What an answering service actually costs a contractor in 2026

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.

The short answer

• AI answering, entry tier: free to $99/mo. Two services have free tiers; paid entry plans run $29–$99, and extra minutes cost $0.25–$0.50 each where the price is published.
• AI built for home services: Wakeman is $149–$829/mo, Sameday starts at $449/mo, and Avoca publishes no price.
• Human answering: $165–$2,100/mo, which works out at roughly $1.32–$5.00 per included minute on plans that sell minutes.
• Built into your job software: Jobber includes its AI Receptionist on its Plus plan and otherwise sells it as an add-on — $29/mo on its pricing page, $99/mo on its features page. Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan and Workiz publish no price for theirs.
• Enterprise AI for large operators: quote only.

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 advertises unlimited minutes, but bills on unique customers per month — 100 on the entry plan, $0.50 each beyond — and prices per agent. An HVAC shop with 400 distinct callers on the $79 plan pays $79 + $150 = $229. 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 has no calendar sync at all; that starts on Pro at $99. 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 and different prices for extra minutes on the same Starter plan. 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, 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 differ most. AnswerConnect publishes it: $2.50 a minute on Entry and $1.85 on Growth and Standard. Ruby and Abby bill extra minutes at "your plan's 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. Forbes Advisor's 2026 roundup puts typical human answering at $1.30–$4 a minute, which matches the tables, though it does not say how it got there.

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, and Jobber's own pages disagree on the price: its pricing page lists $29 a month and its features page $99 a month. One help-centre article says the $29 add-on includes 30 conversations, then $0.79 each; a newer one says 100 conversations a month. (All checked 24 September 2026.) Plus lists at $499 a month, or $280 a month for the first 12 months when prepaid annually, on an offer that ends 30 September 2026. Add-ons are not available during Jobber's trial.

Housecall Pro sells CSR AI separately and publishes no price for it. ServiceTitan's AI voice agent is part of Contact Center Pro, which is in early access and priced on request. Workiz sells Genius Answering as an add-on with no published price.

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.

How to actually compare quotes

1. Compare the same workload first. Ask each vendor to price your expected calls, billable minutes, transfers and booking requirements. After a trial, divide the full bill by genuine new jobs attributable to the service. Exclude test calls, duplicate bookings and cancellations; if there are no qualifying jobs, report the spend and zero jobs rather than a cost-per-job figure.
2. Ask what extra minutes cost, in writing. Several vendors above do not publish it. Your busiest month is the one where that number decides your bill.
3. Ask whether the entry tier can actually book. Not text a link — write the appointment into your schedule.
4. Ask how calls are rounded. Per second, per 30 seconds and per minute produce different bills for the same calls.
5. Ask what happens to spam calls. If robocalls consume your minutes, you are paying to be spammed.
6. Ask exactly how the spending limit works. A limit checked after each call can be passed by the call that crosses it and by calls happening at the same time, and tax may not count toward it. The most common complaint about the big answering services is surprise bills, so get those details in writing rather than relying on the words ‘hard cap’.
7. Ask which job software they can put jobs into. Many connect to ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro and nothing else. If you run Workiz, FieldEdge, Service Fusion or ServiceM8, check before you sign.

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 $237.50 month produced five verified additional completed jobs, answering cost would be $47.50 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 $149, $349 or $829 a month for 300, 750 or 2,000 minutes, then 59¢, 39¢ 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 can put booked jobs into Jobber. It doesn't read your 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 and the trade pages beneath it.