Smith.ai pricing and what each add-on really costs

Smith.ai pricing reads like a menu with prices printed only on the mains. The plans are clear enough: a monthly fee for a set number of calls. It's the 17 add-on fees underneath that decide what you actually pay, and most of them bill per call.

Marcus runs a six-person plumbing company. He's under a sink half the day, so he signed up for Smith.ai's live receptionists on the $810 plan, budgeting about $9 a call. His first invoice came to $930 for an ordinary 80-call month.

Nothing was wrong with it. Booking an appointment costs $1.50 a call, a text alert to his phone costs $0.50, and a call recording costs $0.25. He'd ticked all three during setup.

Then January hit, frozen pipes nearly doubled his call volume, and the bill jumped to $1,665. Was the service worth it? Probably. But he'd budgeted for a plan, and he got billed for a menu.

This guide prices every Smith.ai plan, live and AI, plus every add-on, at the volumes a small business actually sees. All figures come from Smith.ai's own pricing pages, checked in October 2026.

TL;DR:

• Smith.ai pricing for live receptionists is $300 for 30 calls, $810 for 90 and $2,100 for 300 a month as of October 2026, about $7 to $10 a call, with overage at $8.50 to $11.50 a call.
• Smith.ai's AI receptionist is free for 25 calls a month ($3 a call after), then $150 for 75 calls, $270 for 150 and $500 for 300.
• 14 per-call add-ons ($0.25 to $1.50) and 3 monthly ones ($5 to $15) sit on top. Booking alone adds $1.50 a call.
• At 300 calls a month, Smith.ai costs $2,100 with live receptionists or $500 with AI. dialnote, an AI business phone system, is $49 a month on Team for unlimited users and comes to about $176 at 300 calls with AI call packs, phone system included.
• Smith.ai is the better pick when every caller needs a trained human. For routine calls, its own AI plans cost a quarter of the live price or less.

Jump to: plans at a glance · live plans · add-on fees · AI receptionist · cost at 100, 300 and 600 calls · what's billable · vs dialnote · when Smith.ai wins · verdict

Smith.ai pricing at a glance

So how much does Smith.ai cost per month? Anywhere from $0 to $2,100 on its published plans, before add-ons, depending on which of its three products you pick. Each is priced differently. Live receptionists start at $300 a month, the AI receptionist starts free, and a hybrid of the two is quoted on request. Here's the whole lineup as of October 2026:

Two things stand out. First, every product bills per call, not per minute, so a 12-minute intake costs the same as a 40-second message. Second, the gap between human and AI is huge: the AI plans run about $1.60 to $2 a call against $7 to $10 for people.

What do Smith.ai's live receptionist plans include?

Every live plan includes the same core service. The only things that change between tiers are the call allowance, the overage rate and the number of free transfer destinations:

All plans include lead screening, qualification and intake, US-based agents around the clock, a dashboard of call insights, a dedicated phone number, and your first CRM integration. There's no setup fee.

The terms are friendly too. Smith.ai bills month to month with no contract, and if you cancel, you pay through the end of the current cycle. Plan changes take effect the following month.

New clients also get a money-back guarantee. The pricing page calls it 30 days, while the FAQ describes refunding your initial plan if you leave in the first two weeks, so confirm the window in writing before you rely on it.

Notice what isn't in the table, though. Booking, texting, recording and Spanish are all extra. That's the next section, and it's where most bills grow.

The 17 add-on fees that change the bill

Smith.ai's add-ons fall into two groups: 14 that bill on every call where they're used, and 3 flat monthly fees. Here's the full list from the pricing page (October 2026):

None of these are hidden. They're all on the pricing page. But they're easy to underweight, because each one looks small next to a $810 plan.

Here's how they stack for a trades business like Marcus's. On the $810 plan, the base cost is $9 a call. Add booking ($1.50) on half his calls, plus a text alert ($0.50) and a recording ($0.25) on every call, and that's $10.50 a call, a 17% markup from three checkboxes. In an 80-call month it's worse: $930 works out to about $11.63 a call, because he's also paying for 10 plan calls he didn't use.

So before you compare Smith.ai with anything, write down the add-ons you'll actually switch on. Then price the plan with them, not without.

How much does Smith.ai's AI receptionist cost?

Smith.ai's AI receptionist costs $0 for 25 calls a month, then $150 for 75 calls, $270 for 150 or $500 for 300, as of October 2026. It's a separate product from the live service, with its own plans:

The free tier is genuinely useful. If you get fewer than 25 calls a month, Smith.ai's AI answers them for nothing, and at $3 a call after that, it stays cheap up to roughly 75 calls.

Two gaps to know about. The pricing page doesn't list what an extra call costs on the paid AI plans, so ask before a busy month finds out for you. And Smith.ai mentions a 6-month plan with rollover calls and a lower rate, but it's quote-only.

There's also the hybrid option: AI handles routine calls and live agents step in when needed, from about $2.50 a call. Smith.ai doesn't publish hybrid plans, so you'll need a consultation to get a real number.

Smith.ai cost at 100, 300 and 600 calls

At 300 calls a month, Smith.ai costs $2,100 with live receptionists or $500 with its AI receptionist, as of October 2026. Here's each option at three volumes, using the cheapest published plan plus published overage and no add-ons:

How each cell works:

• Live at 100 calls: the 90-call plan ($810) plus ten calls at $10.50. The 30-call plan would cost $1,105 here, so bigger plans pay off quickly.
• Live at 600 calls: the 300-call plan ($2,100) plus 300 calls at $8.50.
• AI at 100 calls: the free tier's 25 calls plus 75 at $3 each ($225), which beats the 150-call plan at $270.
• AI at 600 calls: the $800 plan covers 500 calls, and Smith.ai doesn't publish what the next 100 cost, so get that rate before a busy month.
• dialnote: the $49 Team plan plus AI call packs at $25 for 65 calls (two packs at 100 calls, five at 300, nine at 600), with any remainder at $0.49 a minute, assuming 3-minute calls. At 300 and 600 calls, a few dollars of call minutes beyond the plan's included minutes are added, less Team's $5 monthly credit.

Now add Marcus's three add-ons back in. At 300 calls, booking half and alerting and recording every call adds $450 to the live plan, for $2,550. That's the number to compare, because it's the one you'd pay.

A busy month for a plumbing company

Marcus's normal month is 80 calls. His January was 150. Here's both months on the live Basic plan with his three add-ons:

The bill rose $735 for 70 extra calls. The overage rate isn't really the problem: at $10.50, it's only a little above the $9 plan rate. The problem is that there's no middle tier. The next plan up is $2,100, so a busy month just runs on overage.

Is that a problem? For a plumber, one emergency job can pay for a month of answering. The real question is whether those calls needed a person, which we'll come back to.

What counts as a billable call?

Every answered call counts once, whatever its length. That's Smith.ai's main argument for per-call billing, and it's a fair one. Smith.ai argues that because the clock isn't running, its agents never need to rush your callers off the phone.

Three rules shape what lands on the invoice:

1. Spam and wrong numbers aren't charged on the live plans, as long as the lines you forward pass caller ID. That's better than many per-minute services, where a robocall burns minutes like a customer.
2. Length doesn't matter. A long intake call costs the same as a short message. If your calls run long (legal intake, insurance quotes), per-call billing works in your favor.
3. Add-ons bill per call where they're used. A booked call costs the plan rate plus $1.50, every time.

That second point deserves a fair hearing. The longer your average call, the better per-call billing looks next to a per-minute service, and short calls flip it. Our answering service cost breakdown works through where that crossover sits.

Smith.ai vs dialnote, side by side

dialnote is the AI business phone system priced for your whole team: shared numbers, call routing, branded AI voice agents that answer, qualify, and book, and automatic CRM sync, all included, with no per-user cost. That makes it a different kind of product from Smith.ai, so here's how the two compare as of October 2026:

The honest trade-off: dialnote has no live human option. A caller who needs a person gets transferred to your team or leaves a message. If that's most of your callers, Smith.ai's live service is the right tool. dialnote's plans start at $49 for unlimited users, but that won't change it.

When is Smith.ai the better pick?

Smith.ai is the better pick when the caller on the line needs a trained person, not just a fast answer. Four cases stand out:

• Upset or high-stakes callers. Legal intake, medical offices, anyone whose callers are stressed. A person reading tone is worth $7 to $10 a call.
• Law firms. Conflict checks ($0.50), third-party intake and payments are all on the add-on menu, handled by a person who knows the drill.
• Very low volume. Under 25 calls a month, the AI receptionist is free. Nobody in this guide beats free.
• Long calls. If your calls average 8 to 10 minutes, per-call billing beats almost every per-minute service.

And if you're already weighing Smith.ai against other services, our list of Smith.ai alternatives prices ten of them on the same basis.

Is Smith.ai worth the price?

For live answering, yes, if you price it with your add-ons. Smith.ai's prices are published, its billing rules are clear, and it doesn't charge for spam. That's more than many answering services can say.

But here's my honest read: most small-business calls don't need a person. They need someone to answer, ask the same four questions, and book a slot. Paying $9 to $11 a call for that is paying human rates for a software job, and Smith.ai's own AI plans, at about a quarter of the price, quietly agree.

Marcus kept Smith.ai for two months, then moved his routine calls to an AI agent and kept his cell for real emergencies. His answering bill dropped below $100 in a normal month. He still takes the calls that need him. He just stopped paying someone else to take the ones that didn't.