AI Receptionist Overage Fees Compared: Nine Services

One table showing what happens to your bill when calls run 20 percent over your plan, on nine AI receptionist and answering services, using each company's own published prices. You will also see how each one counts a call or a minute, because that decides as much as the rate does, and how to check your own exposure before you switch.

How to check your own exposure first

Pull three months of usage from your current provider, in whatever unit it bills: minutes, calls, conversations or callers.
Find your busiest month and how far over your plan it went.
Multiply the extra units by your published overage rate, and add any rounding. Per-minute plans that round up to a full minute charge short calls as whole minutes.
Count the junk. Look at how many short, silent and spam calls you received, and check whether your provider bills them.
Compare like with like. To compare a per-call plan with a per-minute plan, use your own average call length. PATLive's pricing page estimates calls per plan that work out to about 2.5 minutes per call.

The busy-month table (prices checked November 2026)

The math, used for every row: take one published plan, add usage equal to 20 percent of what the plan includes, and charge each extra unit at that company's published overage rate. Busy month = monthly price + (0.2 x included units x overage rate). Taxes and card fees are excluded. Units differ (minutes, calls, conversations, unique callers), so compare totals with that in mind.

Service and plan	Included	Unit billed	Overage rate	Normal month	20% busier month
Rosie Professional	250	Minute	No rate; plan is upgraded	$49	Upgraded to Scale, $149 a month
Ruby, 50 minutes (live staff)	50	Minute	$5.40	$250	$304.00 ($250 + 10 x $5.40)
Ruby, 100 minutes (live staff)	100	Minute	$4.50	$395	$485.00 ($395 + 20 x $4.50)
Smith.ai AI Receptionist Pro	75	Call	$2.50	$150	$187.50 ($150 + 15 x $2.50)
Upfirst Pro	300	Call	$0.75	$159.95	$204.95 ($159.95 + 60 x $0.75)
Dialzara Business Pro	220	Minute	$0.45	$99	$118.80 ($99 + 44 x $0.45)
PATLive 200 minutes (live staff)	200	Minute	$1.99	$349	$428.60 ($349 + 40 x $1.99)
Goodcall Starter	100	Unique caller	$0.79	$79	$94.80 ($79 + 20 x $0.79)
My AI Front Desk Business-in-a-Box	200	Minute	About $0.25 (25 credits), 1,000 credits included monthly	$99	$99.00 (40 extra minutes use the 1,000 included credits)
Jobber Receptionist add-on	30	Conversation	$0.79	$29 plus your Jobber plan	$33.74 ($29 + 6 x $0.79) plus your Jobber plan
Keepdesk Starter	300	Minute	$0.25	$149	$164.00 ($149 + 60 x $0.25)
Keepdesk Front Desk	800	Minute	$0.25	$297	$337.00 ($297 + 160 x $0.25)
Keepdesk Executive	1,500	Minute	$0.25	$497	$572.00 ($497 + 300 x $0.25)

For Rosie, the Terms say added fees for the current period are due at upgrade, so the first-month charge depends on timing.

How each one counts usage

The rate is only half the story. What counts as billable usage matters just as much.

Rosie. Billed in 60-second increments, with calls rounded up to the next 60-second mark (Terms, last updated February 5, 2026, Section 3(c)). Going over upgrades you to a higher plan, and you stay there until you downgrade. Its pricing page does not publish an overage rate.
Ruby. Live receptionists. The Terms say minutes are billed in 60-second increments, rounded up, and hold time is included. Ruby's overage rates appear in a help center article dated December 11, 2025, not on its pricing page.
Smith.ai. Every answered call counts by default. Calls from known spam numbers filtered before the AI answers do not count, and you may remove up to 10 percent of calls from each bill for spam.
Upfirst. Billed per call. Its pricing FAQ says calls under 15 seconds are excluded from your quota, and filtered spam, robocalls and sales pitches are not billed.
Dialzara. Usage may be measured to the second. Spam blocking is on by default, but no page we read says whether blocked or short calls use minutes.
PATLive. Live receptionists. The Terms say minutes are billed in six-second increments with a one-minute minimum, and time waiting in queue is not billed. The FAQ says package minutes do not roll over. We found no statement exempting spam voice calls from billing.
Goodcall. One phone number counts once a month, however often it calls. Spam and wrong numbers do not count.
My AI Front Desk. Overage runs in credits, at 25 credits a voice minute. Auto-reload adds 1,000 credits for $10 when you run out.
Jobber. A call counts when the AI actively engages. Spam and no-interaction calls do not count, and you may pause the receptionist at the limit instead of paying overage.

What customers report

Each report is one customer's account, paraphrased.

BBB complaint, November 25, 2025 (Smith.ai). A business averaging about 30 legitimate calls a month says two waves of spam calls led to more than $300 in per-call overage, even after it blocked 163 numbers. BBB lists the complaint as unanswered.
Capterra, July 21, 2026 (Ruby). A CFO says Ruby's pricing does not scale with call volume, so costs can climb unless closely monitored.
Capterra, August 24, 2023 (Ruby). An owner reports about 15 percent of calls reaching dead air, being billed for those calls, and a $660 invoice for 147 minutes after cancelling. Ruby's rates may have changed since then.

Where Keepdesk stands

Several services cost less than ours at low volume. Rosie Professional ($49), Dialzara Business Pro ($99), Goodcall Starter ($79), My AI Front Desk ($99), Upfirst's smaller plans, and Jobber's add-on all start below our $149 Starter. Upfirst also skips calls under 15 seconds, as we do, and My AI Front Desk charges the same $0.25 a minute for voice overage.

Our case is narrower: one published per-minute rate of $0.25, a text alert at 80 percent of your minutes, no plan jump when you are busy, and no charge for spam, robocalls, hang-ups or calls under 15 seconds.

Our plans. Starter is $149 a month with 300 minutes. Front Desk is $297 a month with 800 minutes, calendar booking, live emergency transfer, English and Spanish, and a weekly calls-to-look-at email. Executive is $497 a month with 1,500 minutes and everything in Front Desk, plus up to three lines, priority phone support and a monthly tuning call.

What else to know. Setup is $297 one time, done for you on one 30-minute call. Setup is free if you are switching from another answering service or phone platform, such as Podium, Birdeye, Weave, Thryv or Jobber. Month to month, no contract; cancel from the billing page, same day, no exit fee, and we revert your forwarding the same day. You keep your number; if you leave, it goes with you, free. The AI tries twice to understand a caller, then takes a message or transfers, and it never invents prices. Our AI assistant, Sam, answers your Keepdesk line 24/7. A real person answers support email within one business day, usually the same day. Missed-call text-back is coming soon.

Our 60-day promise. If Keepdesk does not pay for itself in recovered jobs within the first 60 days, cancel and keep the setup work.

Not sure yet? We offer a free missed-call audit: we call your line the way a customer would and show you what we find. Request your free missed-call audit.

Keepdesk was founded by Vince Sandlin, who spent 21 years in commercial flooring in the Dallas area, the last 11 as founder and CEO of a high-volume contracting firm.

Next step. Call our demo line at (469) 535-7496 (it answers as a sample garage door company), then start at getkeepdesk.com/start. Questions: call us at (945) 523-3430 or email vince@keepdesk.net.

Sources

All pages opened November 12, 2026.

See plans and start Free missed-call audit