AI receptionists
Per-seat phones vs per-conversation AI: what a three-person business actually pays
Three ways to put phones and an AI receptionist under one small business. At 150 answered calls a month they land within about $25 of each other. The meters underneath do not.
Price a three-person business three different ways and the totals come out closer than you would expect. At 150 answered calls a month on monthly billing, a Nextiva phone plan with its XBert AI receptionist comes to $217.50 by our math. RingCentral phones with its AI Receptionist add-on comes to $229. Quo phones with Rosie answering the calls comes to $206.
So the sticker is not where these setups differ. They differ in what each one counts, and what happens to your bill the month you get busier than planned.
Every dollar below comes from our review cards, which quote the vendors’ own pricing pages. The totals, and the call and minute counts that drive them, are our math on an example month. They are not anyone’s quote. Your month will look different, which is the point of doing it yourself.
The example month
Three people need a business number on their own phone: the owner, one person who handles the front desk, and one who is usually out with customers. Calls come in while all three are busy. You want an AI receptionist to pick those up, answer the common questions, and get the caller booked or passed to a person.
We priced two months. A quiet one with 60 answered calls, and a busier one with 150. Where a vendor bills by the minute, we assumed calls average two minutes, so 60 calls is 120 minutes and 150 calls is 300 minutes.
What the three setups cost
| Setup | Phones, 3 seats, monthly | AI, 60 calls | AI, 150 calls | Total at 150 calls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nextiva Core + XBert | $69 | $99 | $148.50 | $217.50 |
| RingCentral RingEX Core + AIR add-on | $90 | $49 | $139 | $229 |
| Quo Starter + Rosie | $57 | $49 | $149 | $206 |
At 60 calls the totals are $168, $139, and $106. That spread is real, and the cheapest one comes with a catch we get to below.
Here is how each line was built.
Nextiva. Core is $23 a user a month on monthly billing, so three seats is $69. XBert is $99 a month for 100 conversations, then $0.99 each. At 150 conversations that is $99 plus 50 times $0.99, or $148.50. Nextiva says calls under 30 seconds do not count.
RingCentral. RingEX Core is $30 a user a month on monthly billing, so $90 for three. The AI Receptionist add-on for RingEX customers is $39 a month with 100 minutes. Past that it is $0.50 a minute, rounded up in 30-second steps. At 300 minutes you pay for 200 extra, which is $100 on top of the $39.
Quo with Rosie. Quo Starter is $19 a user a month, so $57 for three. Rosie Professional is $49 for 250 minutes, which covers the quiet month. The busy month runs 300 minutes, and Rosie’s terms say going over moves you to the next plan automatically. That is Scale at $149 for 1,000 minutes.
Where the bill jumps
A fourth person. Every seat is a separate charge on all three phone plans. On monthly billing, the next hire adds $23 on Nextiva, $30 on RingCentral, and $19 on Quo. The AI side does not care how many people you have. It cares how many calls you get.
Past the bundle. This is where the three meters split. XBert charges $0.99 for each conversation over 100, and a conversation can be a call, a text, or a web chat. RingCentral charges by the minute, so one long call costs more than three short ones. Rosie does not add a small overage line. It moves you up a plan, and its terms say the upgrade applies to the current period and at least the next two. A single busy week can set your price for three months.
Annual versus monthly. Prepaying the phones cuts the seat price hard. Nextiva Core drops from $23 to $15, RingEX Core from $30 to $20, and Quo Starter from $19 to $15. On annual phones, the 150-call month becomes $193.50 on Nextiva, $199 on RingCentral, and $194 on Quo with Rosie, by our math. The catch on Nextiva is that the $15 price comes with a 12-month minimum term for new customers. Annual is a good deal once you know the phone system fits. It is a bad way to find out.
The cheapest line is not always the same product
At 60 calls, Quo with Rosie Professional is the cheapest setup at $106. But Rosie’s $49 plan texts the caller a booking link. Calendar booking and live transfer start at Scale, $149. If you want the call to end with a time on your calendar, the quiet month on that setup really costs $206, not $106.
XBert books into Google Calendar, Calendly, or Cal.com on its card. RingCentral’s AI Receptionist offers a booking path and routes harder calls to a person. Quo has its own AI receptionist, Sona, but it includes only about 10 calls before paid packs that start at $25, and our card does not list a per-call rate. We could not price 150 calls on Sona honestly, so we paired Quo with a standalone receptionist instead.
If some callers need a human and not a bot, none of these three is the answer. Smith.ai has AI Pro at $150 for 75 calls with people behind it on other plans, and human Starter at $300 for 30. Price those against your call count before you assume a bot covers everything.
How to price your own month in 20 minutes
- Pull last month’s call log and count answered and missed calls. If your current phone shows talk time, note the average call length too.
- Count the people who need a business number on their own phone, and anyone you expect to add this year.
- Decide whether the AI has to book on the calendar, or whether a text with a link is enough for your callers.
- For each setup, multiply seats by the monthly seat price, then run your call count through the AI meter: per conversation, per minute, or plan tiers.
- Run it again at one and a half times your call count. That is your busy month, and it shows which meter hurts.
If two setups land close, pick on terms you can test: the trial length, whether booking ends on your calendar, and which calls the vendor does not bill. We went through that check for two lookalike tools in same price card, different AI receptionist, and for live answering services in how to read live answering service pricing.
If you would rather hand this off, we do it for businesses nationwide: count your real calls, pick the phone plan and receptionist that fit, set up forwarding and calendar booking, and test it on live calls. Email support@counterandcrew.com, or start at /start/ and see what we install at /installs/.