Answering service cost and pricing in 2026: what contractors actually pay

Answering services are priced to be hard to compare. One sells minutes, the next sells calls, the next sells "conversations", and one advertises unlimited minutes while metering unique customers. Every number below comes from the vendor's own pricing page, and the tables put them side by side, Wakeman's included.

How much does an AI receptionist cost?

Most paid AI receptionist plans start between $29 and $99 a month. The table is sorted by the cheapest way in.

Four things worth knowing about this table

"Unlimited minutes" is usually not the meter. Goodcall doesn't meter minutes, but bills on unique customers per month — 100 on the entry plan, 79¢ each beyond. An HVAC shop with 400 distinct callers on the $79 plan pays $79 + $237 = $316, or $129 on the plan that covers 500. That is not a criticism of the product, but it is a different number from $79.

The cheapest plans often cannot book. Rosie's $49 Professional plan texts the caller a booking link; calendar booking starts on Scale at $149. (Dialzara's $29 Lite plan had no calendar sync on 24 September; on 20 October its pricing page lists a calendar connection on every plan.) If you are buying so jobs get captured while you are under a sink, a plan that sends a link is a more expensive voicemail.

Some vendors' own pages disagree with themselves. Phonely's plan card and its comparison table give different minutes for the same Starter plan, and its monthly and yearly tables give different prices for extra minutes. Allo's pricing page says its receptionist is billed on top of a paid seat, and its product page says the receptionist takes a seat of its own — so it costs $32 or $64 a month, billed yearly, depending on which page is right. Ask before you sign.

The unit changes what "cheap" means. A per-call price looks small until you remember a two-minute call and a twenty-minute call cost the same, and a per-minute price looks small until you learn how calls are rounded. RingCentral bills in 30-second increments; Ruby rounds every call up to a full minute and counts hold time.

Human answering services — the real per-minute cost

The price of extra minutes is where these plans say least. Ruby and Abby Connect bill extra minutes at the plan's own rate without printing a dollar figure, and Smith.ai charges $8.50–$11.50 per extra call, plus $1.50 for each call where it books an appointment. AnswerConnect, another big name in live answering, no longer publishes prices at all: its pricing page is a form that asks for a quote.

The receptionist already inside your software

Jobber includes its AI Receptionist, with unlimited usage, on its Plus plan. On other plans it is a paid add-on, at $29 a month (its pricing page, re-checked 21 October 2026; the $99 on its features page is a different add-on). One help-centre article says the $29 add-on includes 30 conversations, then $0.79 each; another says 100 conversations a month. Plus lists at $499 a month for five users, or $280 a month for the first 12 months when paid yearly, on a new-customer offer that was due to end on 30 October 2026 when we checked. Add-ons are not available during Jobber's trial.

Housecall Pro publishes no price for CSR AI; its page offers a demo. ServiceTitan sells an AI Virtual Agent that works with its Contact Center Pro or with any phone system, and publishes no price for it. Workiz sells Genius Answering separately and publishes no price for it, or for its own plans.

If you already pay for field-service software, something in your existing subscription may already answer your phone. Any vendor charging more than that owes you a straight answer about why.

The honest version of that answer

Receptionists built into your job software are cheap because they're a side feature. The software company's main business is the software. The useful comparison is whether a product can be set up around your trade, your services, your emergency rules and your on-call tech — and how it shows you those actually work.

So the real question is not "how much does answering cost". It is what fraction of calls end as a booked job on the right technician's calendar. A cheap tool that books one after-hours call in five is worse value than a pricier one that books three in five, and it is not close.

Is there a free answering service?

Two AI services have genuinely free tiers. Phonely's gives 100 minutes a month and no way to buy more, so you upgrade to keep going. Smith.ai's gives 25 calls a month, then charges $3.00 a call. Jobber's receptionist costs nothing extra on its Plus plan, but Plus is not a cheap plan. Everything else offers a trial at most — Frontdesk says outright that it has no free plan. Voicemail is free, but it answers nothing.

Answering service pricing models: per minute, per call or flat monthly

Almost every answering service price is one of three models, and the model matters more than the headline number. Here is how they compare, using only prices published on the vendors' own pages (the tables above have the detail).

After hours answering service cost follows the same models. Many services charge less for a plan that answers only while you are closed. Wakeman doesn't split it that way: every plan answers day and night, from $49 a month, and any plan can be set to answer only while you're closed, so the bill is just the minutes it answers.

How to actually compare quotes

A worked monthly bill, with the assumptions visible

These are illustrative calculations using Wakeman's published plan rates, not customer results or forecasts. Assume the stated total is billable minutes after spam is taken out, one monthly plan, no add-ons and no tax. This assumes you don't hit your spending limit. If you do, new calls go to your own phone instead. Check the current pricing and plan limits before choosing.

The lowest bill changes with usage, and plan features also matter. Neither calculation estimates jobs won. If a hypothetical $149.00 month on Pro produced five verified additional completed jobs, answering cost would be $29.80 per job before tax and add-ons. That is a cost measure, not profit: labor, materials, advertising and other job costs still need to be deducted from collected revenue.

Where Wakeman sits

Wakeman costs $49, $149 or $399 a month for 100, 500 or 1,500 minutes, then 45¢, 35¢ or 29¢ a minute. It asks the questions your trade needs, listens for gas, fire, water near electrics and flooding and alerts your on-call phone, offers only the times you set, and on Pro and Max can put booked jobs into Jobber. It checks occupied time in your connected Jobber calendar, and Housecall Pro is not generally available yet.

Every call starts with an AI and recording notice. Spam isn't billed. You set a monthly limit; when you hit it, new calls ring your on-call phone instead. A call already going can finish a little over the limit, and tax is extra. The call recording policy and terms have the details.

If you want to see what the depth actually means in practice, one call taken apart second by second is the clearest version. And if you are still working out whether this is a real problem for your shop, start with how many calls contractors actually miss. For how it handles the calls in your trade, see the answering service for contractors, or the plumbing, HVAC and electrical pages beneath it.