AI Receptionist Pricing 2026: NextPhone's Plans and What Others Charge

NextPhone's AI receptionist costs $199 a month on the Pro plan: unlimited inbound calls, no per-minute or per-call fees, no setup fee and no contract. The Growth plan is $299 a month and adds a done-for-you setup plus CRM integrations such as Clio, HubSpot and Jobber. Across the market, AI receptionist entry plans run $49 to $199 a month, and a 100-call month costs $75 to $270 on published plans. Live answering services charge a median of $444 for the same 100 calls, and a full-time receptionist costs about $3,170 a month in wages alone. Every competitor price on this page was read from the vendor's own pricing page on November 2, 2026 (25 of 27 providers; the other 2 earlier).

NextPhone pricing: three flat plans

Every plan answers unlimited calls for one flat monthly price. There is no meter running while your caller talks, so you know next month's bill before it starts.

All three include unlimited users, a 7-day free trial, and month-to-month billing you can cancel anytime. Current details live on the pricing page.

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What $199 a month sounds like. NextPhone answers in under 2 seconds, resolves 90 to 95% of calls without a human, and has answered more than 2 million business calls.

What other AI receptionists cost

Most AI receptionists meter something: minutes, calls, or unique callers. A low entry price covers a fixed allowance, and every call past it is billed on top. The table prices each service at 50, 100 and 300 calls a month on its cheapest published plan for that volume, overage included, at a 3-minute average call.

Our calculation from each vendor's own pricing page, read November 2, 2026 (25 of 27 providers; the other 2 earlier). NextPhone is our product and gets the same arithmetic as every other row. Live answering services, hybrid services and every published plan are in the full Answering Service & AI Receptionist Price Index.

Is NextPhone the cheapest AI receptionist?

Not at low volume. At 50 calls a month the median metered AI plan we priced costs $97, and several cost less than $100. If you get a few calls a day, rarely get two at once, and only need messages taken, a metered plan can cost less than NextPhone, and that is a fair choice.

The meter is what changes the answer as you grow. The median metered plan costs $149 at 100 calls a month and $362 at 300. NextPhone costs $199 at every volume. A storm week, a busy season or an ad that works does not raise your bill, so the months business is best are not the months you pay most.

Two more things decide the real price:

• What the entry plan includes. Booking into your calendar, transfers to your team, texts to callers and call recordings are all on NextPhone's $199 Pro plan. On some services they sit on a higher tier, or the pricing page doesn't say.
• Who sets it up. A self-serve tool is cheap until you spend a weekend writing its script. On Growth, we build your agent, you call it and tell us what to change, and we tune it before it goes live.

If you are comparing AI receptionists on more than price, our tested ranking of the best AI receptionists covers voice, booking and how each one handles a hard call.

What drives AI receptionist cost

Five things move an AI receptionist bill more than the price on the pricing page:

1. The billing unit. Flat monthly, per minute, per call or per unique caller. Each one is cheap for a different kind of business. Per-unique-caller billing suits repeat customers. Per-minute billing suits short, rare calls. Flat billing suits anyone whose volume moves.
2. Rounding. Most per-minute plans round every call up to the next full minute, so a 20-second "are you open today?" bills as 60 seconds. Even 6-second billing adds about 6.7% to the effective rate.
3. What counts as a call. Ask whether spam, wrong numbers, hang-ups, hold time and time during a transfer are billed. NextPhone filters spam and bills none of it, because nothing is billed per call. See how spam call filtering works.
4. Feature tiers. Calendar booking, CRM sync, extra transfer numbers and more languages are where entry plans differ most.
5. Setup, contract and trial. Some services charge a setup fee or ask for a notice period before you cancel. NextPhone has no setup fee, no contract and a 7-day free trial.

For how flat-rate, per-minute and per-call pricing play out at your call volume, see the AI receptionist pricing guide.

AI receptionist vs answering service vs hiring: the full cost

Here is what 100 calls a month (300 minutes) costs each way, on each option's cheapest published plan for that volume:

Receptionist wage: BLS median annual pay for receptionists, May 2025, with 30% added for benefits and payroll taxes. Answering service rows: our calculation from each vendor's published plans, read November 2, 2026 (25 of 27 providers; the other 2 earlier).

If you pay an answering service today, NextPhone gives you the same 24/7 coverage for a flat fee with no overages. At 100 calls a month Ruby costs $1,160, which is $11,532 a year more than NextPhone Pro. Every call is recorded and transcribed, and on Growth the caller's answers go straight into your CRM. Compare the two directly in our Ruby alternatives and Smith.ai alternative guides, or see what answering services cost by plan type.

If you have a receptionist, NextPhone is the back-up, not the replacement. It picks up when the line is busy, at lunch, on sick days and after you close. At $199 a month it costs less than a day and a half of a receptionist's median pay. The trade-offs are in AI vs human receptionist, and law firms can see the numbers for a legal front desk in AI vs human receptionist cost for law firms.

If you are pricing "virtual receptionists", that term covers both people working remotely and AI. The virtual receptionist cost guide prices both side by side.

Hidden costs to check before you sign

Billing terms change the bill as much as the plan price. Here is how four services bill, from their own terms and help pages:

Ask every vendor these questions, and get the answers in writing:

• What does my bill look like in my busiest month?
• Do you round each call up, and to what?
• Are spam calls, wrong numbers and hang-ups billed?
• Is time on hold or during a transfer billed?
• Is calendar booking or CRM sync on the plan I'm buying, or the one above it?
• Is there a setup fee, a contract or a notice period to cancel?

What it pays back

The price only matters next to what a missed call costs you. If one caller a month who would have reached voicemail becomes a customer worth more than $199, the plan has paid for itself. For most service businesses that is one job. For a law firm it is often one signed client. And if you pay for ads or Local Services leads, every call that rings out is money you already spent. Your numbers will differ, so run them with your own call volume and average job value.

Which NextPhone plan fits

• You answer your own phone: Pro. Every caller gets answered while you stay on the job, and only the calls that matter reach you.
• You have a receptionist: Pro as the back-up for busy lines, lunch and after hours.
• You pay an answering service: Pro if you want to set it up yourself, Growth if you want us to build it and connect your CRM. Either way the bill is flat.
• You run a law firm: Growth. NextPhone is an official Clio partner, and Growth connects Clio and MyCase, so the intake from every call lands in your case management system instead of an inbox. See NextPhone for law firms.
• You have several locations or heavy call volume: Scale, for custom call flows, routing across locations and 2-way texting.

Start your 7-day free trial, or book a demo and we will walk you through the plan that fits.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does an AI receptionist cost?

An AI receptionist costs $49 to $199 a month to start, and $75 to $270 for a 100-call month on published plans, read November 2, 2026 (25 of 27 providers; the other 2 earlier). Most services meter minutes or calls, so the bill climbs with volume. NextPhone costs $199 a month on Pro, flat, with unlimited inbound calls and no per-minute fees.

How much does an AI receptionist cost per month for a small business?

Most small businesses get 50 to 300 calls a month. On metered AI plans that costs $50 to $199 at 50 calls and $129 to $765 at 300. NextPhone is $199 a month at any volume, or $299 on Growth if you want us to set it up and connect your CRM.

How much does NextPhone cost?

NextPhone's plans start at $199 a month for Pro, with unlimited inbound calls, no per-minute or per-call fees, no setup fee and no contract. Growth is $299 a month and adds a done-for-you setup and CRM integrations. Scale is for several locations and custom call flows. Every plan has a 7-day free trial.

What is the cheapest AI receptionist?

By entry price, $49/month (100 minutes) on RingCentral AI Receptionist, and Phonely and Smith.ai's AI plan have free tiers. The cheapest at your volume depends on your calls: at 300 calls a month metered plans run $129 to $765. NextPhone is $199 flat, so it is not the cheapest at very low volume but costs the same in your busiest month.

Is there a free AI receptionist?

A few services have free tiers with small allowances: Phonely is free for 100 minutes and Smith.ai's AI plan is free for 25 calls, then paid per call. NextPhone has no free plan but every plan starts with a 7-day free trial, and you are not charged if you cancel before it ends.

Is an AI receptionist cheaper than an answering service?

Usually, yes. Live answering services cost $180 to $1,160 for 100 calls a month, against $199 on NextPhone. At that volume Ruby costs $1,160 a month and Smith.ai's live receptionists $915. Live services also bill per minute or per call, so a busy month costs more.

How much does an AI receptionist cost compared to hiring a receptionist?

A full-time receptionist earns a median $38,010 a year (BLS, May 2025), about $4,100 a month with benefits and payroll taxes, and covers about 40 hours a week. NextPhone costs $2,388 a year on Pro and answers 24/7. Most businesses use it as a back-up for their receptionist rather than a replacement.

Do AI receptionists charge per minute or per call?

Most do. Metered AI plans bill $0.25 to $0.95 per extra minute, or a fee per extra call, once you pass the allowance. Live answering services bill $1.28 to $5.40 per extra minute. NextPhone charges neither: one flat monthly price, unlimited calls.

Does NextPhone charge setup fees or require a contract?

No. There is no setup fee, no contract and no cancellation fee. You pay month to month or yearly, and you can cancel anytime before your next renewal.

Is there a discount for paying yearly?

Yes, about 17%. Pro is $1,990 a year (about $166 a month) and Growth is $2,990 a year (about $249 a month). See the pricing page for current plans.

How we priced this page

NextPhone is our product, so we publish the method and the sources. Every competitor price comes from our Price Index: each vendor's own pricing page, read on November 2, 2026 (25 of 27 providers; the other 2 earlier), plus their terms and help pages for billing rules. Where a vendor hides its price behind a form or a sales call, we list it as quote only instead of guessing. Monthly costs assume a 3-minute average call and use each vendor's cheapest published plan for that volume, overage included. NextPhone's row uses the same arithmetic. The full dataset, with sources and a CSV, is in the Price Index.