October 15, 2026. Smith.ai prices both of its receptionist products per call, not per minute. Its AI receptionist has a free plan with 25 calls a month and $3.00 for each call after that, a Pro plan from $150 a month for 75 calls, and an Enterprise plan from $500 a month for 300 calls. Its human receptionists cost $300 a month for 30 calls, $810 for 90 and $2,100 for 300. Per-call billing means a longer call does not cost more, within limits: the human plans' reasonable use policy allows extra fees for calls that go beyond normal answering-service scope. We build AI calling for home services companies and other businesses that live on the phone, so this guide sets out what each Smith.ai plan costs at real call volumes, and where the per-call model works for you or against you.
Prices come from Smith.ai's pricing pages for the AI receptionist and the human receptionists, and its reasonable use policy, read 15 October 2026. All prices are in US dollars a month unless stated. Where we give a monthly total the pages do not print, it is our arithmetic from the published per-call rates.
Key numbers
| Item | Number |
|---|---|
| AI receptionist, Free | 25 calls a month, then $3.00 a call |
| AI receptionist, Pro (75 calls at $2.00) | from $150 a month |
| AI receptionist, Enterprise (300 calls at $1.67) | from $500 a month |
| Human receptionists (30 to 300 calls) | $300 to $2,100 a month |
| Extra calls, AI plans | $2.10 to $3.00 a call |
| Extra calls, human plans | $8.50 to $11.50 a call |
| 12-month discount, human plans | 10% |
| Money-back guarantee, human plans (new clients, up to $1,000, overage excluded) | 30 days |
Smith.ai pricing pages for the AI receptionist and human receptionists and the reasonable use policy, read 15 October 2026.
AI receptionist plans
| Plan | Calls included | Per call | Monthly | Extra calls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 25 | free | $0 | $3.00 |
| Pro | 75 | $2.00 | $150 | $2.50 |
| Pro | 150 | $1.80 | $270* | $2.30 |
| Pro | 300 | $1.67 | about $500* | $2.17 |
| Enterprise | 300 | $1.67 | $500 | $2.17 |
| Enterprise | 500 | $1.60 | $800* | $2.10 |
| Enterprise | 1,000+ | custom | custom | custom |
*Our arithmetic: included calls multiplied by the per-call rate.
Every AI plan, including Free, comes with Smith.ai's Quality Studio for testing an agent before it goes live, 24/7 answering, call recording, transcripts and summaries, lead qualification and routing, appointment booking through tools such as Calendly, native integrations such as Clio and Zapier, and analytics. Pro adds dedicated onboarding, a dedicated account manager, live support by phone, email and chat, and custom SMS branding. Enterprise is the done-for-you tier: full-service setup and ongoing optimization, custom AI prompting, unlimited custom integrations, multi-location support and a dedicated success manager. Smith.ai also offers a six-month plan with rollover calls and a lower per-call rate through its sales team.
Human receptionist plans
| Plan | Calls included | Monthly | Per included call | Extra calls | Transfer numbers |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 30 | $300 | $10.00 | $11.50 | 1 |
| Basic | 90 | $810 | $9.00 | $10.50 | 2 |
| Pro | 300 | $2,100 | $7.00 | $8.50 | 10 |
| Enterprise | custom | custom | custom | custom | custom |
These plans are answered by people around the clock, and Smith.ai says it uses no overseas agents. Every human plan includes lead screening and qualification, new-client intake of up to five short questions, the first CRM integration, and a dedicated local or toll-free number, or you can port your own. There are no setup fees, the service runs month to month, and a 12-month subscription takes 10% off. New clients get a 30-day money-back guarantee that refunds the plan and add-ons up to $1,000, excluding overage calls. Extra transfer destinations cost $15 a month each.
Add-ons on the human plans
The human plans price extras per call:
- Appointment booking: $1.50
- SMS or Slack notifications: $0.50, plus $0.25 for each extra ping
- Microsoft Teams notifications: $0.50
- Text and email follow-up: $0.50
- Conflict checks: $0.50
- Call recording and transcription: $0.25
- Each CRM integration after the first: $0.50
If a Basic plan used booking and recording on every call, each call would cost $10.75 instead of $9.00, and the 90-call month $967.50 instead of $810. On the AI plans, recording, transcripts and booking are part of every plan.
What 300 calls a month cost on each plan
Per-call prices are easier to compare at a fixed volume. At 300 calls a month, using the published rates:
- AI plan, 300-call tier (Pro or Enterprise): about $500.
- AI Free plan: 25 free calls plus 275 at $3.00, so $825.
- Human Pro: $2,100.
- Human Basic: $810 plus 210 extra calls at $10.50, so $3,015.
- Human Starter: $300 plus 270 extra calls at $11.50, so $3,405.
The spread between the cheapest AI tier and the human Starter plan is almost seven to one at the same volume. The plan you pick matters as much as AI versus people: for the same 300 calls, human Pro costs $1,305 less than human Starter.
Picking the right AI tier
Because extra calls cost more than included ones, the cheapest tier depends on your volume. By our arithmetic from the published rates:
- At 75 calls a month, Free and Pro cost the same, $150, since the 50 calls beyond the free 25 cost $3.00 each. Above 75 calls, Pro is cheaper, and it adds onboarding and live support.
- Pro's 75-call tier with extra calls at $2.50 reaches $270, the price of the 150-call tier, at 123 calls a month.
- The 150-call tier with extra calls at $2.30 reaches about $500, the price of the 300-call tier, at about 250 calls.
- On Enterprise, the 300-call tier with extra calls at $2.17 reaches $800, the price of the 500-call tier, at about 438 calls.
At 300 calls, Pro and Enterprise charge the same $1.67 a call, so the choice between them is about service. Enterprise includes full-service setup, custom AI prompting and unlimited custom integrations; our guide to AI intake software for law firms found custom prompting to be the deciding feature for firms that need a tightly controlled intake script.
Spam calls, test calls and call length
Smith.ai treats spam differently on its two products. On the AI plans, every answered call counts toward your quota by default. Calls from more than 20 million known spam numbers are filtered before they are answered and do not count, and each billing cycle you can remove up to 10% of your calls from the bill for spam you flag; spam beyond that allowance is billed like any other call. On the human plans, spam and wrong numbers are not counted as long as your forwarded lines pass caller ID.
The AI plans also include test calls equal to the included calls, plus simulated calls in Quality Studio, from 50 a month on Free to 2,000 or more on Enterprise's largest tier, so you can try an agent before real callers reach it.
Per-call pricing favors businesses with long calls. A home services company booking a job, or a law firm taking intake, may spend several minutes on a call and, within the reasonable use rules on the human plans, pay no more for it. A business whose calls are mostly 30-second questions pays the same per call and may do better on per-minute pricing. Our AI receptionist cost guide compares Smith.ai with per-minute vendors at the same volumes.
Smith.ai or a custom AI voice agent
On usage alone, a self-built agent costs less per call. Our Retell AI pricing guide puts a standard build at about $0.149 a minute, roughly 45 cents for a three-minute call, against $1.60 to $3.00 on Smith.ai's AI plans. Vapi is cheaper on paper but bills speech, model and telephony providers on top. What Smith.ai's price adds is a finished product: the agent, the testing studio, the integrations and, on Enterprise, people who set it up and tune it. A custom build needs someone to write the prompts, connect the calendar and CRM, test the edge cases and monitor the calls.
For home services, the deciding question is usually whether the agent can write a job into the scheduling software the business already runs, and route emergencies to the on-call technician. That is the work our AI calling for home services builds are scoped around, and our AI receptionist vs answering service guide explains why integration, not the answering itself, is what you are paying for. Our guide to the best AI answering services for HVAC compares which tools can book the job, and for medical and dental practices our list of HIPAA-compliant AI receptionists covers the compliance side. For platforms sold only by quote, see our Synthflow pricing guide.
Recording and consent rules still apply
Recording is included on the AI plans and costs $0.25 a call on the human plans. If you record calls on either product, some US states require every party's consent; our guide to call recording laws by state lists them. If the receptionist also sends follow-up texts or makes outbound calls, consent rules such as the TCPA apply to those too. Our TCPA-compliant AI calling setup builds consent records, calling windows and opt-outs into outbound work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Smith.ai's AI receptionist has a free plan with 25 calls a month and $3.00 a call after that, Pro from $150 a month for 75 calls, and Enterprise from $500 a month for 300 calls. Its human receptionists cost $300 a month for 30 calls, $810 for 90 and $2,100 for 300, with custom Enterprise pricing above that.
Per call, on both products, so a longer call does not cost more, although the human plans' reasonable use policy allows extra fees for calls outside normal answering-service scope. Calls beyond your plan's allowance cost $2.10 to $3.00 each on the AI plans and $8.50 to $11.50 on the human plans.
Yes, for the AI receptionist. The Free plan includes 25 real calls a month, test calls and 50 simulated calls in Quality Studio, then charges $3.00 a call. The human plans have no free tier, but new clients get a 30-day money-back guarantee, capped at $1,000 and excluding overage calls.
On the AI plans, every answered call counts by default, but calls from more than 20 million known spam numbers are filtered before they are answered and not counted, and up to 10% of calls each billing cycle can be removed from the bill for spam you flag. On the human plans, spam and wrong numbers are not counted as long as your forwarded lines pass caller ID.
On the AI receptionist, both charge $1.67 a call at 300 calls a month. Enterprise adds full-service setup and optimization, custom AI prompting, unlimited custom integrations, multi-location support and a dedicated success manager, and offers 500 calls at $1.60 and custom pricing from 1,000 calls.
Not on usage alone. A standard Retell build costs about $0.149 a minute in our pricing guide, about 45 cents for a three-minute call, against $1.60 to $3.00 a call on Smith.ai's AI plans. Smith.ai's price includes the finished product, testing tools and integrations, while a custom build adds development, testing and monitoring costs.