The short version
- AI answering runs roughly $50 to $300 a month at list price. Human answering services start around $350 and climb past $1,000.
- The cheapest tier usually doesn't book into your calendar. That feature tends to sit one tier up, or not exist at all.
- Per-minute pricing charges the most for the calls you want most: a booking takes longer than a hangup.
- Before you sign, ask what counts as a call, what the caller hears first, and where the recordings live.
Three ways they charge
Every answering service, human or AI, bills in one of three ways. The model matters more than the sticker, because it decides which calls cost you money.
Per minute
You buy a pool of minutes. A busy month with long calls burns through it, and overage is billed per minute at $0.30 to $0.75. This is the human-receptionist model carried over to AI, and it has the same flaw: the call that books a $600 job takes five minutes, the wrong number takes ten seconds, and the meter runs on both.
Per call
You buy a number of calls. What counts as a call is the whole question. Some services count anything that connects; some count only calls a person, or the assistant, actually handles. Ask, and get it in writing. Mylos counts a qualified call, meaning one that reaches the assistant, so wrong numbers and hangups never count against the plan.
Bundled into shop software
Jobber, Housecall Pro and AutoLeap each sell an AI receptionist as an add-on to their own platform, cheap or free if you already run it. If you don't run that software, the add-on isn't for sale on its own, and in at least one case the "booking" it makes is a request that a person on your side still has to confirm.
What the list prices are
Entry prices as published on each vendor's own site, checked 17 September 2026. Shown in the currency the vendor charges; at the time of writing one US dollar is about $1.38 Canadian. Entry tiers change often, so confirm before you buy.
| Service | Based | Charges | Entry price | Books into your calendar? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dialbox | Canada | Per handled call | $129 CAD / 100 calls | Yes (Google, Outlook) |
| Polaris Voice | Canada | Per minute | $84 CAD / 150 min, then $0.75 per min | Calendar sync (Google, Outlook) |
| Rosie | United States | Per minute | US$49 / 250 min | Not on the entry tier; direct booking starts at US$149 |
| Smith.ai (AI plan) | United States | Per call | US$1.60 per call | Appointment booking listed as a feature; confirm the calendar |
| Jobber AI Receptionist | Canada | Add-on to Jobber | US$29 / 30 conversations, then $0.79 each; free on the Plus plan | Yes, through Jobber's booking rules. Requires Jobber |
| Ruby (human) | United States | Per minute | US$345 / 50 min | Messages and appointment links |
| Mylos | Greater Vancouver | Per qualified call | $199 CAD / 100 calls (After Hours); $297 / 200 (Book) | Yes, confirmed on the call |
"Based" is where the company operates from, not where your data is stored; those are different questions, and the second one is worth asking. A per-minute pool converts to roughly one call per three and a half minutes, so 150 minutes is about 40 calls and 500 minutes about 140.
What the entry tier usually leaves out
- Calendar booking. The most common omission. Read the tier table, not the headline: "books appointments" on the home page often means "sends the caller a link" on the cheapest plan.
- Transfers to a person. If a caller needs you, can the assistant hand off? Often a mid-tier feature.
- Setup. Some charge a setup fee. Some leave it to you in a settings screen. Who writes the greeting, the hours, the list of jobs you do and don't take? The answer decides whether the thing works in week one.
- Overage. Per-minute overage at $0.50 looks small until a busy month adds 200 minutes to the bill. Ask what happens at the cap: a surprise invoice, or a call to move you up a plan.
How to compare a per-minute price with a per-call one
Example: 150 min ≈ 43 calls · 500 min ≈ 140 calls · 700 min ≈ 200 calls
Two caveats. A call that books runs longer, four to six minutes, so a pool of booking calls is smaller than the average suggests. And a per-call plan is only comparable if you know what counts: on a Mylos plan a call that runs past fifteen minutes counts as two, and a call that never reaches the assistant counts as zero.
Five questions before you sign
- Does it book into my calendar, or send me a request to confirm? A request you confirm on Monday is a message with a nicer name.
- What exactly counts as a call, or a minute? Get the definition, and the overage rate, in the contract.
- What does the caller hear first? In Canada the caller has to be told they're speaking to an automated system and that the call is recorded. If the vendor can't tell you the opening line, they haven't thought about it.
- Where are the recordings and transcripts stored, and for how long? "We're a Canadian company" doesn't answer it. Ask for the region and the retention period.
- Can I hear it take a call before I commit? If not, why not?
Per qualified call, in Canadian dollars, with confirmed calendar booking on every plan and the definition of a call written on the pricing page. Booking data is stored in Montréal, every call opens with the disclosure, and before anything goes live you call in yourself and hear it handle your own shop.