Home › Blog › AI receptionist pricing in 2026
PricingAI receptionist pricing in 2026: what Smith.ai, Dialzara, Goodcall, Structurely and the rest charge
"AI receptionist" is the fastest-growing search in this category and the pricing pages are a mess: per call, per minute, per month, per seat, and quote-only. Here are the public numbers as of October 2026, the models behind them, the costs that hide in the fine print, and the one number that makes them comparable.
By Zach Wennstedt, Eye To Ad Media · October 23, 2026 · 8 minute read
Key takeaways
- Published entry prices run from about $29 to $99 a month, usage plans from about $1.60 per AI call, and enterprise tools around $2,999 a month. Several vendors only quote.
- Four pricing models hide behind those numbers. Per call, per minute, flat monthly, and quote-only. Each one punishes a different kind of business.
- The fine print is where the real price lives: minute caps, overage rates, setup fees, annual contracts per location, and "AI" plans that route to humans at a higher rate.
- Compare on cost per booked appointment, not sticker price. It is the only number that puts a $29 plan and a $2,999 plan on the same page.
- We quote rather than publish, and this article says so. The reasons are in the last section.
The public prices, October 2026
Every figure below comes from the vendor's own public pricing page as we read it in October 2026. Pricing pages change without notice; check before you buy. Where a vendor publishes nothing, we say "quote only" rather than guess.
| Vendor | What it mainly does | Published price | Model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai | Inbound receptionist, AI and human | From about $1.60 per AI-handled call; about $7 per human-handled call | Per call |
| Dialzara | Inbound AI answering; outbound add-on | $29 to $349 a month inbound; outbound from $750 a month | Monthly tiers |
| Goodcall | Inbound AI phone agent for local businesses | From $79 a month | Monthly tiers |
| Structurely | AI follow-up by text and call for lead conversion | $99, $499 and $2,499 a month | Monthly tiers |
| Conversica | Enterprise AI sales assistant | About $2,999 a month | Monthly, enterprise |
| Hatch | Speed to lead and follow-up for home improvement | Quote only; annual contracts, priced per location | Quote |
| SalesApe | AI sales agent with a live demo | Quote only | Quote |
| AI Speed to Leads | Outbound speed to lead: email in seconds, AI call in about a minute, booking | Quoted on a 15-minute call, based on lead volume | Quote |
Sources: each vendor's public pricing page, read October 2026. Smith.ai, Dialzara, Goodcall, Structurely and Conversica publish prices; Hatch and SalesApe do not. Our own pricing is on the pricing page, which explains the three plans without a number.
The four pricing models, and who each one hurts
1. Per call
Clean and fair when call volume is low and predictable. It gets expensive the moment it works: a receptionist that answers every call at $1.60 is cheap until a storm sends you 400 calls in a week, and some per-call plans charge the full rate for wrong numbers, robocalls and 20-second hangups. Ask what counts as a call.
2. Per minute
Common on platforms built for developers, less common on packaged products. Per-minute pricing rewards a short, efficient script and punishes a chatty one, which means the vendor's incentive and yours finally line up. Watch for rounding (a 61-second call billed as two minutes) and for separate telephony charges on top of the AI minutes.
3. Flat monthly tiers
The $29, $79, $99 plans. The tier always includes a cap: minutes, calls, contacts or "conversations." The question is never the tier price; it is the overage rate and how fast a real business hits it. A $29 plan with 100 minutes is a $29 plan for a business that gets five calls a week, and something else entirely for everyone else.
4. Quote only
Hatch, SalesApe and, yes, us. Quote-only pricing is reasonable when the product is configured per client and the price genuinely depends on volume. It is unreasonable when it exists to hide an annual contract. Ask three things before any quote call: is the contract monthly or annual, is it priced per location, and what happens to the price when lead volume doubles.
Costs that live in the fine print
- Minute and call caps. Find the overage rate before you find the plan price.
- Setup and onboarding fees. Spread them over the contract length when you compare.
- Annual contracts per location. A dealer with six showrooms is buying six contracts.
- Human fallback at a higher rate. Some "AI" plans hand hard calls to people and bill them as human calls. Fine, as long as you know the split.
- Telephony and numbers. Phone numbers, carrier fees, recording storage and transcription can sit on a separate line.
- Integrations. CRM sync, calendar booking and lead-source connections are sometimes tier-gated.
- Compliance work that lands on you. If the vendor dials leads for you, the consent language on your forms, quiet hours and opt-out handling are your legal exposure. Ask what the system refuses to do. How consent-only calling works here.
The only number that compares them: cost per booked appointment
Take the total monthly cost, including minutes, overages, telephony and the setup fee spread over the contract. Divide by the number of appointments the system actually put on your calendar. That is the number.
| Scenario (illustrative) | All-in monthly cost | Appointments booked | Cost per booked appointment |
|---|---|---|---|
| $79 inbound plan, 60 calls answered, 6 booked | $79 plus $40 overage = $119 | 6 | $19.83 |
| $499 follow-up plan, 120 leads worked, 18 booked | $499 | 18 | $27.72 |
| $2,999 enterprise plan, 600 leads worked, 110 booked | $2,999 plus $500 setup over 12 months = $3,041 | 110 | $27.65 |
The rows are made-up numbers to show the math, not measurements of any vendor. Notice that the cheapest plan and the most expensive plan can land within a few dollars of each other on the number that matters. Sticker price tells you almost nothing. Plug your own figures into the ROI calculator.
Inbound receptionist or outbound speed to lead? Price them separately
Most of the vendors above answer calls that come in. A few, including Structurely, Hatch and us, call out to people who just filled out a form. These are different products with different economics. An inbound receptionist is priced on calls you would have missed; outbound speed to lead is priced on leads you already paid for and were about to waste. If you buy leads, the second one is usually the bigger number. AI receptionist vs answering service vs speed to lead, explained.
Why we quote instead of publishing a price
Three honest reasons. The price depends on lead volume, and a from-price that nobody pays is worse than no price. The setup differs per client: one form or nine, voice on or off, our questions or yours. And we would rather spend fifteen minutes finding out whether it fits than have you guess from a table. What we will say in public: the plans are month to month, there is no per-location multiplier, and the safeguards are not a tier. The pricing page describes all three plans. The call takes fifteen minutes and the form is on the homepage.
AI receptionist pricing, briefly
How much does an AI receptionist cost per month?
As of October 2026, published entry prices run from about $29 a month (Dialzara) and $79 a month (Goodcall) to $99 a month (Structurely), with usage-priced services like Smith.ai starting around $1.60 per AI-handled call. Enterprise products such as Conversica are around $2,999 a month, and several vendors, including Hatch and SalesApe, only quote. Always confirm on the vendor's own pricing page.
What is the difference between an AI receptionist and speed to lead?
An AI receptionist answers calls that come in. Speed to lead calls out to people who just filled out a form, within a minute, and books them. They solve different problems and are often priced differently: inbound per call or per minute, outbound per lead or per month.
Why does AI Speed to Leads not publish prices?
Because the price depends on lead volume, how many forms we connect, which channels are on, and how much script work the client wants. We quote it on a 15-minute call and say so plainly rather than publish a from-price that nobody actually pays.
What is the best way to compare AI receptionist prices?
Divide the total monthly cost, including minutes, overages and setup spread over the contract, by the number of appointments it actually booked. Cost per booked appointment is the only number that compares a $29 plan with a $2,999 one fairly.
See it on your own leads.
15-minute call with a real person. Or have Lily, our AI, call you first.