AI Receptionist Cost in 2026: Subscriptions vs Per-Minute Platforms vs Custom Builds
An AI receptionist for a small business costs between $29 and $349 per month on a packaged subscription (Dialzara, Goodcall), $300 to $2,100 per month on a per-call hybrid service (Smith.ai), or roughly $0.05 to $0.14 per minute of talk time plus telephony on a build-it-yourself voice platform (Vapi, Bland, Retell), with a one-time build cost if an agency sets it up. Which is cheapest depends almost entirely on your call volume and whether it must book and write to your systems. Every price below is from the vendor's own page on 28 October 2026.
The three ways to pay
| Model | Examples | How you pay | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Packaged subscription | Dialzara, Goodcall | Flat monthly fee with included minutes or customers, overage above that | Low to medium volume, standard booking and FAQ needs |
| Hybrid AI and human | Smith.ai | Per call, with humans available | Businesses that want a person behind the AI |
| Voice platform, built for you | Bland, Vapi, Retell (Synthflow at enterprise scale) | Per minute of talk time plus telephony and model, plus a one-time build | Higher volume, custom booking and CRM logic, data ownership |
Packaged subscriptions
| Vendor and plan | Monthly price | Included | Overage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dialzara Business Lite | $29 | 60 minutes | $0.48/min |
| Dialzara Business Pro | $99 | 220 minutes | $0.45/min |
| Dialzara Business Plus | $199 | 500 minutes | $0.40/min |
| Dialzara Business Elite | $349 | 1,000 minutes | $0.35/min |
| Dialzara Done for You | From $1,500+, quote | Not listed | Not listed |
| Goodcall Starter | $79 | 100 unique customers (about 150 calls) | $0.79 per extra customer |
| Goodcall Growth | $129 | 500 customers (about 750 calls) | $0.26 per extra customer |
| Goodcall Scale | $299 | 2,000 customers (about 3,000 calls) | $0.15 per extra customer |
Dialzara and Goodcall both state no setup fees. Goodcall does not meter minutes at all; it counts unique customers.
Hybrid AI and human: Smith.ai
| Plan | Monthly price | Included calls | Overage per call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $300 | 30 | $11.50 |
| Basic | $810 | 90 | $10.50 |
| Pro | $2,100 | 300 | $8.50 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Month to month, no setup fees, 10% off for a 12-month term; extra transfer destinations $15 per month each. That is $7 to $10 per call, which is the price of having humans in the loop.
Voice platforms (you or an agency build the agent)
| Platform | Platform rate | On top | Platform fee | Free credit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bland Start | $0.14/min talk time (LLM, speech-to-text and text-to-speech included), $0.05/min transfer time | Telephony at pass-through | $0 | Two credits and an inbound number |
| Bland Build | $0.12/min talk, $0.04/min transfer | Telephony at pass-through | $299/month | |
| Vapi | $0.05/min hosting | Speech-to-text about $0.01/min, LLM $0.008 to $0.045/min, voice $0.015 to $0.024/min, telephony $0.0055 to $0.014/min or free via Vapi SIP | None on the pay-as-you-go package | $5 |
| Retell | $0.055/min voice engine | LLM $0.0016 to $0.16/min by model, voices $0.015/min (ElevenLabs $0.04 to $0.10), telephony $0.015/min, optional add-ons $0.005 to $0.01/min | None; numbers $2/month, concurrency beyond 20 at $8/month each | $10 |
| Synthflow | Enterprise contracts from $30,000 per year | Quote | Quote |
Read these as roughly $0.08 to $0.16 per minute all-in for a typical configuration, before any build cost. Rates vary with the model and voice you choose, so the exact figure is set when the agent is designed.
Worked example: 300 calls a month, 4 minutes each (1,200 minutes)
| Route | Monthly cost from published rates | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Dialzara Business Elite | $349 + 200 min × $0.35 = $419 | No build; standard features |
| Goodcall Growth | $129 if those calls are within 500 unique customers | Minutes not metered |
| Smith.ai Pro | $2,100 | Humans in the loop |
| Bland Start, custom agent | 1,200 × $0.14 = $168 + telephony | Plus one-time build; full custom logic |
| Vapi or Retell, custom agent | About 1,200 × $0.08 to $0.16 = $96 to $192 | Plus one-time build; model and voice choice sets the rate |
At this volume the per-minute platforms are cheapest to run and the packaged plans are cheapest to start. The build cost of a custom agent (with OpsThrive, $500 to $1,500 for a simple inbound agent, $2,000 to $5,000 with CRM logic) is usually recovered within months at a few hundred calls a month, and the custom agent does things the packaged ones cannot: your calendar rules, your CRM fields, your WhatsApp follow-up.
What the price does not tell you
- Telephony is separate almost everywhere. A number, inbound and outbound minutes from Twilio, Telnyx or Vonage, or a SIP trunk you already have.
- Overage shapes the real bill. Dialzara's $0.35 to $0.48 per minute above plan is three to six times the platform rates. Pick the plan for your busiest month, not your average.
- Humans cost per call, AI costs per minute. Smith.ai's model makes sense when a person must be reachable; it does not scale the way AI minutes do.
- Ownership. On a platform account in your name you keep the number, prompts and call data if you change agency or vendor.
Related
Frequently asked questions
How much does an AI receptionist cost per month?
Packaged services run $29 to $349 per month (Dialzara, by minutes) or $79 to $299 per month (Goodcall, by unique customers). Smith.ai's call-based plans are $300 to $2,100 per month. Platform-based agents cost per minute of talk time, from about $0.05 to $0.14 per minute plus telephony and, on some platforms, model costs.
Is an AI receptionist cheaper than a human receptionist?
On the published rates, yes by a wide margin for the answering itself: 1,000 minutes a month on Dialzara is $349, and roughly $140 to $200 on a per-minute platform before telephony. What a packaged AI cannot replace is judgement, so the right comparison is AI for first response and booking, humans for the calls that need them.
What is the cheapest way to get an AI receptionist?
For very low volume, Dialzara Business Lite at $29 for 60 minutes or Goodcall Starter at $79 for 100 customers. For higher volume, a per-minute platform such as Bland ($0.14/min on the Start plan, $0 platform fee) or Vapi ($0.05/min hosting plus components) costs less per call, but someone has to build and maintain the agent.
What does a custom AI receptionist build cost?
With OpsThrive, a simple inbound agent with booking and transfer is $500 to $1,500 one-time; agents with CRM logic and multi-step flows are $2,000 to $5,000. Usage is then billed to you by the platform at its per-minute rates.
Are there hidden costs?
Telephony (a phone number and per-minute carrier charges), the AI model's cost on platforms that pass it through, overage rates when you exceed a plan's minutes or calls, and add-ons such as extra transfer destinations or SMS. The tables below list the ones the vendors publish.
Sources
- Dialzara pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026: https://dialzara.com/pricing
- Goodcall pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026: https://www.goodcall.com/pricing
- Smith.ai pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026: https://smith.ai/pricing
- Bland AI pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026: https://www.bland.ai/pricing
- Vapi pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026: https://vapi.ai/pricing
- Retell AI pricing, checked 28 Oct 2026: https://www.retellai.com/pricing
- Synthflow pricing (enterprise only), checked 28 Oct 2026: https://www.synthflow.ai/pricing