Our method
How we check an AI receptionist
We read each vendor's own pages and price the same month for every product: 100 calls.
On this page
What we read
Each listing comes from the vendor's own pricing page, help center and terms. Every answer quotes the page it came from, and the listing shows the day we last checked it. When a vendor doesn't say, the listing says "Not stated".
We answer the same 40 questions for every product: what a month costs, booking, transfers to a person, after hours, your calendar, languages and more. We don't rate AI receptionists with stars or scores.
What 100 calls a month cost
AI receptionists are priced per minute, per call, per caller, per location or at a flat fee, so a plan's price says little until you know how many calls it covers. We price one month, the same for everyone: 100 calls a month of 2½ minutes each, every call a different caller, on the cheapest public plan that covers them, paid monthly. We also show 500 calls, for a busy month.
- Every call counts. Free spam filtering or free short calls differ by vendor, so they get their own line and never come off the total.
- Every call is a different caller. For a service that bills per caller, that is the most its bill can be, and the listing says so.
- One location, one number, at the fewest seats the vendor sells.
We take the cheapest published plan that answers the call, takes a message and sends you the summary. The total is its monthly fee, plus any fee you can't turn down, plus the cost of the calls past its allowance. One-time setup fees, tax, launch discounts and optional add-ons are shown on their own lines and left out.
How a call is rounded
The same 2.5-minute call is billed differently depending on how the vendor rounds it.
| How the vendor bills | Minutes charged for one call |
|---|---|
| Per second | 2.5 |
| In 30-second steps | 2.5 |
| First minute in full, then per 6 seconds | 2.5 |
| Whole minutes, rounded up | 3 |
When a vendor doesn't say how it rounds, we use per second, the reading that favors the vendor, and the listing says what the month would cost if they round up.
When a figure is marked partial
A plan sold only per year is turned into its monthly cost. A plan whose price past the allowance isn't published is skipped for the next plan that covers the month. Either way the figure is marked partial and the listing says why. A vendor that gives prices only on a sales call has no figure; it is listed after the ones that do.
How lists are ordered
By what 100 calls a month cost, cheapest first. A product without a published price comes after the ones with one.
A Featured listing sits in a spot labeled Featured above the list. Its vendor pays for the spot; its month is priced the same way as every other product's, and paying never changes a figure or an answer.
When we check again
We check every listing again at least every 90 days. The listing shows the date of the last check.
If a figure looks wrong
Send the page that shows the right price or answer to corrections@receptionistindex.com. We check it against the vendor's own page and fix the listing. Our editorial policy says what we publish and how we handle corrections.