Compared · checked 23 August 2026
Smith.ai charges by the call. We charge by the minute — and the gap is wide.
Smith.ai is an established virtual receptionist service that answers, screens and routes calls for small businesses, with both AI-first and human-first modes. It is a real service with real people behind parts of it, and it is priced accordingly.
A like-for-like month
A practice taking about 66 calls a month — roughly three a day — averaging three minutes each.
AI Builders
$99
Smith.ai
$714
How that works out: 66 calls is 200 minutes, which is exactly what the $99 plan includes. On Smith.ai's Starter plan those 66 calls are 30 included plus 36 over at $11.50 — $300 + $414.
Their Basic plan at $810 for 90 calls would be worse at this volume, not better. We are comparing against their cheapest fit.
Both price lists, as published
AI Builders
- Receptionist
- $99/mo — 200 minutes, then $0.55/min
- Receptionist Plus
- $299/mo — 700 minutes, then $0.45/min
- Receptionist Pro
- $599/mo — 1,400 minutes, then $0.40/min
- Billing rule
- Charged on whichever plan is cheapest for the minutes you used
- Trial
- None. Month to month, cancel any time.
Smith.ai
- Starter
- $300/month — 30 calls, then $11.50/call
- Basic
- $810/month — 90 calls, then $10.50/call
- Pro
- $2,100/month — 300 calls, then $8.50/call
- Enterprise
- Custom — “Ask about enterprise pricing”
- Setup
- “No setup fees”
- Annual
- 10% discount for a 12-month subscription
- Guarantee
- 30-day money-back, refunds on overage capped at $1,000
Quoted from smith.ai/pricing, checked 23 August 2026. Prices change — check theirs before deciding.
Not published on their page:
- — Which plans use AI-first versus human-first answering — both modes are described, but the pricing page does not tie them to tiers
- — Any minimum term
Where they differ, beyond price
| AI Builders | Smith.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | An AI assistant, always. It says so. | AI-first or human-first, depending on how the account is configured. |
| What you are billed for | Minutes of call time. | Calls, whatever their length. |
| A 20-second wrong number | Costs you about eleven cents. | Counts as a call. |
| Picking the wrong plan | Costs nothing — you are billed on whichever plan works out cheapest. | Overage is charged at your tier's rate. |
When Smith.ai is the better buy
If you want a human on the phone, buy the human. There are calls where a person is the product — a distressed client, a complex intake, anything where being heard matters more than being answered — and no AI covers that today, including ours. Smith.ai also does outbound follow-up and CRM-integrated intake work that goes well beyond answering a line. If what you need is a receptionist rather than a phone line that answers, they are the ones selling it.
The short version
If your calls are logistics — hours, prices, directions, taking a message — you are paying roughly seven times over for a person to read them out. If your calls need a person, pay for the person.
Speaks in your browser. Nothing to install, no number to dial, no form.