One thing to clear up first: Smith.ai is two products
Smith.ai sells a human receptionist service and a separate self-serve automated one, with very different prices. The human service, called Virtual Front Desk, starts at $300 a month for 30 calls, with real receptionists on the line and overage at $11.50 a call. Its AI Receptionist plans run free for 25 calls a month, then $150 a month on Pro and $500 on Enterprise.
Both companies' own comparison pages blur this. Rosie's page, dated July 2025, lists Smith.ai at $97.50 a month, a price that matches nothing Smith.ai publishes today. Smith.ai's own page about Rosie marks several of its Rosie rows as having no public mention. That is why every number on this page links straight to a live pricing page.
What each service actually is
Smith.ai has been answering phones for over ten years, with 25 million calls and 5,000+ businesses behind it. Its automated receptionist answers first, and more than 500 receptionists based in North America can take over as a paid per-call add-on. When the software itself decides to hand a call to a person, there is no fee. Callers are told the receptionist is automated.
Rosie is fully automated, with no human staff behind it. It trains itself from your Google Business Profile or website in minutes, answers 24/7, and takes several calls at once. Rosie reports 2,000+ businesses and 3.1 million calls handled. When a call needs a person, it transfers to your own team, not to anyone Rosie employs.
Pricing: per call against per minute
Smith.ai bills per call. The free plan covers 25 calls a month with a card on file, then $3.00 a call. Pro is $150 a month for a 75-call tier, about $2.00 a call, with spam screened at no charge. The human plans bill per call too, at a far higher rate: $300 for 30 calls works out to $10 a call.
Rosie bills from a pool of minutes. Professional is $49 a month for 250 minutes, but it takes messages only. Appointment booking and call transfers start on Scale, $149 a month for 1,000 minutes. Growth is $299 for 2,000 minutes and adds custom training uploads. What a minute past your pool costs is not published on the pricing page.
The two models punish different businesses. Per-call billing stings when most of your calls are short, because a 30-second wrong number can cost the same as a booked job. Minute pools sting when callers ramble. One law-firm owner on Reddit put it bluntly: "Smith.ai became too expensive for what it is." Run your own numbers before you commit, whichever way you lean.
Where Smith.ai wins
- Human backup on messy calls. No other option here has employed receptionists behind the software.
- The longest track record in the category: ten years and 25 million calls.
- Deep integrations: Salesforce, HubSpot, and Clio built in, plus 5,000+ apps through Zapier and Make.
- You can test before going live, with up to 50 simulated calls a month on the free plan.
Watch for: per-call billing adds up fast at trade call volumes, the free plan still wants a card, and the human-staffed plans cost four to seven times the automated ones.
Where Rosie wins
- The cheapest real entry point: $49 a month gets your phone answered around the clock.
- Setup takes minutes, pulled from your Google listing, with no sales call.
- It handles several calls at the same time, so callers never hear a busy signal.
- Phone apps for iOS and Android, and Spanish on every plan.
Watch for: booking and transfers are locked behind the $149 Scale plan, there is no human backup on the vendor side, and the cost of minutes past your pool is not published.
EveryDial does one job: it answers for home-services businesses, books the work on the $49 plan, and sends you the details of every call. Extra minutes cost the same rate as included ones, so the bill can't ambush you. Try it free for 7 days.
How to choose
- Pick Smith.ai if you want a person available behind the software, or you run structured intake the way a law office does.
- Pick Rosie if you want the cheapest way to stop missing calls and can step up to $149 when you need booking.
- Pick ours if you run a small trade business and want booking at the entry price. The answering service for plumbers and HVAC answering service pages show how it handles a real job call.
Whichever way you go, price it against your real call volume first. Our free missed call calculator shows what a month of unanswered calls already costs you, which makes the monthly fee much easier to judge.