A small business needs an AI receptionist that answers every call on its own number, takes messages, books appointments and hands callers to the owner. Free plans and trials cover that for days, not months. Dograh, the open-source AI voice agent platform we build, is the route you run yourself.
Key Takeaways
- Write your needs list before you compare any receptionist products.
- At 10 calls a day, a 25-call free plan lasts under three days.
- Phone minutes and models still cost money after any free offer.
This post is part of our guide to AI receptionists, where choosing starts with the hard calls and comes to price second. Here we score three ready-made products against a small office's needs and check how long free lasts, with Dograh as the open route.
What a small office needs from a receptionist
A small office needs the same things from an AI receptionist as from a person at the front desk. It has to answer every call, including after closing and when you are already on the other line, which the apps call overflow. And it has to answer on the number your customers already have, usually through call forwarding from that number to the receptionist.
Many calls end with a message. The receptionist should take the caller's name, number and reason, then send you a short summary by text or email while you are on a job. It should also answer the questions you hear every day, such as opening hours and service areas, from information you give it.
Booking comes next. A receptionist that offers real open slots and writes the chosen one into your calendar saves a callback for every appointment. Some calls still need you, so it should be able to hand a caller to your mobile and fall back to a message when you cannot pick up.
Last is a bill you can predict. Products charge per call, per customer or per minute, and a busy month can cost far more than a quiet one. Write your own list from these jobs, and mark the two or three you cannot do without.
Three receptionists scored against that list
Each product below is scored on the jobs above. The Dograh column is the open-source platform we build, which you set up yourself.
| Need | Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Upfirst | Goodcall | Dograh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Every call, after hours | 24/7 answering | Every call, overflow or after hours | Ask in the demo | Always on, inbound on Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Vonage and more |
| Your own number | Ask at signup | Forward your number, or use one it provides | A local number on every plan | Forward your number to one on your carrier |
| Messages and summaries | Recording, transcription and summaries | Summaries by text or email | Message-taker agent | A webhook sends the details to your system |
| Booking | AI scheduling | Google, Outlook, Clio, Acuity, Calendly, Square | Booker agent | Through an HTTP API tool to your booking system |
| Handing callers to you | Lead routing | Transfer with a live introduction | Ask in the demo | Transfer Call to your mobile, with a message if you miss it |
| How it bills | Per call | Per call | Per unique customer | Phone, models and server, plus a platform fee on Cloud |
The three ready-made apps cover most of the list with no setup. Smith.ai includes scheduling, lead qualification and routing, and it does not count calls from known spam numbers.
Upfirst is the most explicit about handover, with a transfer "with a live introduction" on every plan. Goodcall sells agents by job, such as a booker or a message taker, with per-customer billing.
The cells that say "Ask in the demo" are the ones to check before you pay. Handover matters most, and our guide to AI receptionist call transfers covers what to test.
How far free goes for a small office
Free comes in three shapes, and none lasts a normal month for a busy office. Smith.ai has a standing free plan of 25 real calls a month, then $3.00 a call. Upfirst has a free trial of 14 days or 100 calls, whichever comes first, with no card and no automatic billing. Goodcall lets you build and test an agent for free and charges once you connect a number.
As an example, take a plumber's office that gets 10 calls a working day. Smith.ai's 25 free calls last two and a half working days. At 22 working days, the month has 220 calls, so 195 of them cost $3.00 each, or $585. Upfirst's 100-call trial ends after 10 working days, before the 14 days are up.
Treat free as a way to hear the receptionist on your own calls, and decide from the paid price at your real volume. Our comparison of free AI answering services lists more free plans and trials, with where each one stops.
Open Source Alternative to Vapi / Retell
Self-hosted voice agent platform — no per-minute fees
dograh-hq/dograh
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What costs money once free ends
Once free ends, every product bills for the same work in a different unit. The ready-made apps fold the phone line and the models into one price per call or per customer. That keeps the bill simple, but the price per call stays the same in a busy month as in a quiet one.
When you run your own platform, those parts become separate lines. The phone number and its minutes come from your carrier. Speech-to-text, the language model and the voice bill per minute or per character from each provider, unless you run open-weight models on your own GPU. The server costs a monthly fee. Our breakdown of AI receptionist pricing prices one example month on six apps and on Dograh, line by line.
The open-source route for a small office
This route fits an office that wants its own call flow and its own recordings, and has someone to set it up. Self-hosted Dograh has no per-minute platform fee, but servers, model keys and phone minutes still cost money. Dograh Cloud charges a 1¢-a-minute platform fee, with credits from $5. Self-hosting needs a server with at least 8 GB of RAM and 4 vCPUs, plus a phone number on a carrier such as Twilio or Telnyx. Your existing office number forwards to it, so customers dial the same number as before.
The jobs on your list map to building blocks. A knowledge base holds your price list and service areas as uploaded files the agent reads during calls.
For booking, an HTTP API tool reads open slots from your booking system and writes the chosen one back, and the booking counts only when your system confirms it. The agent then reads the day and time back to the caller. For handover, Transfer Call works on Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Cloudonix and Asterisk ARI. Dograh dials your mobile while the caller hears hold music and connects them once you answer. If you do not pick up within the timeout, 30 seconds by default, the call returns to the agent, which takes a message.
Pre-recorded clips can play your greeting and common lines in a real voice, so fewer lines go through a paid voice provider.
The trade is time. Plan a setup week for the agent and the booking connection, and test it on your own calls before customers reach it. Our guide to AI phone agents for small business walks through that first week.
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Glossary
- Overflow
- A receptionist picking up calls that ring while you or your staff are already on the line, so the second caller reaches someone instead of voicemail.
- Call forwarding
- A setting on your existing phone line that sends incoming calls to another number, such as the receptionist's. Customers keep dialing the number they already have.
- Free trial
- Full use for a set number of days or calls, after which the account stops or becomes paid. Upfirst's ends at 14 days or 100 calls, whichever comes first.
- Per-customer billing
- A price per unique caller in a month rather than per call or per minute. A customer who calls three times counts once, which suits offices with many repeat callers.
