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By Dan Miller · Last updated November 4, 2026 · Prices checked November 4, 2026
So we counted. Every price here comes from each service's own pricing page, checked November 4, 2026. The short version: a human answering your phone costs between about $59 and $1,700 a month for a small
shop, and where you land depends on the billing model, not the brand. If you have not priced the problem yet, start with what a missed call actually costs a shop like yours — it tells you how much coverage is worth buying.
The three ways human answering is billed
Per-minute bundles. You buy a block of receptionist minutes each month — 50, 100, 200, 500. The clock runs while the receptionist talks — and, with most services, while they finish and send your message. Minutes you do not use expire at month's end. Go over, and extra minutes bill above the in-bundle rate. This is the Ruby and Moneypenny model; it rewards steady, predictable volume.
Per call. A flat price per answered call, however long it runs: a two-minute message and a fifteen-minute conversation cost the same. The catch is what the price buys: at the cheap end, per-call means message-taking — name, number, and what they need — not a receptionist working your calendar. AnswerAmerica is the clearest example — and for a lot of shops, message-taking is honestly enough.
A fee plus a meter. A weekly or monthly account fee, then a per-minute rate on top that slides down as you use more. Jill's Office bills this way weekly. Continental Message Solution bills per minute too, but on 28-day cycles — thirteen bills a year, not twelve. Neither is a trick, but both make the monthly cost harder to eyeball — and both punish headline-price comparisons.
Published prices, service by service
| Service | How it bills | Published entry price | Mid-size step | Overage | Setup |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby | Per-minute bundle | $250/mo for 50 minutes | $720/mo for 200 minutes | Not published on its pricing page | None |
| Moneypenny (formerly VoiceNation) | Per-minute bundle | $165/mo for 50 minutes | $422/mo for 200 minutes | $2.09–$2.85 per extra minute, by plan | Not stated |
| Answering Service Care | Base fee + per-minute | $40/mo, then $1.75/min pay as you go | $329/mo with 250 minutes included | $1.35–$1.70 per extra minute, by plan | $50 one-time |
| AnswerAmerica | Per call, prepaid | $1.47 per answered call, no monthly fee | Prepaid credit packs cut the rate to as low as $1.14/call | None — no bundle to go over | $0 |
| Jill's Office | Weekly fee + per-minute | $39/week, then minutes from $2.00/min | Jill Complete, $59/week — adds appointment scheduling | None — every minute billed; rate falls to $1.30/min at volume | $599 on weekly plans; waived on annual |
| Continental Message Solution | Per-minute, billed every 28 days | $150 per 28 days for 100 minutes | $575 per 28 days for 500 minutes | Not published | Not stated |
Three things deserve a second look. First, Ruby — the best-known name here — does not print an overage rate on its pricing page, so the number that decides a busy month has to be asked for. Get it in writing before you sign. Second, VoiceNation now lands on Moneypenny's pricing page; its old rate cards online are dead. Third, what the entry price buys differs more than the prices do. AnswerAmerica's $1.47 buys a well-taken message. Ruby's $250 buys receptionists who can schedule, screen, and work to your script. Comparing those two directly is comparing a mailbox with a front desk.
Two real months, priced out
Headline prices hide the spread, so here are two months a shop might have. Month A is after-hours and overflow only: 40 calls at 3 minutes each — 120 minutes. Month B is every call the shop cannot take itself: 150 calls at 4 minutes each — 600 minutes. Receptionist time includes the wrap-up after each call — that is how most services count it. Where two routes reach the same month, we priced the cheaper one.
| Service | Month A — 40 calls, 120 minutes | Month B — 150 calls, 600 minutes |
|---|---|---|
| AnswerAmerica | $58.80 (40 × $1.47) | $220.50 (150 × $1.47) |
| Answering Service Care | $213 ($179 plan + 20 extra minutes) | $774 ($639 plan + 100 extra minutes) |
| Moneypenny | $318 ($265 plan + 20 extra minutes) | $1,194 ($985 plan + 100 extra minutes) |
| Jill's Office | About $410 (weekly fee + minutes, monthly equivalent) | About $1,290 (same basis) |
| Ruby | $720 (the 200-minute plan — see below) | $1,725 and up (500-minute plan + overage) |
| Continental Message Solution | $150+ per 28 days (100-min plan + overage) | $575+ per 28 days (500-min plan + overage) |
Ruby's Month A shows the bundle trap better than any other row. A 120-minute month does not fit the 100-minute plan ($395), and the 20 extra minutes bill at a rate Ruby does not publish — so the cheapest Ruby month you can price today is the 200-minute plan at $720 — $6.00 per minute actually used, with 80 minutes expiring. That is what bundles are — but a quiet month costs the same as a busy one, and uneven-volume shops feel it first.
The opposite pattern sits in the first row. Per-call pricing stays flat no matter how long people talk, which is why AnswerAmerica's row barely moves while per-minute rows climb steeply. Long, chatty calls — the existing customer explaining the noise the furnace makes — are free on a per-call plan and expensive on a meter. Short, frequent calls flip the advantage back — if you stay inside the bundle.
The same 150 calls, answered by AI
Month B uses the same call count as our AI Receptionist Price Index — 150 calls a month, booking on — so the two compare honestly. The true monthly costs were $79 for Goodcall, $123.80 for Jobber's AI add-on (plus the Jobber subscription it requires), $149 for Rosie, $270 for Smith.ai, and $349 for Dialzara.
One row should surprise you: AnswerAmerica's humans, at $220.50, land in the middle of the AI pack — cheaper than two of the five AI tools, because per-call billing does not care how long anyone talks. Where humans lose, and lose heavily, is the metered middle: $774 to $1,725-plus for the same 150 calls is five to twenty times the AI cost, and the gap widens with every extra minute per call. What the extra money buys is judgment — a person who can hear that a caller is upset, elderly, or describing an emergency, and handle it like one. Whether your calls need that often enough to justify it is the real question, and it is about your callers, not the price list.
Our verdict:
A human answering service earns its price on the calls AI handles badly — emergencies, upset customers, complicated intake — and is hard to justify as the front door for every call at volume. Shops that stay happy with human answering keep its job small: after-hours, overflow, and the calls that need a person.
Three questions settle most of it. How many calls would a human actually take? Under about 50 a month, per-call or a small plan keeps the meter survivable. Do your callers need booking, or a message taken well? A message covers the after-hours emergency a tech calls back anyway; booking into your calendar means the receptionist-grade services — the same fork we walk through for AI tools in our AI receptionist comparison for plumbers. Are your calls short or long? Short calls forgive the meter; long ones are punished by it, because it cannot tell a two-minute message from a twenty-minute furnace story.
Want the dollar figure for your own shop?
Calculate my true cost →FAQs
Do answering service minutes include the time after a call ends?
Usually, yes. With most per-minute services the clock covers the receptionist finishing your message and sending it to you, and many round each call up to the next full minute — a 40-second call bills as a minute. Ask two things before signing: whether after-call work is billable, and the rounding increment. Those answers move your bill more than the plan price does.
Can a human answering service actually book jobs, or only take messages?
Cheap per-call services take messages — around the clock, but only messages. Receptionist-grade services on their scheduling tiers can book the job into your calendar while the caller is still on the line. If booking matters, confirm it is in the plan you are pricing, not an add-on.
What happens if I go over my minutes in the middle of the month?
Nothing dramatic — the service keeps answering, and extra minutes land on your bill at the overage rate: higher than the in-bundle rate and, at Ruby and Continental Message Solution, not published. The expensive mistake is staying on a small plan through a busy season and paying that rate for months.
Am I locked into a long contract?
Mostly, no. AnswerAmerica has no contract at all, Moneypenny asks for 30 days' notice, and Ruby is rolling 30-day. Watch prepayment rather than contract length: Jill's Office annual plans are paid up front, the account fee is non-refundable, and weekly plans carry a $599 setup fee. Month-to-month keeps your exit free while you learn your real volume.
Is it worth it for a shop that only misses a few calls a week?
It can be — the math is not the plan price, it is the value of one saved job. That is the Month A pattern above: per-call coverage runs about $59 a month. If one call becomes a job you would otherwise have lost, the service has paid for itself several times over. If your missed calls are mostly spam and customers who call back anyway, even $59 is money for nothing — counting a week of missed calls beats guessing.
Prices checked November 4, 2026, against each service's own published pricing page. Plans change often, and two services do not publish every rate — Ruby's overage and Continental Message Solution's — so confirm those in writing before you sign. This post contains no affiliate links; no service paid to be listed.
Disclosure: Some posts on TradeAI Tools contain affiliate links. This post does not. If you buy through an affiliate link elsewhere on this site, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
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