Which AI receptionist is best for a local business in 2026?
The best AI receptionist depends on your callers' languages, your monthly call minutes, and how you want calls passed to a person. On price alone, Dialzara starts lowest at $29 a month and Slang.ai highest at $399 a month per location, as of October 2026. For a phone that rings in English, Mandarin and Spanish, Aibrify Desk is the only one of the eight listing all three on one line.
That is the whole verdict. The rest of this page lays out the facts behind it. Every figure comes from a vendor's own pricing page in October 2026, so you can check it yourself.
Quick picks by situation:
- Cheapest entry plan: Dialzara, $29 for 60 minutes.
- Most minutes under $50: Rosie, 250 minutes for $49.
- No minute cap: Goodcall, $79 a month per agent, billed by unique customers instead.
- Human receptionists as backup: Smith.ai, which escalates to its own live agents.
- Restaurant reservations through OpenTable or Resy: Slang.ai.
- Calls in English, Mandarin and Spanish: Aibrify Desk, $179 a month with 400 minutes.
How were the eight AI receptionist services compared?
Each service was checked on its own website on October 7, 2026. Seven fields were recorded: starting price, what it includes, overage, languages, appointment booking, how a call reaches a human, and the trial. Where a vendor's page says nothing about a field, the table says "not listed" rather than guessing.
This page quotes no review scores, because the G2 and Capterra pages for these products could not be loaded for verification during research. A star rating without a review count beside it is not worth repeating. If ratings matter to you, open the review site yourself and read the count beside the score.
Aibrify Desk is our own product, so it appears in every table with the same seven fields and no rating or ranking. A ninth candidate, Sophiie AI, was left out because its public site showed no pricing page we could load.
What does each AI receptionist cost in 2026?
Starting prices run from $29 to $399 a month, and five of the eight sit between $49 and $179. The harder question is what the price includes. Vendors meter calls four ways: by the minute, by the call, by the unique caller, or by the location.
The chart shows each service's lowest published monthly price; the table adds what it buys.
| Service | Starting price (as of October 2026) | What is included | Overage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dialzara | $29 a month (Business Lite) | 60 receptionist minutes a month | $0.48 a minute |
| Rosie | $49 a month (Professional) | 250 minutes a month | Not listed |
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | $49 a month standalone, $39 as a RingEX add-on | 100 minutes | $0.50 a minute, billed in 30-second increments |
| Goodcall | $79 a month per agent (Starter) | Unlimited minutes, 100 unique customers | $0.50 per customer after 100 |
| My AI Front Desk | $99 a month, or $79 billed annually | 200 voice minutes, 100 chatbot conversations, 400 SMS | Metered in credits (25 credits per voice minute) |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Free tier, then Pro at $150 a month | Free: 25 calls a month; Pro: $2.00 a call | $3.00 a call beyond the free 25 |
| Aibrify Desk | $179 a month | 400 minutes, setup included | $0.30 a minute |
| Slang.ai | Starting at $399 a month per location (Core) | Minutes not listed | Not listed |
To compare them, pick a month you can picture. Take 100 calls of four minutes each, which is 400 minutes. The second table prices that month on each service where the vendor's page gives enough to do the arithmetic.
| Service | Cost of 100 four-minute calls (400 minutes) | How the figure was reached |
|---|---|---|
| Goodcall | $79 | Minutes are unlimited; the fee only rises if more than 100 unique customers call |
| Aibrify Desk | $179 | 400 minutes are included in the $179 plan |
| Dialzara | $199 | Business Plus plan with 500 minutes; Lite would be $29 plus 340 minutes at $0.48 |
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | $199 | $49 plus 300 extra minutes at $0.50 |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | About $200 | 100 calls at the Pro rate of $2.00 a call |
| Rosie | $49 plus overage | 250 minutes included; the page does not list a per-minute overage rate |
| My AI Front Desk | $99 plus credits | 200 minutes included; the extra 200 minutes are billed in credits |
| Slang.ai | From $399 | Per location; minutes are not listed |
The spread is narrow in the middle: Aibrify Desk, Dialzara, RingCentral and Smith.ai land between $179 and $200 for that month. The outliers are Goodcall at the bottom and Slang.ai at the top. For a longer walk through what drives the bill, see what an AI receptionist costs.
Which AI receptionists speak more than English?
All eight answer in English, six list Spanish, and one lists Mandarin. Two vendors claim very wide language counts: My AI Front Desk says 20+ and Slang.ai's Premium plan says 97.
| Service | Languages on the vendor's page |
|---|---|
| Aibrify Desk | English, Mandarin and Spanish included |
| Dialzara | English and Spanish |
| Rosie | "English & Spanish on every call" |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | "Conversational fluency in English and Spanish" |
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, "with more coming soon"; switches mid-conversation |
| My AI Front Desk | "20+ languages" |
| Slang.ai | Bilingual Spanish on Core; "Support for 97 Languages" on Premium, switching mid-call |
| Goodcall | Not listed on the pricing page |
A language in a list is not the same as a language that sounds right to a native speaker. The only way to know is to call the demo line and speak that language, ideally with a native speaker beside you. Ask for the hours, then switch languages mid-sentence and see whether the receptionist follows.
Mandarin deserves its own note. Among the eight, only Aibrify Desk lists it, and it does not support Cantonese. Owners who serve Chinese-speaking callers can read more in our guide to a bilingual AI receptionist for Chinese and English.
Which AI receptionists book appointments, and where does the booking go?
Every service on this page books something, but the booking lands in different places. Some write into your own calendar, one writes into its own calendar, one texts the caller a link, and one writes into restaurant reservation platforms.
| Service | Booking behaviour on the vendor's page |
|---|---|
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | Books and reschedules by connecting to your calendar; syncs with Google and Outlook calendars |
| Dialzara | "Books appointments directly to your calendar" |
| Rosie | Professional plan texts an appointment link; Scale plan books "directly on your calendar" |
| Goodcall | Syncs with your CRM and calendar |
| My AI Front Desk | Books against your live calendar and writes to a CRM |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | "AI Scheduling (Calendly & more)" |
| Slang.ai | Reservations through OpenTable, Resy, SevenRooms, Tripleseat and Perfect Venue |
| Aibrify Desk | Books into Desk's own booking calendar, visible in the console |
If your day lives in Google Calendar, a service that writes there saves a step. If you take bookings by hand, a receptionist with its own calendar is simpler, because there is nothing to connect.
How does each AI receptionist hand a call to a human?
Three handoff styles exist: transfer to a number you choose, escalate to the vendor's own human agents, or take a message and alert you. Most services offer the first and third; Smith.ai is the one on this page that offers the second.
| Service | Handoff described on the vendor's page |
|---|---|
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Escalates to Smith.ai's "500+ North America-based receptionists" as a per-call add-on; no fee when the AI starts the escalation |
| Rosie | Warm or cold transfers; Scale adds warm transfers with a briefing; Growth adds "waterfall" transfers that try several numbers |
| My AI Front Desk | "Warm-transfers or sends a real-time alert with a full transcript" |
| Goodcall | Transfers to your business line by default; can transfer to a person or department, take a message, or schedule a callback |
| Dialzara | Routes complex calls to you or your team; multiple transfer extensions |
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | Hands off with an attached call summary |
| Slang.ai | VIP callers skip the AI and go straight to staff |
| Aibrify Desk | Transfers to the owner's phone, or takes the details and notifies the owner right away |
A warm transfer means the receptionist tells the person picking up who is calling and why before connecting. A cold transfer just rings through. Warm is better for anyone who hates being asked to repeat themselves, which is most callers.
A transfer at 2pm reaches someone, but a transfer at 9pm rings a dark office. The better services transfer during opening hours and take a message after. That message should be a summary you can read in ten seconds.
With Aibrify Desk, the owner lists topics the receptionist will not answer, such as prices, complaints, refunds, symptoms or legal advice. Those calls go to a person. Your business keeps its number: you forward calls to Desk, and each summary reaches you by email or Slack in Chinese or English.
Forwarding can cover every call or only the ones nobody answers. For the wider question of machine versus person, read AI receptionist vs answering service and AI receptionist vs human receptionist.
The eight AI receptionist services one by one
Dialzara
Dialzara's Business Lite plan is $29 a month with 60 receptionist minutes, and the overage is $0.48 a minute, per its pricing page. The ladder continues at $99 for 220 minutes, $199 for 500 minutes and $349 for 1,000 minutes, with the overage rate falling at each step. All four tiers include Spanish as well as English, appointment booking and a 7-day trial.
Fits: an office with a light phone load that wants to start cheap and move up a tier only when the minutes run out.
Rosie
Rosie sells 250 minutes for $49 a month on its Professional plan, with English and Spanish on every call and a 7-day free trial, per heyrosie.com. The $149 Scale plan adds direct calendar booking and warm transfers with a briefing for your team. The pricing page does not state a per-minute overage rate, so ask before you commit.
Fits: home-service and appointment-based trades that want plenty of minutes at a low price and can live with a text-a-link booking on the entry plan.
RingCentral AI Receptionist
RingCentral prices its AI Receptionist at $49 a month standalone with 100 minutes, or $39 a month as an add-on to a RingEX phone plan, per its pricing page. Extra use costs $0.50 a minute, rounded up to 30-second increments, and both plans carry a 14-day free trial. The product page lists English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Portuguese, calendar booking through Google and Outlook, and a handoff that carries a call summary.
Fits: a business that already runs its phones on RingCentral and wants the receptionist inside the same bill.
Goodcall
Goodcall's Starter plan is $79 a month per agent with unlimited minutes, and it meters unique customers instead, 100 a month before a $0.50 charge per extra customer, per its pricing page. Growth is $129 for 250 customers and Scale is $249 for 500.
The home page says the agent transfers to your business line by default. You can instead route to a person or department, take a message or schedule a callback.
Fits: a business with long calls or many repeat callers, since neither call length nor repeat calls raise the bill. Check language support directly, because the pricing page does not list it.
My AI Front Desk
My AI Front Desk bundles a phone receptionist with web chat, two-way SMS and a CRM for $99 a month, or $79 a month billed annually, per its pricing page. The plan includes 200 voice minutes, 100 chatbot conversations and 400 SMS, with extra use metered in credits at 25 credits per voice minute. It lists 20+ languages, a 7-day free trial, and a handoff that warm-transfers or sends a real-time alert with a full transcript.
Fits: an owner who wants phone, chat and texting under one roof and is comfortable with credit-based overage.
Smith.ai AI Receptionist
Smith.ai's AI receptionist page lists a free tier of 25 calls a month, with $3.00 a call after that, a Pro plan at $150 a month priced at $2.00 a call, and an Enterprise plan at $500 a month, per smith.ai. Its separate human receptionist plans start at $300 a month for 30 calls. The AI handles English and Spanish and can escalate to Smith.ai's live agents, which is the feature no other service here matches.
Fits: a law office or professional practice that wants an AI answering first and trained people behind it, and that counts calls rather than minutes.
Slang.ai
Slang.ai is built for restaurants and hospitality groups, with plans starting at $399 a month per location for Core and $599 for Premium, per its pricing page. Reservations flow through OpenTable, Resy, SevenRooms, Tripleseat and Perfect Venue, and VIP callers are routed straight to staff, per slang.ai. The pricing page lists no included minutes and no free trial; the entry point is a demo.
Fits: a multi-location restaurant group that already lives on a reservation platform and wants the phone wired into it. For a single independent restaurant, read our guide to an AI receptionist for restaurants first.
Aibrify Desk
Aibrify Desk is $179 a month with 400 minutes included, $0.30 for each extra minute, setup included, month to month with no contract. It answers in English, Mandarin and Spanish on one line, books into its own calendar, and blocks spam. It answers common questions from your material: hours, address, parking, services and insurance accepted.
Every call opens by saying it is an AI assistant and that the call is transcribed; no audio is kept. There is no free trial, but there is a demo line you can call on desk.aibrify.com at any hour. After each call you get a summary by email or Slack, a weekly summary on Monday, and a monthly report.
Clinics, law firms and other careful fields can go custom, with more material for Desk to work from and stricter limits, priced to fit.
Fits: a business whose callers speak English, Mandarin and Spanish, and an owner who wants to read summaries in Chinese or English.
How to test an AI receptionist before you pay
Call it, ask what a real caller asks, then read the summary. Ten minutes on the phone tells you more than any feature list, and every service here has a demo line or a trial.
- Call the demo line from a mobile, on speaker, somewhere noisy. A quiet office call proves little. Your callers phone from cars and kitchens.
- Ask what your front desk hears every day. Hours, parking, "do you take my insurance", "can I come Tuesday at three".
- Interrupt it. Talk over the greeting and change your mind mid-sentence. A good receptionist stops and follows you; a weak one finishes its script.
- Switch languages without warning. If you serve Spanish or Mandarin speakers, start in English and switch. Watch whether it keeps up or stalls.
- Ask for a person and time the transfer. Count the seconds until a phone rings, and note whether the person answering knows your name.
- Raise a topic it should not handle. Ask for a refund or describe a symptom. The right answer is a polite handoff, not an invented policy.
- Hang up and read the summary. It should arrive within minutes and should match what you said. One wrong detail in a test will be ten wrong details in a month.
- Read the overage line on the pricing page. Note the per-minute or per-call rate, and ask what happens when a trial ends.
If you want to run this test on Aibrify Desk, call the demo line on desk.aibrify.com and try step four in Mandarin or Spanish.
Which AI receptionist should you choose?
Choose by language first, then by volume, then by handoff. Language is the hardest to change later, volume decides the bill, and handoff decides whether a difficult call ends well.
English-only callers and a few calls a day point to Dialzara or Rosie, both under $50 with a trial. English and Spanish callers have four options in the table. Callers in English, Mandarin and Spanish have one, Aibrify Desk.
Long calls or many repeat callers favour Goodcall, since minutes are unlimited. Trained people behind the AI means Smith.ai; several restaurant locations on OpenTable or Resy means Slang.ai.
Whatever you pick, keep your number. Every service here answers calls you forward to it, so you can switch vendors later without reprinting a single business card.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best AI receptionist for a business that gets calls in Mandarin?
Among the eight services compared here, only Aibrify Desk lists Mandarin on its website, alongside English and Spanish, at $179 a month including 400 minutes. Cantonese is not supported. An owner can test Mandarin on the demo line before deciding, and call summaries arrive in Chinese or English.
What is the cheapest AI receptionist in 2026?
As of October 2026, Dialzara's Business Lite plan is the cheapest at $29 a month with 60 minutes. Rosie and RingCentral both start at $49, with 250 and 100 minutes respectively. Smith.ai has a no-cost tier of 25 calls a month, but the cheapest plan is rarely the cheapest month once overage is counted.
Is a free AI receptionist trial worth using?
Yes, if the trial is used like a real week of calls rather than a single polite test. Forward the business line for a few days, ask the questions customers ask, and read every summary. Dialzara, Rosie and My AI Front Desk offer 7-day trials, RingCentral offers 14 days, and Smith.ai starts you on 25 calls at no cost.
Do AI receptionists work with my existing phone number?
Yes, through call forwarding: the business keeps its number and forwards calls to the receptionist, for every call or only when nobody answers. Nothing changes on business cards, signs or listings. Forwarding can also be switched off in minutes, which makes changing vendors low risk.
Can an AI receptionist transfer a call to a real person?
Every service here can pass a call to a person, usually by transferring to a number you choose and taking a message when nobody answers. Smith.ai can escalate to its own live receptionists as a per-call add-on. Aibrify Desk transfers to the owner's phone or takes details and notifies the owner right away.
How do I estimate how many minutes an AI receptionist plan needs?
Count the calls you receive on a normal weekday. Multiply by an average length of three to four minutes, then by the days you are open each month. Twenty calls a day at four minutes, five days a week, is roughly 1,600 minutes a month; price that month on each plan, overage included.
Are AI receptionist review scores on G2 and Capterra reliable?
Review scores are only useful with the review count beside them: a 4.8 from twelve reviews means less than a 4.3 from four hundred. During research for this page, the G2 and Capterra pages would not load for checking, so no scores are quoted here. Read reviews for how a service handles transfers and summaries, not for the stars.
Which AI receptionist is best for restaurants?
Slang.ai is the service built specifically for restaurants, with reservations flowing into OpenTable, Resy, SevenRooms and similar platforms, from $399 monthly for each location. A single independent restaurant may find that price steep. Aibrify Desk answers restaurant calls in English, Mandarin and Spanish for $179 a month, and phone ordering is coming soon.
