Eight AI receptionists and voice-agent platforms scored on one published rubric, with a cost estimate at two call volumes and every price linked to the vendor page it came from.
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Short answer
The best AI phone answering service in 2026 is Retell AI: it scores 7.9 out of 10, starts with $10 in free credits and no card, and bills by the minute with no platform fee, about $40 for 100 three-minute calls12. RingCentral AI Receptionist (7.6) builds itself from your website for $49 a month with 100 minutes34, and Goodcall (7.3) bills a flat $79 a month for 100 callers with no per-minute charge5.
Best overall
Retell AI$10 in free credits with no card until you buy a number; $0.07 to $0.31 a minute with no platform fee, plus $2 a month per Retell number12
Easiest to switch on
RingCentral AI ReceptionistBuilds itself from your website; $49 a month with 100 minutes, then $0.50 a minute, and a 14-day free trial34
Best flat monthly price
Goodcall$79 a month for 100 callers, then 79¢ a caller, with no per-minute charges; a free demo agent to hear it first56
Best with human backup
Smith.aiFree plan with 25 calls a month; Pro from $150 a month for 75 calls; live agents at any hour for $3 a call78
This ranking covers services that answer a business phone line with an AI agent: they greet callers, answer questions, book appointments and pass callers to a person. Looking for apps that automate your own phone? That is the main ranking.
Two kinds of product compete here, and one rubric scores both:
Kind
What you get
Top score here
AI receptionists
The service builds the agent from your website or a description39 and bills a monthly plan with included minutes, callers or calls457
Retell AI is a platform for building, testing and deploying AI voice agents that answer inbound calls, place outbound ones, book appointments and transfer callers to a person10. Retell lists voice agents at $0.07 to $0.31 per minute with no platform fee, and new accounts start with $10 in credits and no card on file21. Its trust center lists SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, ISO 27001:2022 and CCPA21.
Price $0.07 to $0.31 a minute with no platform fee, plus $2 a month per Retell number; $10 in free credits to start2
Score breakdown for Retell AI
Call quality 25%
8.5
Setup 20%
6.5
Integrations 15%
8.5
Price 20%
8.0
Trust 10%
8.0
Support 10%
7.5
Strengths
No platform fee, no minimums and no contract; Retell lists voice agents at $0.07 to $0.31 a minute, billed to the second2.
$10 in free credits with no card, and browser test calls cost nothing1.
Three ways to hand a call to a person (cold, warm and agentic warm)18, plus live listen-in and takeover19.
Weak spots
The prompt, model and voice are yours to manage, and each choice moves the per-minute price10.
Silence and hold are billed, and prompts over 4,000 tokens scale the billed minutes220.
Retell-managed numbers are US and Canada only; other countries need your own carrier1.
RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR) answers business calls, books appointments, captures leads and routes callers with a call summary, and it works with any phone system through call forwarding or SIP224. The standalone plan on the pricing page costs $49 a month with 100 minutes, then $0.50 a minute, with a 14-day free trial4; a separate iPhone app has a free plan with 10 call minutes27. It comes from RingCentral, the cloud phone company founded in 1999 and listed on the NYSE as RNG28.
Price $49 a month with 100 minutes, then $0.50 a minute; $39 a month as a RingEX add-on4. The iPhone app has a free plan with 10 call minutes27.
Score breakdown for RingCentral AI Receptionist
Call quality 25%
7.0
Setup 20%
8.5
Integrations 15%
8.5
Price 20%
6.5
Trust 10%
8.5
Support 10%
7.5
Strengths
Setup builds the receptionist from your website, Google Business Profile or an existing IVR, and the setup flow offers a test call before you connect it to a number3.
Works with any phone system through call forwarding or SIP, and you keep your current numbers422.
Transfers go to users, extensions, queues or external numbers4, and a person answering in the RingCentral app sees a summary and the full transcript23.
Weak spots
Every minute past the 100 included costs $0.50, minute bundle prices are not published4, and test calls count toward your minutes3.
RingCentral's AIR pages and release notes give no latency figure; the release notes report faster responses without numbers24.
Calendar booking reaches 30 days ahead at most, uses the main site's time zone and connects one Google and one Outlook account, each with up to 100 calendar schedules25; Calendly booking needs a paid Calendly plan26.
Bland builds AI phone agents for inbound and outbound calls34 and says it runs its own speech-to-text, language model and text-to-speech instead of wrapping other vendors' models35. The Start plan has no platform fee and charges $0.14 a minute; Build costs $299 a month plus $0.12 a minute12. FedRAMP's marketplace lists Bland as FedRAMP Certified, 20x Class A (Pilot), as of Aug 25, 202629, and Bland reports SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001:2022 and HIPAA compliance30.
Price Start: $0 platform fee and $0.14/min. Build: $299/month and $0.12/min. Enterprise: custom12
Score breakdown for Bland AI
Call quality 25%
8.0
Setup 20%
6.0
Integrations 15%
7.5
Price 20%
7.5
Trust 10%
9.0
Support 10%
7.0
Strengths
One per-minute rate covers the language model, speech-to-text and text-to-speech, with no token charges12.
The Start plan has no platform fee and needs no card12.
FedRAMP 20x Class A certified as of Aug 25, 2026 on FedRAMP's own marketplace29, and Bland reports SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:202230.
Weak spots
Bland's pricing table marks Warm Transfers, Live Transfers, the Appointment Scheduling Node, BAA, SSO and data residency as Enterprise only12; the docs open warm transfer to Enterprise and the single-line Agent Phone Plan31.
The Start rate rose from $0.09 to $0.14 a minute on December 5, 202532.
Charges sit outside the minute rate: transfer time, $15 a month per extra number, a $0.015 minimum charge on each outbound attempt on Bland's telephony, and token billing for the Norm assistant123332.
Goodcall answers a business line with an AI phone agent that Gabi, its builder agent, sets up from a plain-English description or your website9. Plans bill by the number of different callers served each month, from $79 for 100, and never by the minute5. Phone numbers are local US numbers only6.
Price From $79 a month for 100 unique customers with no per-minute charges; extra customers cost 79¢ each on Starter5
Score breakdown for Goodcall
Call quality 25%
7.0
Setup 20%
8.5
Integrations 15%
7.0
Price 20%
8.0
Trust 10%
6.0
Support 10%
5.5
Strengths
No charges for minutes, calls or tokens: you pay per unique customer, so call length never changes the bill, and spam and wrong numbers do not count5.
Gabi builds and edits the agent from plain English, runs practice calls, and nothing reaches callers until you publish936.
Transfers retry busy lines and move through up to three contacts, and transfer contacts are unlimited on every plan6.
Weak spots
US only: local US numbers with no toll-free, Canadian or international numbers6, and the privacy policy says the service is intended only for users in the United States37.
Language support is unclear: the How it works page says English, and Goodcall's llms.txt says English or Spanish3638.
Calls with patient information require Scale ($299 a month) or Enterprise and a signed BAA6.
Vapi is a developer platform for building voice AI agents that make and receive phone calls, with the speech-to-text, language model and voice picked from dozens of providers11. Usage costs $0.05 a minute in Vapi hosting plus provider costs at list price with no markup, and new accounts get $5 in free credits13. Vapi's trust center lists SOC 2, SOC 3, HIPAA, PCI DSS v4.0.1, GDPR and CCPA40.
Price $0 to start, then $0.05 a minute Vapi hosting plus model, voice and transcriber costs at provider rates; Vapi's calculator estimates $82 to $129 for 1,000 minutes a month13
Score breakdown for Vapi
Call quality 25%
8.0
Setup 20%
5.5
Integrations 15%
7.0
Price 20%
7.5
Trust 10%
7.5
Support 10%
7.5
Strengths
$0 to start: hosting is $0.05 a minute, and model, voice and transcriber costs pass through with no markup13.
Pick from 200+ models and integrations, or bring your own API keys and self-hosted models39.
SOC 2, SOC 3, HIPAA, PCI DSS v4.0.1, GDPR and CCPA listed in the trust center40, with Zero Data Retention included from the $29 Core package13.
Weak spots
Built for developers: Vapi calls itself the developer platform for voice agents11, and function calling needs your own server URL41.
The Workflows product was retired on August 18, 2026; new builds use Assistants or Squads, which are prompt-and-tool setups4211.
The free Vapi number is US-only, inbound-only and cannot be ported out; outbound calls need a number imported from another provider, such as Twilio, Telnyx or DIDWW1443.
Smith.ai answers business calls with an AI receptionist and can pass complex calls to its 500+ live agents across North America, staffed 24/74945. It bills per call in three models, AI-first from $1.60, Hybrid from about $2.50 and Human-first from $750, plus a free AI plan with 25 calls a month7. The company started in 2015 answering calls for law firms, and its home page still leads with legal intake4945.
Price Free plan with 25 AI-answered calls a month; paid AI plans from $150 a month for 75 calls7; live receptionists from $300 a month for 30 calls48.
Score breakdown for Smith.ai
Call quality 25%
7.0
Setup 20%
8.0
Integrations 15%
8.0
Price 20%
6.0
Trust 10%
5.5
Support 10%
8.0
Strengths
A free plan answers 25 real calls a month with no end date15, and Quality Studio tests the AI with simulated and browser calls before real callers reach it44.
With caller escalation turned on, a caller who asks for a person reaches a Smith.ai live agent at any hour for a flat +$3 a call; escalations the AI starts itself cost nothing8.
Billing is per call, so a long call costs the same as a short one45, and AI plans run month to month7.
Weak spots
Smith.ai says it is not HIPAA-compliant and cannot handle calls that involve protected health information46, and no SOC 2 report appears on the pages checked.
Smith.ai's pricing FAQ says its AI service costs more than competitors, and its published AI call rates run $1.60 to $3.007.
On Free, extra calls, calendar booking and live agents each cost $3 a call from a prepaid wallet, capped at $6 for any one call, and every caller gets a follow-up text with a locked Smith.ai signature you cannot turn off47.
Dialpad sells business phone lines, a contact center and Dialpad Resolve, AI agents that answer calls, take actions in connected systems and hand callers to people with context54. Voice AI conversations cost $1.99 each and are billed only when the caller responds and the agent looks something up or completes a task5152. Resolve itself is priced through sales16, and on November 4, 2026 Dialpad announced it is combining with Ada56.
Price AI agents cost $1.99 per voice conversation51, with Resolve priced through sales; Connect phone plans start at $15 per user a month billed annually or $27 month to month16.
Score breakdown for Dialpad
Call quality 25%
6.5
Setup 20%
5.0
Integrations 15%
8.5
Price 20%
5.5
Trust 10%
9.0
Support 10%
7.0
Strengths
The AI price is public: $1.99 per voice conversation51, charged only when the caller responds and the agent looks up information or completes a task52.
Agents act inside your tools: connectors include Google Calendar, Outlook, Calendly, Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho CRM and athenahealth53.
A caller who asks for a person moves into your Dialpad contact center with the conversation context54, and the handoff carries the full transcript55.
Weak spots
Resolve is a custom quote through sales, with no self-serve sign-up or published trial for the AI agents1654.
Agentic AI agents run in English only, and Dialpad's own help center says long prompts can make the voice agent monologue53.
The product is built around contact centers: escalations land in a Dialpad contact center54, and Dialpad Support starts at $89 per user a month billed annually16.
Synthflow's AI voice agents answer and place phone calls, update the CRM during the call and hand callers to a person with the full transcript57. As of November 2026 it sells only annual enterprise agreements, priced after a scoping call, with no free plan, no trial and no published per-minute rate1761; the earlier Pro, Growth and Agency plans are no longer sold59. It holds a SOC 2 Type 2 report and ISO/IEC 27001 certification and hosts data in the US or the EU62.
Price No published price: annual enterprise agreements only, with no free plan, no trial and no published per-minute rate17.
Score breakdown for Synthflow
Call quality 25%
8.0
Setup 20%
4.0
Integrations 15%
8.5
Price 20%
2.0
Trust 10%
9.0
Support 10%
8.0
Strengths
Agents reply within half a second, let callers interrupt and keep up when callers switch language, according to Synthflow57.
Three transfer modes, including a warm transfer that plays an AI-generated call summary to the person who picks up58.
Built-in connections for Zoom, Five9, RingCentral, 8x8, Twilio, Telnyx, Vonage and Freshcaller, so a business keeps its numbers and carrier57.
Weak spots
No published price or per-minute rate, no free plan and no trial; every new deployment starts on an annual Enterprise contract17.
The earlier Pro, Growth and Agency plans are no longer sold59.
Going live takes weeks after a scoping call17; Batteries Plus took five weeks from kick-off to pilot60.
$0.14/min (Start), $0.12/min (Build); transfer time adds $0.05 or $0.04/min12
Yes. Cal.com and Calendly integrations, with a Cal.com booking tool in the agent builder65; the Appointment Scheduling Node is Enterprise only1266
Yes. Agents transfer to a phone number67, billed at $0.05/min on Start and $0.04/min on Build; the same pricing table marks Warm Transfers and Live Transfers as Enterprise only1267
Yes. A dashboard agent builder, Pathways, a visual flow builder that needs no code68, and Norm, an assistant that builds agents from a plain-English description6970
$0.05 per minute hosting plus provider costs at list price; the calculator's default stack (Deepgram, OpenAI, ElevenLabs) estimates $82 to $129 for 1,000 minutes13
Yes: Google Calendar and GoHighLevel tools check availability and create events717273
Yes: blind and warm transfer to a phone number or SIP address; the fixed-message and summary warm modes are Twilio-only, and the experimental assistant-based warm transfer also runs on Vapi numbers and SIP trunks74
Partly: Dashboard templates and the Composer chat builder (Alpha) set up an agent75; function calling needs your own server URL4143
None; billed per call, with published AI rates of $1.60 to $3.00 a call7
Yes: the AI books directly through Calendly; calendars without an integration go to a live agent for +$3 a call76
Yes: transfers to your own numbers carry no add-on fee; a Smith.ai live agent, staffed 24/7, adds $3 a call, or nothing when the AI escalates on its own8
Yes: self-serve setup in about 15 minutes, including a simulated test call in Quality Studio15
An estimate from published list prices, checked 8 and 9 November 2026; a quote or your own call mix will differ. Every call is inbound, lasts three minutes and comes from a different caller, on US numbers, on the cheapest published plan that covers the volume. Taxes, transfer time and add-ons are left out.
How each figure is built. Vapi: its calculator's $82 to $129 for 1,000 minutes with free Vapi telephony1314. Retell AI: GPT 5.1 with a Retell voice on a Retell number, $0.125 a minute, plus $2 a month for the number281. Bland AI: $0.14 a minute with an inbound number included; Bland's pricing FAQ bills telephony separately at pass-through cost, while its homepage says the rate covers it, so telephony is left out1234. Goodcall bills unique callers: Starter covers 100, and Growth covers 500 for $1295. RingCentral includes 100 minutes and charges $0.50 a minute after them4. Dialpad bills $1.99 for each voice conversation in which the agent looks something up or completes a task5152.
Questions people ask
Which AI phone answering service is the best?
Retell AI, on this site's rubric: 7.9 out of 10, with $10 in free credits and per-minute pricing from $0.0712. For a receptionist that sets itself up from your website, RingCentral AI Receptionist (7.6) starts at $49 a month34.
How much does an AI receptionist cost?
From about $25 to $212.50 a month for 100 three-minute calls, by this page's estimate from list prices, among the services that publish a full price. Vapi and Retell AI bill by the minute, Goodcall by caller from $79, Smith.ai by call and RingCentral by the minute after 100 included132574.
Is there a free AI answering service?
Smith.ai's AI Receptionist Free plan answers 25 real calls a month with no end date, and it takes a card at sign-up15. Retell AI starts with $10 in credits and no payment method until you buy a phone number1, Vapi with $5 in credits and a free US number1314, and Goodcall with a free demo agent that has no phone number6.
Can an AI receptionist book appointments?
Yes. Retell AI books through Cal.com, Calendly and GoHighLevel63, RingCentral through Google and Outlook calendars25, and Goodcall through Google Calendar6. Calendly booking on Retell AI, RingCentral and Smith.ai needs a paid Calendly plan822683.
Can AI answer my business calls after hours?
Yes. Goodcall can answer every call or only the busy and unanswered ones your carrier forwards to it6, and RingCentral sets routing and hours per location4. Smith.ai adds live agents at any hour when a caller asks for a person, at $3 a call8.
Will callers know they are talking to an AI?
That depends on the service and its settings. Goodcall tells callers they are speaking with an AI assistant6, Smith.ai's AI never claims to be human when asked45, Bland offers an AI-disclosure switch on every plan84, and RingCentral locks the AI disclosure on for businesses in the EU3.
Do AI phone calls sound human?
This site has not placed test calls, so it relies on what vendors publish. Retell AI states about 600 ms latency10, and Synthflow says its agents reply within half a second57. Smith.ai runs a public demo line, (380) 333-6907, where anyone can hear its AI answer as a sample law firm45.
Can I keep my business phone number?
Yes, with these three: RingCentral works with any phone system through call forwarding or SIP, and you keep your number4; Goodcall answers calls you forward from your carrier6; and Retell AI connects an existing number through SIP trunking10.