Answering Service Price Index: What 100, 200 and 500 Minutes Actually Cost

September 2026 public-price snapshot

An answering-service price is comparable only after its billing unit, included allowance, operating hours and workflow have been identified. A monthly subscription covering billable agent minutes is not the same product as a subscription covering calls, unique callers, AI credits or staffed hours. This edition records published prices and terms, then shows reproducible base-plus-usage examples. It does not rank service quality or estimate the average bill for all businesses.

Observation date: September 19, 2026. Currency: US dollars. Market: US-facing offers. Prices can change; confirm the applicable plan and terms before purchase.

What this edition contains

The collection screened 24 service brands. Nineteen displayed at least one numerical price or starting rate in the accessible official material. Four did not display prices in the reviewed material or required a contact/registration step. One pricing page could not be read by the research tool. That access limitation is not evidence that the provider has no public pricing.

The data file contains 79 plan or offer records, including records with unknown values. It is not a list of 79 verified customer quotes. There are 153 base-plus-usage scenario calculations for captured plans with sufficient rate inputs, plus three separately modeled AI credit-purchase scenarios.

No purchases, sales calls, trial accounts or mystery-shop calls were used. No customer invoices were collected. The sample was selected for relevance to answering-service buyers and availability of official information, not randomly drawn from the market. Multiple brands may share ownership; the number of independent corporate groups has not been established. For these reasons, this edition does not publish a pooled market mean, median, quality score or winner.

The billing units buyers need to separate

Smith.ai's live receptionist plans are priced per call. Goodcall's AI plans use unique customers identified by interacting phone numbers rather than a count of calls or minutes. Those denominators must remain separate even when both products answer incoming calls. Smith.ai pricing Goodcall pricing

Seven named-plan examples at 300 billable minutes

The following calculations hold usage at 300 provider-defined billable minutes. They do not assume that the same set of real calls would generate exactly 300 billable minutes at every provider. Different rounding and after-call-work rules can change that number.

These are named-plan arithmetic examples, listed alphabetically, not the cheapest offer available from each provider. Features, hours, integrations, restrictions and extra charges differ. Larger plans and contract-specific offers may exist outside the captured basket.

Sources: AnswerConnect, AnswerHero, MAP Communications, Moneypenny US, PATLive, Ruby pricing and official Ruby rate-plan help, Specialty Answering Service.

The calculation is:

Monthly base + max(0, billable usage − included allowance) × overage rate.

For example, the captured SAS 220-minute plan produces $269 + (300 − 220) × $1.44 = $384.20 before charges outside this model. This arithmetic does not mean that plan is the best fit for a particular business. SAS pricing

Taxes, carrier charges, optional features, outbound work and other unconfirmed fees are not included. A separately identified setup amount is shown only when confirmed in the source record. An unknown setup fee is not entered as zero. None of these examples is an all-in quote.

Per-call and unique-caller examples are separate

At 100 billable calls, the captured Smith.ai Basic plan yields $810 + 10 × $10.50 = $915 before optional services. Its published appointment-booking and recording/transcription add-ons are not included in that subtotal. Smith.ai pricing

At 250 unique callers in a month, Goodcall's captured Growth plan has a $129 monthly base with 250 unique callers included. Repeated calls by the same recognized number are not the same thing as additional unique callers. A business should not compare the $129 figure with a 250-call or 250-minute human-service bill without a separate workload model. Goodcall pricing

The workbook keeps these scenarios on their actual units. It does not invent an average call length to force every provider onto one price scale.

AI credits require a purchase model, not just a minute rate

The captured My AI Front Desk monthly offer lists $99, 200 included voice minutes and 1,000 shared overage credits. Additional voice usage consumes 25 credits per minute; additional credits are sold in 1,000-credit packs for $10. My AI Front Desk pricing

A voice-only example with 300 minutes, no opening purchased-credit balance and no other credit use needs 2,500 overage credits. After the 1,000 included credits, it needs 1,500 more: two packs, or $20. The modeled base plus new credit purchases is $119, not $114. The unused purchased credits are not treated as a refund. Carryover can change later months.

This is a conditional scenario, not a claim that every customer using 300 minutes pays $119. Messaging, other channels, taxes, account terms and prior credit balances may change the result. The worksheet records each assumption separately.

Published-price availability across the 24-brand screen

The screen below records what was observed, not an assessment of quality or trustworthiness. “Not displayed” refers to the reviewed official material and does not mean no price exists anywhere.

How conflicting or incomplete evidence is handled

Posh and Answering Service Care: official pages or sections showed inconsistent prices or terms in the captured evidence. Both remain in the disclosure screen, but neither is included in the comparative scenario calculations. The contradictory source locations are retained for correction and confirmation; the collection does not choose whichever price makes a provider look better. Posh pricing Posh campaign page Answering Service Care pricing

AnswerHero: the reviewed pricing page and FAQ differ on time increments. The model can calculate a subtotal for an already-defined number of billable minutes, but it does not convert raw call duration into billable minutes until that discrepancy is resolved. Pricing FAQ

AnswerFirst: the reviewed source provides a base fee and a range of minute rates rather than the complete threshold schedule. No midpoint rate is invented. AnswerFirst pricing

Rosie: published tiers are recorded, but overage behavior was not established from the captured material. Above-allowance usage is therefore not priced as free. Rosie pricing

Davinci: live receptionist coverage and automated after-hours coverage are different services. Its business-hours live offer must not be represented as equivalent to a 24/7 human-answering plan. Davinci service FAQ

Abby and HelpSquad: mixed human/AI credits and staffed-hour offers remain outside the common-minute table. A credit or a reserved staffing hour is not automatically a minute of customer talk time. Abby pricing HelpSquad

How to use the data to request a quote

Start with a recent call log or a clearly labeled forecast. Separate routine messages, new inquiries, scheduling, transfers, escalations and outbound work. Identify the hours and languages required, then ask each provider how that exact workload is billed.

A useful quote request should settle five issues: what counts as usage; what is included; what triggers an additional fee; what the service can do without transfer; and what happens when demand exceeds the plan. Ask for the terms governing plan changes and cancellation rather than assuming the worksheet's lowest captured subtotal will be selected automatically each month.

For sensitive workflows, price is only one purchasing criterion. Security, access, escalation and any applicable contractual requirements need separate evaluation. This pricing screen is not a HIPAA, legal-ethics or operational-reliability certification.

Methodology, limitations and corrections

Only official provider pricing, service and help pages were used for the numerical records. The evidence register preserves URLs, observation date, unit, allowance, overage, known startup charges, exclusions and source conflicts. Unknown fields stay blank. The calculations are reproducible from the attached plan data.

The screen is not a probability sample and does not establish the number of independent companies. It cannot estimate typical customer invoices, actual service quality, conversion rates, staffing performance or an industry-wide average. A source-linked observation is not an independent audit of the provider's claim.

Corrections should identify the brand, affected plan, official source and effective date. Updated observations belong in a new dated edition; the prior snapshot should remain available for provenance. Dates must not be rolled forward without reviewing the inputs.

Read the research methodology, compare answering-service costs, or use the corrections process. Commercial relationships and provider evaluation remain separate; see the commercial disclosure.

Next step: Compare answering-service options for your requirements. This starts the existing requirements process; it is not an instant quote, guaranteed provider introduction or promise of savings.