Answering service pricing: 15 providers compared

Among the human answering services in this index, entry plans run from $70 a month (VoiceNation, 20 minutes) to $329 a month (Abby Connect, 100 minutes), with AnswerConnect at about $149 for 100 minutes, PATLive at about $205 to $235 for 75, and Ruby at $250 for 50. Busier offices pay far more: Ruby's 500-minute plan is $1,725 a month. Each figure links to its source in the table above. For a medical practice, including after-hours surcharges, see the medical answering service cost guide.

Divide each plan by its minutes and the human services here cost roughly $1.50 to $5.00 a minute on their entry tiers: AnswerConnect about $1.49 ($149 for 100 minutes), VoiceNation $2.29 on its 100-minute plan, PATLive about $2.73 to $3.13, Abby Connect $3.29 and Ruby $5.00 ($250 for 50 minutes). Bigger bundles help less than you'd expect: Ruby's 500-minute plan still works out to $3.45 a minute. Per-call pricing behaves the same way; Smith.ai charges $3.00 a call past its free 25. Usage-priced AI answering starts far lower, from $0.12 a minute at Leadlock.

By billing model more than by brand. Per-minute services, most of this table, rise with your talk time; per-call services such as Smith.ai rise with your call count; flat monthly products such as DeepCura ($129) and Weave ($249 per location for Pro, a practice phone and texting platform rather than an answering service) don't meter calls; and both dedicated medical answering services publish no price at all. So compare at your own monthly volume: the cheapest plan at 20 minutes is often the most expensive at 300. Lydoh's plans start at $49 a month for texting, and its voice plans include minutes with a published overage of $0.25 a minute; our row is in the table, marked as ours.

Published prices only: each row links to the vendor page or third-party pricing review it came from, captured in July 2026. Vendors that don't publish pricing are listed as quote-based rather than guessed. We recheck quarterly, and we correct errors fast: hello@lydoh.com.

Quote-based pricing usually means price discrimination: the rate depends on what the salesperson thinks you'll pay. It also makes comparison shopping deliberately hard, which is why we built this table. Our opinion, stated plainly: in 2026 there is no good reason an answering service can't publish a price.

It depends on volume. At very low call counts, small per-minute bundles (like VoiceNation's $70 for 20 minutes) are cheapest. The math inverts fast as volume grows: per-minute plans reach $1,725 a month for 500 minutes at the premium end. AI answering plans that include a large block of minutes move far less with volume; ours charge $0.25 a minute past the included minutes. That is the model we sell, so read our row knowing that.

Yes, with attribution and a link to this page. The CSV download is provided for exactly that. If you spot a price that has changed, tell us and we'll update the index.