A live phone answering service costs about $1.06 to $5.00 per receptionist minute, or $7 to $10 per answered call, at the rates US providers publish on their own sites. For a business taking 200 calls a month at a little over two minutes each, that works out to roughly $620 to $2,070 a month for human receptionists. AI receptionists run about $130 to $390 for the same volume. The rate is only half the price: how a provider rounds each call decides the rest.
This guide is for the person who has to sign the order: an office manager at a law firm, a practice administrator, the owner of a home services company, or a support lead covering after-hours lines. Every figure below was read on the provider's own pricing page, and where a provider hides its rates behind a form or a sales call, the table says so. That is useful information too, because it tells you which quotes you will have to chase.
How much does an answering service cost per month?
Most small businesses pay between $250 and $1,000 a month for a live answering service, and the number is driven by minutes used, not by the plan name. Entry plans start at $44 to $49 a month for pay-as-you-go access and $99 to $300 for the first bundle of 30 to 125 minutes or calls. Once you pass a few hundred minutes, the effective rate settles between about $1.10 and $2.00 a minute at the value providers and $2.75 to $3.60 at the premium ones.
Four billing units are in use, and they behave very differently on the same call log:
| Billing unit | Who uses it | What grows your bill | Cheapest when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per receptionist minute, billed by the second | Specialty Answering Service, AnswerFirst, Davinci Virtual | Total talk time | Calls are short and you want no rounding penalty |
| Per receptionist minute, rounded up | Ruby and AnswerConnect round each call up to a full minute; PATLive bills the first minute in full, then in 6 second steps | Number of calls as much as talk time | Calls are long, so the rounding is a small share |
| Per answered call | Smith.ai human receptionists; most AI receptionists | Call count, plus per-call add-ons | Calls routinely run past four or five minutes |
| Per unique caller or per minute bundle (AI) | Goodcall counts unique customers; Rosie sells minute bundles | How many distinct people call | Repeat callers, short routine calls |
Answering service pricing by provider
We checked eighteen providers on September 21, 2026. Twelve publish a full US rate card, AnswerFirst publishes a range and keeps the full card behind a form, Nexa and AnswerForce publish nothing, one is blocked by a security check, VoiceNation now redirects to Moneypenny, and one has no live site. The effective rate column divides the plan price by the minutes or calls it includes, so every row is on the same footing before overage.
| Vendor | Published price (checked 2026-09-21) | Billing unit | Effective rate | Overage and fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialty Answering Service | Economy $44/mo; 100 min $159; 220 min $269; 500 min $649; 1,000 min $1,199; 10,000 min $10,599 | Minute, billed per second | $1.06 to $1.59 per minute | Overage $1.09 to $1.44; no setup, holiday or weekend fees |
| MAP Communications | Pay as you go $49/mo at $1.37/min; Business 125 min $179; Enterprise 250 min $339; Premium 500 min $649 | Minute | $1.30 to $1.43 per minute | Overage $1.28 to $1.30; English and Spanish included; increment not published |
| AnswerConnect | Entry 200 min $350; Growth 300 min $395; Standard 400 min $575; up to 100,000 min $132,950 | Minute, rounded up to the next full minute | $1.32 to $1.75 per minute | Overage $1.75 to $2.50; $49.99 setup on most plans; after-call work is billable |
| PATLive | Pay as you go $49/mo; 50 min $99; 200 min $349; 500 min $759; 1,000 min $1,499; 5,000 min $6,899 | Minute, first minute in full then 6 second steps | $1.38 to $1.98 per minute | Overage $1.49 to $2.99, always above the in-plan rate; bilingual included |
| AnswerFirst | $30/mo base plus $1.60 to $1.95 per minute; full rate card behind a form | Minute, billed per second | $1.60 to $1.95 per minute plus base | No overage fees; customization fee may apply |
| Moneypenny (human) | 50 min $165; 100 min $265; 200 min $422; 500 min $985 | Minute | $1.97 to $3.30 per minute | Extra minutes $1.67 to $2.28; no contract. VoiceNation now redirects here |
| Davinci Virtual | Business 50 min $129 or 100 min $239; Premium 50 min $249 or 100 min $319 | Minute, billed per second | $2.39 to $4.98 per minute | Overage $1.75 Business, $2.50 Premium; $95 setup; live answering weekdays 8am to 8pm ET only |
| Abby Connect | Starter 50 min $165; Essential 100 min $329; Professional 200 min $599; Growth 500 min $1,380 | Abby Minute (an AI minute uses half) | $2.76 to $3.30 per minute | Overage at the plan rate; no setup fee |
| Ruby | 50 min $250; 100 min $395; 200 min $720; 500 min $1,725 | Minute, rounded up to 60 seconds | $3.45 to $5.00 per minute | Overage at the plan rate; hold time and after-call work are billable; no setup fee |
| Smith.ai (human) | Starter 30 calls $300; Basic 90 calls $810; Pro 300 calls $2,100 | Answered call | $7.00 to $10.00 per call | Extra calls $8.50 to $11.50; spam not charged; add-ons from $0.25 to $1.50 per call; 10% off annual |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | 75 calls $150; 150 calls $270; 300 calls $500; 500 calls $800 | Answered call | $1.60 to $2.00 per call | Extra calls $2.10 to $2.50; up to 10% of calls can be removed as spam |
| Moneypenny AI | 25 calls $69; 100 calls $199; 250 calls $435; 500 calls $775 | Answered call | $1.55 to $2.76 per call | Extra calls $1.69 to $2.49 |
| Goodcall (AI) | Starter 100 customers $79; Growth 250 $129; Scale 500 $249 billed monthly, 15% less annually | Unique caller per month | $0.42 to $0.79 per caller | $0.50 per extra caller; unlimited minutes; robocalls not counted |
| Rosie (AI) | Professional 250 min $49; Scale 1,000 min $149; Growth 2,000 min $299 billed monthly | Minute bundle | $0.12 to $0.20 per minute | No overage rate: going over moves you to the next plan |
| Nexa | Publishes no price; plans listed as 100, 300 and 500 voice minutes | Minute | Not published | Overage at the base rate; setup fee exists, amount not published |
| AnswerForce | Publishes no price; plans appear only after a contact form | Not published | Not published | Not published |
Two providers could not be priced at all. AnsweringServiceCare's pricing page sits behind a bot challenge that blocked every method we tried, and Upward Call's domain resolves to a placeholder page. If either is on your shortlist, ask for the rate card in writing before the first call.
Is it cheaper to pay per minute or per call?
Per minute is cheaper for most small businesses, because the typical answering service call is short. At $1.30 to $1.60 a minute, a per-call plan at $7 to $10 only wins once the average call runs past roughly four and a half to eight minutes. Per call is the better deal for intake-heavy work, such as legal intake or detailed service dispatch, where each call is long and predictable.
The comparison changes when the per-minute provider rounds up. Ruby's terms round each call up to the next 60 second mark, so a 20 second hang-up costs a full minute at $3.45 to $5.00. A line with lots of short calls, wrong numbers and quick transfers pays for time nobody spent. Smith.ai's per-call model removes that risk in the other direction: spam calls are not charged at all, and a ten minute intake costs the same as a two minute one. Pull thirty days of call logs before you choose and count calls under one minute. If they are more than a quarter of your volume, per-second billing or per-call pricing will beat a rounded per-minute plan almost every time.
What does 200 calls a month actually cost?
Here is the same month priced at every provider that publishes enough to calculate it: 200 calls, an average of 2 minutes 20 seconds of receptionist time each. That is 467 minutes billed by the second, 480 minutes under PATLive's first-minute rule, and 600 minutes where every call rounds up to three full minutes. After-call work is left out, which flatters Ruby and AnswerConnect, both of which bill it.
| Vendor and plan | Monthly cost | Year one | What the number assumes |
|---|---|---|---|
| MAP Communications, Enterprise 250 min plus overage | $616 | $7,396 | 467 minutes; increment not published, so this assumes no rounding |
| Specialty Answering Service, 220 min plus overage | $624 | $7,490 | 467 minutes billed per second |
| PATLive, 500 min plan | $759 | $9,108 | 480 minutes after first-minute rounding |
| AnswerFirst, $30 base plus per minute | $777 to $940 | $9,320 to $11,280 | 467 minutes at $1.60 to $1.95; exact rate is quote-only |
| Davinci Virtual, Business 100 plus overage | $881 | $10,663 | 467 minutes plus $95 setup; live answering weekdays only |
| AnswerConnect, 550 min plus overage | $888 | $10,700 | 600 rounded minutes plus $49.99 setup |
| Moneypenny, 200 min plus extra minutes | $931 | $11,177 | 467 minutes |
| Abby Connect, Growth 500 | $1,380 | $16,560 | 467 human minutes |
| Smith.ai, Basic 90 calls plus extra calls | $1,965 | $23,580 | 200 calls, no add-ons; spam would lower it |
| Ruby, 500 min plus overage | $2,070 | $24,840 | 600 rounded minutes, before after-call work |
| Smith.ai AI, 150 calls plus extra calls | $385 | $4,620 | 200 calls handled by AI only |
| Rosie (AI), Scale plan | $149 | $1,788 | 467 minutes pushes you off the 250 minute plan |
| Goodcall (AI), Growth | $129 | $1,548 | Up to 250 unique callers |
The spread between the cheapest and the most expensive human service is more than three to one on an identical call log. Some of that is service level: Ruby and Smith.ai sell a more scripted, more trained front desk, and for a law firm taking new client calls that can be worth the money. But a good share of the gap is billing mechanics, and those you can see before you sign.
One detail surprised us. At both Specialty Answering Service and MAP, buying a smaller plan and paying overage was cheaper than buying the plan that covers the month. At SAS, the 220 minute plan plus overage came to $624, against $649 for the 500 minute plan. Specialty Answering Service's 220 minute tier ($1.22 a minute) is also cheaper per minute than its own 500 minute tier ($1.30). Always price the tier below the obvious one.
What is included in an answering service plan?
A standard plan includes live call answering, message taking, call transfer to your staff, and message delivery by email or text. Several providers include bilingual answering at no extra charge, among them PATLive, MAP, Abby Connect and Moneypenny. Bilingual answering covers Spanish; for callers in Vietnamese, Russian or Haitian Creole, a receptionist conferences in a phone interpreter, which is billed separately per minute, and our guide to over the phone interpretation pricing lists the published rates. The items that most often cost extra are appointment scheduling, CRM or practice-software integration, HIPAA handling, outbound follow-up, and after-hours live coverage at providers that switch to an automated attendant overnight.
Read the per-call and per-month add-ons as carefully as the plan. At Smith.ai, booking an appointment adds $1.50 a call, a dedicated Spanish line $1.00, and payment collection $1.00, so an intake line that books most callers can run $9 to $11 a call on the Basic plan. AnswerConnect lists HIPAA at $40 and Spanish at $30 (if half your callers open in Spanish, our bilingual answering service pricing comparison shows who includes it and who bills it as an add-on). Davinci keeps scheduling and outbound calling on its Premium tier only. Several of these providers also staff website chat on separate bundles, with PATLive, Ruby and Davinci all publishing chat rates; we line those up against chat-only services in our guide to outsourced live chat costs.
How do answering services bill for spam, holds and after-call work?
This is where two quotes with the same rate stop being the same price. Ruby bills from the moment the call is answered until it is transferred or ended, including hold time, plus the time a receptionist spends writing up the message afterward. AnswerConnect and Nexa also bill after-call work. PATLive, Davinci and Specialty Answering Service bill receptionist talk time only. Smith.ai does not charge for spam or unsolicited sales calls, and Goodcall never counts robocalls or silent callers.
Ask every provider on your shortlist three questions in writing: what is the billing increment, is after-call work billable, and are spam and wrong-number calls charged. Those three answers move the real rate more than the difference between any two headline prices in the table above.
Are AI answering services cheaper than live receptionists?
Yes, by a wide margin on price: AI receptionists cost about $0.12 to $0.20 a minute or $0.42 to $2.76 a call, against $1.06 to $5.00 a minute for people. On our 200 call month that is $129 to $385 instead of $616 to $2,070. The catch is scope. AI handles routine questions, hours, directions, booking and message capture well. It is weaker on upset callers, legal and medical intake, and anything that needs judgment.
Several providers now sell both, and the hybrid is where the savings usually land. Abby counts an AI minute as half an Abby Minute, which halves the effective rate for calls the AI can finish. Moneypenny and Smith.ai sell separate AI and human plans. A common setup is AI first, with a live transfer for new clients and anything urgent. If you are weighing AI more broadly across chat and email as well as phone, our guide to AI customer service software pricing covers the per-resolution rates the helpdesk vendors charge.
What practices actually pay for medical answering service
We checked 18 services that sell to physician offices, clinics, dental and home health practices on September 26, 2026. Twelve publish a price, and not one of them has a separate medical rate. A practice pays the same per minute rate card as a plumber. What differs is the HIPAA stance, whether on call paging is billed as work time, and whether the vendor will sign a Business Associate Agreement.
How much does a medical answering service cost?
A live medical answering service costs about $499 to $1,725 a month for 500 minutes at published US rates, and $44 to $250 a month at the entry tier. Overage runs $1.09 to $2.99 per minute. AI receptionists that will sign a BAA start around $99 to $149 a month, but they cannot take clinical judgment calls.
| Provider | Published price (checked 2026-09-26) | HIPAA wording on its own site | On call and patching |
|---|---|---|---|
| AnswerHero | $499 a month for 500 minutes, $1.25 per extra minute | Claims compliance, no BAA wording | Not priced separately |
| Continental Message Solution | $575 per 28 days for 500 minutes, overage not published | "Supports HIPAA-compliant secure messaging" | Real time on call portal on every plan |
| AMBS Call Center | $600 a month for 500 minutes, $1.22 per extra minute, $85 one time setup | Annual third party HIPAA audits | Paging and entering on call data billed as work time; patching 6 cents a minute |
| Signius | $280 a month for 225 minutes, $1.25 per extra minute | "HIPAA Compliant" on all plans | On call roster updates and alpha paging included |
| Specialty Answering Service | $649 a month for 500 minutes, $1.34 per extra minute, billed by the second | "HIPAA Compliant" in the plan table | On call management included; patching $0.10 a minute |
| MAP Communications | $649 a month for 500 minutes, $1.28 per extra minute | "Fully HIPAA Compliant" on all plans, HITRUST and SOC 2 | Routes to the on call provider |
| PATLive | $759 a month for 500 minutes, $1.79 per extra minute | Medical page does not mention HIPAA | Relays to your on call team |
| Moneypenny | $985 a month for 500 minutes (list price), $1.67 per extra minute | "All of our software is HIPAA compliant" | Not priced separately |
| Abby Connect | $1,380 a month for 500 minutes | HIPAA options included, human receptionists only | On call escalation included |
| Ruby | $1,725 a month for 500 minutes | "HIPAA-compliant services available" on all plans | Not priced separately |
| Smith.ai | $810 a month for 90 calls, $10.50 per extra call | States it is not HIPAA compliant and cannot handle PHI | Not suitable for patient calls |
| AnswerConnect | Nothing published; overage "varies based on your plan" | HIPAA option in the portal, which disables call recording | Not priced separately |
| My AI Front Desk (AI) | $99 a month for 200 minutes ($79 billed annually), $0.25 per extra minute | Clinics page says it signs BAAs | Not applicable |
| Rosie (AI) | $149 a month for 1,000 minutes | Terms require a signed BAA with Rosie before PHI | Not applicable |
| Dialzara (AI) | $99 a month for 220 minutes, $0.45 per extra minute | Only "HIPAA-Conscious Handling", no BAA | Not applicable |
Answering Service Care blocked every attempt to read its site, and Answer 1 did not respond, so neither is in the table.
Many medical practices buy an answering service to absorb the confirm-and-reschedule calls that a reminder system would prevent in the first place. A dedicated reminder service with voice and two-way text confirmation publishes at $29 to $150 a month, a fraction of 500 answering minutes, and our medical appointment reminder services pricing guide lists which of them sign a BAA.
Are medical answering services HIPAA compliant?
Most say so, but the claim sits in marketing copy, not in a contract. None of the live agent services we checked mentions a Business Associate Agreement anywhere on its site, and only two AI vendors do. Under HIPAA, a service that takes protected health information on your behalf needs a signed BAA, so ask for it before the first patient call routes over.
Two findings matter more than the rate. Smith.ai, one of the best known names in this guide, says on its own medical page that it is not HIPAA compliant and cannot handle PHI, so it is out for any practice whose callers describe symptoms. And AMBS bills paging and on call data entry as work time in 30 second increments, which means a practice with busy nights pays for every page on top of the answered minute. Put your last month of after hours calls against the 500 minute plans above, add the pages your on call rotation actually receives, and the cheapest quote usually changes.
When does an answering service stop making sense?
An answering service is priced for overflow and after-hours coverage, not for running your whole front line. Past roughly 1,500 to 2,000 minutes a month, the monthly bill reaches the cost of a full-time employee, and at that point you have three better options: hire an in-house receptionist, move to a contact center platform your own staff log into, or outsource to a dedicated team billed per agent hour rather than per minute.
The other exit is the opposite direction: if most callers only need to reach the right person during business hours, a phone menu does that job for the price of a phone plan. Our breakdown of IVR pricing by vendor shows which plans include the menu and which lock it one tier up.
The arithmetic is simple. At $1.40 a minute, 2,000 minutes is $2,800 a month, or $33,600 a year. Ruby's 500 minute plan alone is $20,700 a year. Our call center staffing calculator will tell you how many agents that volume really needs once you account for shrinkage, and our breakdown of customer service outsourcing costs shows what a dedicated outsourced agent costs per hour by region. If you would rather assemble your own remote team than buy minutes, you can hire a dedicated support team on a per-person basis, which changes the pricing unit from the minute to the seat. And if you plan to run the phones yourself, the published per-seat rates are in our contact center software pricing comparison.
Frequently asked questions
What is a reasonable price for an answering service?
A reasonable price for a live answering service is $1.10 to $2.00 per receptionist minute at volume, or $250 to $1,000 a month for a typical small business. Premium providers charge $2.75 to $5.00 a minute for more heavily trained receptionists. Anything above that should come with something specific, such as legal intake, medical triage or a dedicated team.
Do answering services charge setup fees?
Most do not. Ruby, Abby Connect, Smith.ai and Specialty Answering Service state that they charge no setup fee. Davinci Virtual charges $95, AnswerConnect $49.99 on most plans, and Nexa and AnswerFirst say a setup or customization fee may apply without publishing the amount. Ask for it in writing, since it rarely appears on the plan card.
Do I need a contract for an answering service?
Usually not. Every provider in this guide that states its terms runs month to month, including Ruby, Smith.ai, PATLive, AnswerConnect, Abby Connect, Moneypenny and MAP. Davinci asks for 30 days' written notice and Smith.ai's AI plan 30 days' notice. Annual prepayment is optional and buys a discount at Smith.ai (10%) and Goodcall (15%).
Do unused answering service minutes roll over?
Generally no. PATLive states that minutes do not roll over, and most minute-bundle plans reset each month. Smith.ai's six month AI plan is the exception we found, with rollover calls, though its price is not published. Size the plan to a normal month and let overage absorb the busy ones.
Are there answering services with no per-minute charges?
Yes. Smith.ai's human receptionists bill per call at $7 to $10, and AI services like Goodcall bill per unique caller with unlimited minutes. Per-call pricing makes a long intake call cost the same as a short one, which suits law firms and service businesses whose calls run five minutes or more.
How much does a 24 hour answering service cost?
A 24 hour answering service usually costs the same as a daytime one: about $269 to $349 a month for 200 to 250 minutes and $649 to $759 for 500 minutes at Specialty Answering Service, MAP and PATLive. PATLive states that every plan covers 24/7/365 with no extra charge for nights, weekends or holidays, and Specialty Answering Service lists no holiday or weekend fees.
Ask the question anyway, in writing. Some providers advertise round the clock coverage but price only weekday hours into the plan, and Davinci Virtual's live receptionists answer weekdays 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern only. If most of your calls arrive after 6 p.m., that one line matters more than the per minute rate.
Is there a pay as you go answering service?
Yes. Specialty Answering Service sells an Economy plan at $44 a month with every minute billed by the second, MAP Communications charges $49 a month plus $1.37 a minute, PATLive $49 a month plus $2.99 a minute, and AnswerFirst $30 a month plus $1.60 to $1.95 a minute. Pay as you go only wins at very low volume.
The breakeven comes early. At MAP, pay as you go beats the $179 Business plan (125 minutes) only below about 95 minutes a month. At PATLive, the $99 plan with 50 minutes is already cheaper than pay as you go once you pass about 17 minutes. Put your last three months of call minutes against both before you pick the no commitment option.
The short version
Answering service pricing looks like a single number per minute, and it is not. Convert every quote to the cost of your own last month of calls, using each provider's rounding rule, before you compare anything. Specialty Answering Service and MAP are the cheapest published human rates at about $1.30 a minute; Ruby and Smith.ai cost three times as much for a more trained front desk; AI plans cost a fifth as much for routine calls. Check the tier below the obvious one, count your calls under one minute, and get the answer on after-call work in writing.