Best AI Phone Answering Services: Costs and Handover

The best AI phone answering service depends on who should answer. That can be people at an answering service, an AI receptionist app, or an agent you host. Compare each on its billing unit and how it passes a caller to a person. Dograh, the open-source AI voice agent platform we build, runs on your own server or Dograh Cloud.

Key Takeaways

• Answering services put a person on every call and bill by minute or call.
• Receptionist apps differ most in how they hand a caller to staff.
• A self-hosted agent swaps the platform fee for server, phone and model bills.

This post is part of our guide to AI receptionists, whose buying checklist starts with how a product transfers a call. Below, we list ten services by type, from people-staffed answering services to an agent you host, with each one's price and how it passes a caller to a person.

How this list was put together

Most best-of lists in this category come from a vendor that puts its own product at the top, and the ones we read do not publish how their tests were run. This list ranks nothing. It groups ten services by who answers the phone and gives each one the same two facts: its starting price in its own billing unit and what happens when a caller asks for a person.

Handover gets its own column because a caller who cannot reach a person is a caller you may lose. In a CallRail survey of 1,000 US consumers, 78% said they had abandoned a business after a call went unanswered.

Voice platforms you build on, such as Vapi and Retell, are left out here. Our roundup of AI receptionist software and voice platforms covers them next to the ready-made products.

Ten services side by side

The table puts ten services of all three types side by side. Prices are each vendor's lowest paid or free starting point, in the unit the vendor bills by.

The billing units differ across minutes, calls, unique callers and Abby Minutes. A starting price shows only where a plan begins. Our post on AI receptionist pricing prices one 300-call month across several of these apps.

Answering services: a person on every call

Answering services put trained people on your line, so the handover question mostly disappears. PATLive states that it has no AI answering, and any plan can be tried free for 14 days. Ruby bills by the minute, from $250 for 50 minutes up to $1,725 for 500, and answers around the clock, weekends and holidays included.

Smith.ai's live receptionists bill per call, from $300 for 30 calls with $11.50 for each call past that. Spam, wrong numbers and sales calls are not counted when caller ID comes through. Each plan includes free transfer destinations: one on Starter, two on Basic and ten on Pro.

Abby Connect sells the same tiers with people, AI or a mix of both. AI minutes stretch twice as far, because one Abby Minute buys two minutes of AI answering.

What you pay for in this group is a person's time, so the bill rises with every minute or call. On PATLive's 200-minute plan, each minute over costs $1.99.

Receptionist apps that pass calls to people

Receptionist apps answer with AI and send some calls on to you or your staff. How they send the call matters as much as the price.

Smith.ai's AI Receptionist can hand a call to Smith.ai's live receptionists, who are based in North America. When the AI starts that escalation there is no fee, and live agent help on a call is a paid add-on. It is the one app here with its own team of people behind it.

Upfirst tells you who is calling and why before you accept a transfer. Its waterfall transfers try one person after another until someone picks up. Goodcall lets you choose who receives transfers and bills per unique caller, with minutes never metered. Rosie lists transfers on its Scale and Growth plans only, and its $49 Professional plan texts the caller a booking link.

RingCentral's AI Receptionist routes calls by name, department, location or keyword, and each transfer arrives with a call summary and caller details. Past the included minutes it bills $0.50 a minute, rounded up to 30-second steps. It can run on its own or as an add-on, and sits in front of other phone systems through call forwarding or SIP.

Open Source Alternative to Vapi / Retell

Self-hosted voice agent platform — no per-minute fees

dograh-hq/dograh

Star on GitHub

Self-hosted: an agent you run yourself

The third type is an AI voice agent on a server you control. Dograh is the open-source option on this list. You build the call flow, pick the speech and language models, and connect your own phone provider.

Handover uses the Transfer Call tool on Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Cloudonix or Asterisk ARI. The caller hears hold music while the person's number rings, and the two are joined once that person answers. If nobody answers within the timeout, 30 seconds by default, the caller stays with the agent, which can take a message. The call transfer docs list each setting.

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. The cloud version suits a team that wants the same agent without looking after a server. Our walk-through of an AI answering service for a business follows one call from the first ring to the handover.

Which type fits your phone line

Start from who should talk to your callers. If every caller expects a person, an answering service fits, and the bill follows your call minutes. If most calls are routine questions and bookings, a receptionist app handles them and sends the rest on, so compare how each app transfers calls before you compare prices.

A self-hosted agent fits a business that wants to change the call flow itself and keep recordings on its own servers, and that has someone to look after a server. Whichever type you shortlist, test it with a call that asks for a person at your busiest hour, and see where that call ends up.