The honest answer is "it depends on the pricing model." Here are the three you'll run into, what drives the cost, and how to compare providers without nasty surprises.
The price of an AI receptionist isn't a single number — it depends on how the provider charges and how much you actually use the phone. Two businesses can run the exact same AI receptionist and pay wildly different amounts, because one fields a handful of calls a week and the other answers hundreds a day. So when you ask "how much does it cost?", the useful question underneath is really "what's the pricing model, and what will it add up to at my volume?" Before you can compare quotes side by side, you have to understand the model behind each one.
Almost every AI receptionist is sold one of three ways: per-minute, per-call, or as a monthly plan with included usage. None of them is automatically the cheapest — the right one depends on your call volume and how long your calls run. A model that's a bargain for a busy clinic can be a poor fit for a small shop that gets a few calls a day, and vice versa. Here's what each model means, and where it tends to win or lose.
With per-minute pricing you pay for the talk time you actually use, billed by the minute. It's predictable and it scales cleanly with usage: a quiet line costs almost nothing, and a busy one costs proportionally more, with no fixed floor to clear first. This is the model Queml uses — $0.0035 per inbound minute and $0.0065 per outbound minute, plus $1.00 per phone number per month. There are no tiers and no bundles to buy up front; you just pay for the minutes you talk. You can see the full breakdown on our pricing page.
Some providers charge a flat fee per answered call, regardless of how long it lasts. The appeal is simplicity — you know exactly what each call costs, which makes budgeting easy if your call count is steady from month to month. The catch is that it can get expensive when you get a lot of short calls: a ten-second "are you open?" call costs the same flat fee as a five-minute booking, so a high volume of quick questions can run up the bill faster than per-minute would. If your callers tend to ask one quick thing and hang up, do the math on per-call carefully before you sign up.
A monthly plan charges a fixed fee that includes a bundle of minutes or calls. The upside is predictability — you know your bill before the month starts, which finance teams tend to like. The downsides show up at the edges: if you don't use the full bundle, you've overpaid for volume you never touched, and if you go over it, you hit overage fees that can be steep. Tiered plans add another wrinkle, because features you want — call recording, integrations, more numbers — are often gated to higher, pricier tiers, so you can end up paying for a bigger plan just to unlock one feature you need.
Whatever the model, the same few factors move your bill:
One factor stands out above the rest: whether human agents are involved. Services that route calls to live people cost far more than software-only AI receptionists, because you're paying for staff time, not just compute.
The headline price is rarely the whole story. Before you commit, ask about all four of these:
Don't compare sticker prices — compare what you'd actually pay at your volume. Start by estimating your monthly minutes or calls, then look at what's included at that volume under each provider's model and whether you're locked into a contract. From there, weigh the cost against what it saves you: a missed call is usually a lost customer, so the right comparison is cost versus recovered revenue. Our missed-call calculator lets you put real numbers on that side of the equation.
Queml keeps it transparent: per-minute pricing at $0.0035 inbound and $0.0065 outbound per minute, plus $1.00 per phone number per month. There are no tiers, no contracts, and every feature is included — the visual builder, AI assistant, speech recognition, SIP, call recording, the API, and integrations all come standard. It's free to start with no credit card, so you can set it up, hear it answer a real call, and only pay for the minutes you use.
It depends on your call volume and the provider's pricing model. With per-minute pricing you pay only for the talk time you use, so a low-volume line costs very little and cost scales as you grow. Monthly-plan providers charge a fixed fee with included usage.
Some providers charge setup or onboarding fees; many don't. Queml has no setup fee — you can start free with no credit card. Always ask about setup, add-on, and overage fees before committing.
Per-minute is usually cheaper if your call volume is variable or low, because you pay only for what you use. A monthly plan can make sense at steady high volume, but watch for paying for unused minutes or overage charges.
Queml is free to start with no credit card required, so you can set it up and test it before spending anything. From there you pay per minute and per number as you use it.
Everything — the visual flow builder, AI assistant, speech recognition, SIP, call recording, the developer API, and integrations are all included. You pay only for phone numbers and call minutes, with no feature gates or contracts.
Queml is per-minute with no contracts and every feature included. Start free.