it drops to roughly 261 minutes.

AERIOX's plans, as one example

AERIOX sells flat monthly plans with included minutes. Every plan answers 24/7 in English and Spanish, books into Google Calendar, emails you after every call it answers, and includes setup. First month paid upfront. Setup included. After that it's month to month, and you can cancel anytime.

Calls are estimated at 3 minutes each. Minutes count only while the agent is on a call, by the second. Past a plan's minutes you use prepaid credit at 49¢ a minute, added in your portal. If credit runs out, the agent pauses new calls until you add credit or the next period starts; a call in progress always finishes.

The example shop above would fit Solo if it forwarded every call, and Starter if it forwarded only missed and after-hours calls. See all plans.

Questions to ask any provider before you sign

• What counts as a billable minute or call? Are hang-ups and wrong numbers billed?
• Are minutes counted by the second or rounded up?
• What do extra minutes cost, and what happens when you run out?
• Is setup included? Is there a contract or a cancellation fee?
• Can it book into your calendar, and which calendars?
• Does it answer in Spanish, and does that cost extra?
• What happens when a caller wants you? AERIOX's agent doesn't connect callers to you live; it takes a message for a call back. If you need live hand-offs, price a service that offers them.

For how the options differ beyond price, see AI receptionist vs. answering service vs. voicemail.