Smith.ai launched in 2015 to help small businesses handle more calls with human receptionists. Today, it also offers AI answering services. This lets an AI voice agent handle incoming calls first, then route more complex ones to human reps.
But this adjustment hasn’t made Smith.ai any easier to scale. Its prices have risen quite a bit over the years — not to mention its add-ons and setup fees make it difficult to track your total costs.
This article covers everything you should know about Smith.AI pricing, including its pricing, hidden fees, and paid add-ons. We also cover a Smith.ai alternative that can more easily scale as your business grows.
Smith.ai pricing and plans at a glance: What you get and what you’re missing
Smith.ai is an AI-powered receptionist and live answering service that handles calls 24/7. You can sign up for one of two services: AI-first, or Human-first. This determines who picks up the call when a customer calls your business — either an AI receptionist or a human receptionist.
It’s designed for industries such as law firms and transportation and logistics companies that need calls answered without a full front desk.
But you should know Smith.ai is more expensive than other virtual receptionist services, making it harder to scale as you grow.
Here’s a quick overview of its AI-first service plans:
| Feature | Free | Pro | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $0 per month | $150 per month | $500 per month |
| Calls per month | 25 calls, with $3.00 per call overage fee | Starts at 75 calls, with $2.00 per call overage fee | Starts at 300 calls, with $1.67 per call |
| Call recording | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Call transcription and summaries | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Lead qualification | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Call routing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Appointment booking | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Integrations with Clio, Zapier, and more | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Analytics | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dedicated onboarding setup | X | ✓ | ✓ |
| Live phone, email, and chat support | X | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom SMS branding | X | ✓ | ✓ |
| Full-service setup and ongoing optimization | X | X | ✓ |
| Custom AI prompting by the technical team | X | X | ✓ |
| Unlimited custom integrations | X | X | ✓ |
| Dedicated success manager | X | X | ✓ |
We’ll cover each plan in greater detail below.
Smith.ai’s AI receptionist plans
Here’s a closer look at Smith.ai’s pricing plans for its AI-first service.
Free
Starting price: Free
Best for: Businesses that only receive a few calls each month
Smith.ai’s free plan includes an AI voice agent with 25 calls per month. You’ll also get access to standard features. But keep in mind Smith.ai has no phone system of its own, which means customer conversations end up split across multiple platforms — making it more time consuming to catch up.
Here’s what you can expect to get:
- 25 calls per month
- Call transfers
- CRM integrations that automatically sync your call data to the correct contact
- Zapier integration with 9,000+ third-party tools
- AI that can qualify leads based on your criteria
- New lead intake
- Appointment scheduling answering service via Calendly
- One local or toll-free business number, no built-in phone system
- Automatic call recordings
- Call transcriptions and summaries
As mentioned, the free plan only includes 25 calls per month. After that, you’ll pay $3 per call unless you upgrade to another plan. It also doesn’t include features like dedicated onboarding support or lower overage rates, which are available on higher plans.
Pro
Starting price: $150 per month, billed monthly
Best for: Growing businesses that need daily support with call answering
Smith.ai’s Pro plan unlocks all the features you get in Starter. However, its pricing is complicated. Instead of a single plan, it comes in three different tiers. Here’s what each one includes:
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $150 per month | $270 per month | $500 per month |
| Included calls | 75 | 150 | 300 |
| Overage cost | $2.00 | $1.80 | $1.67 |
| Approximate calls per day | 2–3 | 5 | 10 |
You’ll also get access to three additional features:
- Dedicated onboarding setup
- Live phone, email, and chat support
- Custom SMS branding so the texts you send match your brand
But what you won’t have access to are custom-built AI receptionists and custom integrations. That means you’ll need to build the AI voice agent yourself and may not be able to connect key parts of your tech stack. There’s also no way to get a dedicated success manager unless you upgrade. For businesses expecting a high volume of calls, the Pro plan isn’t scalable.
Enterprise
Starting price: $500 per month
Best for: Any business wanting a hands-off setup for an AI receptionist
The Enterprise plan is designed for businesses that want Smith.ai to build and manage their AI receptionist. The plan is broken down into three tiers:
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $500 per month | $800 per month | Custom |
| Included calls | 300 | 500 | 1,000+ |
| Approximate calls per day | 10 | 16–17 | 33+ |
| Overage cost | $1.67 | $1.50 | Custom |
You get all the features on the Pro plan, plus five more:
- A custom-built AI receptionist for your business and ongoing optimization
- A dedicated success manager
- Custom integrations and workflows
- Custom AI prompting by its technical team
- Multi-location support
Bottom line: Even on the highest tier, Smith.ai still doesn’t include a business phone system. Your team will still have to switch between two tools to manage customer conversations. Many Smith.ai alternatives include both a business phone system and an AI voice agent in the same platform.
Smith.ai’s live receptionist plans
Want a real person to answer incoming calls? You can upgrade to one of four Smith.ai Human-first plans. These outsourced reps are available 24/7 to help with lead screening, qualification, intake, and more.
You can pick from one of four Human-first plans:
- Starter: $300 per month for 30 calls and one free transfer destination, with overage pricing of $11.50 per call after 30 calls
- Basic: $810 per month for 90 calls and two free transfer destinations, with overage pricing of $10.50 per call after 90 calls
- Pro: $2,100 per month for 300 calls and 10 free transfer destinations, with overage pricing of $8.50 per call after 300 calls
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for custom transfer destinations, pricing adjusted based on your needs
Smith.ai’s paid add-ons and other fees to know
There’s a lot more to Smith.ai’s pricing plans than what’s listed.
You’ll find more than 20 paid add-ons available on both the AI-first and Human-first services.
AI-first service add-ons and fees
At the time of writing, Smith.ai only offers one add-on for its AI-first plans. It lets your AI voice agent hand callers off to your team when needed. For example, if you want someone to verify information or schedule appointments, you’ll pay an additional per-call fee.
Smith.ai doesn’t publicly list the price for this add-on, so you’ll need to contact the sales team for a quote.
Human-first service add-ons and fees
Smith.ai’s Human-first plans carry the bulk of its add-ons and fees. As you’ll see below, it’s difficult to estimate how much you’ll be paying per month if you use any of these add-ons.
This includes:
- Additional CRM Integrations: $0.50 per call per additional CRM to sync call details to the correct contact.
- Book appointments: $1.50 per call to have your receptionist schedule appointments directly on your calendar, such as Calendly or Acuity.
- Microsoft Teams, SMS, and Slack notifications: $0.50 per call to get real-time call alerts sent to your team in Slack or Microsoft Teams, or via SMS. If a team member is unavailable to receive the notification, it’ll cost an extra $0.25 for each additional “ping.”
- Text and email follow-up: $0.50 per call for your receptionist to send a follow-up message to the caller after the conversation ends.
- Conflict checks: $0.50 per call to screen new leads in your CRM for conflicts of interest.
- Call recording and transcription: $0.25 per call to get a recording and written transcript of a conversation.
- Dedicated Spanish line: $1 per call to have a Spanish-speaking live agent answer the phone.
- Accept collect calls: $0.50 per call for attorneys to accept collect calls from inmates
- Accept payments: $1 per call to process customer payments directly. Smith.ai supports Square, PayPal, LawPay, TrialPay, CPACharge, and more.
- Third-party intake: $1 per call for a live agent to fill out a form in another software while they’re talking to your caller.
- Complex call routing: $1 per call to set call routing rules for each number based on time of day, extension, schedules, and availability. You can either set up ring groups that notify team members sequentially or alert everyone at the same time via simultaneous ring.
- Custom calendaring: $1 per call for more complex bookings, like checking multiple calendars.
- Extended intake: $1.50 per call for up to six additional questions to qualify and organize leads.
- Custom extended intake: $0.25 per question to add more questions for your live agent to ask on the phone.
- Business caller ID for outbound: $10 per month so all outbound calls display your main business phone number.
- Additional transfer destinations: $15 per month for each extra number that calls can be transferred to.
- Inbound call tracking numbers: $5 per number per month to track which campaigns drive calls to your business.
4 Key things to keep in mind before choosing Smith.ai
Smith.ai’s pricing leaves a lot to be desired, but it’s not the only drawback to keep in mind.
Here are four more disadvantages of Smith.ai:
1. No phone system of its own
While Smith.ai does give you one phone number per plan and lets you port your existing number, it isn’t a phone system. Instead, it’s a standalone AI and live receptionist answering service.
The problem is, customer conversations are split across two platforms. Your team has to switch between Smith.ai and your business phone system to see a contact’s full conversation history.
This makes following up much slower than it has to be. Your team could also miss important pieces of the conversation. Plus, it’s less convenient than a business phone system with a built-in AI receptionist.
2. Pricing that’s hard to scale as you grow
Smith.ai’s pricing is hard to scale for most small and growing businesses.
For example, the free plan includes 25 calls handled by the AI receptionist. Once you go over that, you’ll pay $3 per call. Or you’ll have to upgrade to the $150 per-month tier.
But even on the highest tier, Smith.ai’s Enterprise plan only provides 500 calls for $800 per month. This is limiting for businesses with high call volumes.
3. Support that’s slow to resolve issues
Many past Smith.ai customers describe slow response times from support. They describe much of their service as “hit-or-miss,” with some saying that issues dragged on for weeks before getting resolved.
One Smith.ai review reads:
“Dealing with administration was impossible to get anything [done]. You go in circles dealing with different individuals.” — Capterra
4. Call transfers cost extra
If you want your AI voice agent to transfer calls to a rep so they can verify information or schedule appointments, you’ll need to pay a fee. Smith.ai doesn’t publicly list how much this costs, which means you’ll need to contact its sales team for a quote.
With a Smith.ai alternative like Quo, your AI voice agent can transfer calls to your team without charging extra.
Quo: A more effective alternative to Smith.ai
If all you need is a standalone human and AI answering service, Smith.ai could work. But as you can see, its prices and features weren’t designed for small business owners.
That’s not the case with a Smith.ai alternative like Quo.
Quo’s pricing plans are more scalable. Plus, you get a business phone system and an AI receptionist on any plan, starting at $15 per user per month. Let’s take a closer look at how they compare:
| Features | Quo | Smith.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $15 per user per month, includes 10 free Sona calls per month on any plan | $150 per month |
| Transparent pricing | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Unlimited calling and texts in the US and Canada | ✔️ | X |
| Call flow | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| AI phone call summaries | ✔️ | ✔️ |
| Call routing | ✔️ | Basic call routing features such as business hours require an upgrade |
| Phone system included | ✔️ | X |
| Additional phone numbers | $5 per number per month | $5 per number per month |
| CRM integrations | ✔️ | ✔️ |
Transparent and predictable pricing
Quo’s pricing is simple, transparent, and scales with your business. Only upgrade when you need to — or downgrade during seasons when you know call volumes will be low.
Each user you add to your account gets one free local US, Canadian, or North American toll-free phone number. And unlike Smith.ai, these are fully-functional business phone numbers that let you call and text customers.
You can access Sona, Quo’s AI voice agent, on any plan. Find the call volume you need from these pricing tiers, then easily scale up as your business grows:
| Tier 1 | Tier 2 | Tier 3 | Tier 4 | Tier 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sona tiers | Free | $25 per month | $49 per month | $99 per month | $199 per month |
| Included credits | 1,000 credits/10 calls | 4,000 credits/40 calls | 10,000 credits/100 calls | 25,000 credits/250 calls | 60,000 credits/600 calls |
| Overage rate per call | $1.00 | $0.75 | $0.65 | $0.55 | $0.45 |
Keep in mind that each call is worth 100 credits.
Get an AI agent built into your phone system
Quo’s AI voice agent, Sona, automatically picks up the phone 24/7 or just when your team is unavailable, helping you avoid missing calls so you never leave money on the table.
You can get up and running with Sona in 15 minutes or less. This is much faster than Smith.ai’s projected 90 days. It also doesn’t require any technical support.
With Sona, you can add general information about your business to Sona’s knowledge pages. This might include details like pricing, hours, certifications, or policies. That way, when callers ask common questions, Sona can respond right away with the correct information. Sona can also:
- Transfer calls
- Send texts during live calls with booking links
- Take messages
- Capture leads
- Record every call and generate an in-depth summary
- Automatically sync calls handled by Sona to your CRM
Unlike Smith.ai, there are no add-on fees for syncing call data to CRMs.
You can also customize Sona’s greetings and responses at different stages in your call flow on any plan. This lets you create different messages for after-hours and business-hours callers. Smith.ai, on the other hand, requires you to commit to its six-month plan or purchase an add-on to get the same features.
With Quo, you can easily scan through past calls, texts, recordings, and more, all in one place. Then, easily see which calls were handled by Sona. Smith.ai doesn’t offer this. Calls live in a separate app, so they won’t show up alongside the rest of your contacts’ conversation histories.
See for yourself what one Sona user said:
“With Sona, I never worry about missing a call again. It’s like having a smart, reliable assistant who always picks up. It’s professional, friendly, and on it 24/7.” — Christopher Sands, CEO at Hannon DePalma
Unlimited calls and texts to the US and Canada
Quo includes unlimited calls and texts to the US and Canada on any plan. This means your reps can make and receive as many domestic inbound and outbound calls as you need, without worrying about caps.
Foster team collaboration to provide better customer service
With shared phone numbers, your team can call and text from the same number. Every member of the number has access to every contact, including their full conversation history in the same thread.
. Need someone to follow up with a contact or do other work associated with a conversation? Create a Task and assign it to the right teammate.
Customers can’t see your Tasks, but everyone who shares the number can. It’s easy to leave notes, share context, and keep the next rep who speaks to that contact up to speed.
Keep in mind, Smith.ai is an external answering service only. But an alternative like Quo acts as a communication system and a collaboration tool your team can use to solve customer issues together.
Automatically log all calls to your CRM
Connect your business phone system with the platforms you already use, like HubSpot, Salesforce, Clio, and Jobber. You can easily connect with 9,000+ more via third-party tools like Zapier and Make.
These integrations let you automate routine tasks, such as syncing call data to your CRM. Plus, they also work with Sona:
- Jobber: Sona can create Jobber requests during a live call when a caller asks about a new job.
- HubSpot: Calls handled by Sona automatically sync in your CRM with the subject “Handled by Sona.”
- Clio: Calls handled by Sona are automatically logged in Clio with an AI summary and next steps.
Smith.ai pros and cons
Here are some of the pros and cons of Smith.ai:
Pros
- Includes all core features on the base plan
- Custom integrations, call flows, and onboarding, with upgrades and add-ons
- Call transfers
Cons
- No built-in phone system
- Support may be slow and hit-or-miss, according to user reviews
- 91+-day onboarding timeline for full optimization
- Very high pricing for just 50 calls per month
Quo: A better alternative to Smith.ai plans
Smith.ai works fine with outsourcing calls to human reps. But it’s not a scalable solution. And if you want to handle a higher call volume without paying for more reps, there are more effective options on the market — like Quo.
Quo offers scalable features for human and AI receptionists. That way, you can build a call answering system that suits your business size and long-term goals. Each tier comes with clear pricing and unlimited calls in the US and Canada. Plus, you get access to 10 free Sona calls on any plan.
See why 90,000+ customers believe we’re the best answering service for small businesses by signing up for a seven-day free trial of Quo.
