Voice platforms, finished receptionists, and building it yourself. See what you pay for—and what your callers actually get.
Prices checked September 14, 2026 · USD · Monthly billingThese services solve overlapping problems. Features, models, support and deployment work vary. Links go directly to each provider’s published pricing.
| Provider | Published price | What that buys | Look a little closer |
|---|---|---|---|
| PhoneShieldEarly-access receptionist | $149 / 500 min $249 / 1,000; $399 / 2,000 min. | GPT-Live-1 voice, standard reasoning, one U.S. local number and the PhoneShield workspace. | Setup confirmed before activation. Current pilot: answering and message capture. Full plans and exclusions ↗ |
| Bland ↗Platform | $0.14/min Start: no monthly platform fee. Build: $299 + $0.12/min. | Speech and model usage in the AI rate. | Telephony is separate. Start allows 100 calls/day and 10 concurrent calls. Transfer rates and BYOT terms differ. |
| Telnyx + Kimi ↗Platform | ≈ $0.0564/min Published U.S. inbound calculator example; $1/month local number. | $0.05 engine, $0.0032 carrier and $0.0032 estimated Kimi tokens. | Token load and caching affect cost. Check the separately listed $0.002/min Voice API fee and any add-ons. |
| Retell ↗Platform | $0.07–$0.31/min Configuration-dependent pay-as-you-go rate. | Choose the voice, model, carrier and optional features. | Our $0.101/min example uses $0.055 infrastructure, $0.015 voice, $0.016 GPT-4.1 mini and $0.015 telephony; number $2/month. |
| Vapi ↗Platform | $0.05/min + usage Platform hosting fee. | Orchestration and 10 concurrent calls. | Speech, language model, transport and telephony are additional. Your own API keys move the provider bill; they do not remove it. |
| ElevenAgents ↗Platform | $22 / 275 min $99 / 1,238 min; $299 / 3,738 min on monthly billing. | Voice-agent minutes; regular additional usage $0.08/min. | Language model and carrier costs are separate. Burst concurrency can double the extra-minute rate. Introductory discounts excluded. |
| Rosie ↗Receptionist | $49 / 250 min $149 / 1,000 min; $299 / 2,000 min. | Packaged call answering and message taking. | Booking and live transfers begin with the $149 plan. These are capabilities beyond PhoneShield’s current Live pilot. |
| Goodcall ↗Receptionist | $79 / 100 callers $129 / 250; $249 / 500 unique callers, per agent. | Unlimited minutes and tokens within a unique-caller billing model. | $0.50 per additional unique caller. Repeated callers can make this economical; workflow and directory limits vary. |
| Smith.ai AI ↗Receptionist | $150 / 75 calls Pro also offers 150 and 300 calls; Enterprise starts at $500 / 300 calls. | Call-based packages with onboarding and support options. | Call length affects comparisons with minute-based pricing. Free tier includes 25 real calls; overage and escalation terms vary. |
| Quo Sona ↗Receptionist | $25 / ≈40 calls $49 / ≈100; $99 / ≈250; $199 / ≈600 calls. | AI answering added to a Quo phone workspace. | Requires a separate Quo subscription. Credits, enabled overages and other automations affect the total. |
PhoneShield publishes this comparison. We have not run a controlled quality benchmark across these providers, and we do not claim the lowest price or feature parity. On narrow screens, scroll the table sideways to read all four columns.
Start with elapsed conversation time. Pauses and silence count, too. These are different products and configurations, with different setup and support requirements.
Approximately 300 calls and 210 unique callers. Used for capacity and caller-based pricing.
USD per month, one U.S. inbound number, before taxes. Excludes SMS, international calls, transfers and custom work. Estimates do not change your subscription.
Lowest estimated price across our three packages, including overages. Setup is confirmed before activation.
Request Growth| Alternative | Estimated bill | Configuration and limits |
|---|---|---|
| Bland | $134.80 | Start + Twilio BYOT. Assumes calls spread across 30 days. |
| Telnyx + Kimi | $51.76 | Published calculator configuration. Possible additional $0.002/min Voice API fee. |
| Retell | $92.90 | GPT-4.1 mini, platform voice and $0.015/min telephony. |
| Rosie | $149 | Smallest listed package covering this volume; overage alternatives not modeled. |
| Goodcall | $129 | 210 estimated unique callers. Lowest priced tier with overages; workflow limits differ. |
Published rates checked September 14, 2026. No promotional credits or annual discounts. Bland includes separate Twilio inbound at $0.0085/min and a $1.15 number; daily peaks or concurrency can require a higher tier sooner. Telnyx’s optional $0.002/min fee adds $1.80 to its displayed estimate. Review the full methodology.
A pause. A quick correction. Someone saying “yes” while the other person finishes a sentence. The way an assistant handles these moments shapes the call.
GPT-Live-1 listens and speaks simultaneously. OpenAI charges $0.05 per elapsed voice-session minute, billed per second; backend reasoning and tools cost extra. That five cents is the voice layer, rather than a complete receptionist subscription. OpenAI model documentation ↗
Telnyx’s Kimi configuration chains speech recognition, a text model and speech generation. It supports barge-in, so a caller can interrupt playback. Telnyx interruption settings ↗
GPT-Live-1 handles incoming and outgoing audio in one voice model, delegating deeper work to a backend agent. A natural exchange still needs accurate business information and correctly implemented actions.
Try unfamiliar names, spelled email addresses, street noise and a caller changing their mind. Check the transcript against what was actually said.
Ask for an appointment or a transfer. Check the destination system and the fallback when it fails. A fluent confirmation is not proof of a completed action.
Test several simultaneous calls, silence, long conversations and service outages. Agree on overflow behavior and spending limits before routing your main number.
Update opening hours, review a missed inquiry, and change an instruction. Choose the service your team can keep accurate as the business changes.
You should be able to check the arithmetic and decide which tradeoffs matter for your business.
We use public U.S. monthly rates checked on September 14, 2026. Vendor links are provided beside their numbers. Enterprise negotiations, annual discounts, promotional credits and free trials are excluded. Quotes and current provider terms take precedence.
The calculator uses elapsed AI minutes, one local number and no post-transfer time. Bland is modeled with your own Twilio carrier; its Build plan is selected above 3,000 estimated calls in a 30-day month, or when the usage discount offsets its base fee. Peaks can force an earlier upgrade. Retell and Telnyx use the configurations stated in the table. These do not use identical models.
Rosie shows the smallest advertised allowance covering the selected volume; unverified overages are not invented. Goodcall uses your estimated unique callers and the lowest priced tier including its $0.50 overage. Different feature or concurrency requirements may change which tier you need.
Our planning baseline is $0.075/min: $0.05 voice, $0.0129 Twilio inbound plus Media Streams, a $0.005 backend allowance, and $0.0071 contingency. Add $25/month hosting and a $1.15 number. At 900 minutes, that is about $93.65 before development, maintenance and support labor. Twilio rates ↗ OpenAI rates ↗
That is a modeled Twilio streaming route, not a measured invoice for our Telnyx SIP pilot. Using Telnyx as the carrier does not require buying its bundled Kimi assistant. A Telnyx + GPT-Live route needs its own voice, backend and applicable call-leg costs; it is not the $0.0564 Kimi configuration.
Taxes, your existing phone bill and forwarding fees, SMS, recording add-ons, toll-free or international calls, human backup, custom integrations, and labor. We do not infer competitor profit margins from their retail prices.
Not at every volume. At 900 monthly minutes, our Starter early-access package is $249 including overages. The modeled Bland Start bill with Twilio inbound is $134.80. PhoneShield’s proposed package includes the GPT-Live voice layer and its own workspace; these are different service configurations. A higher price needs to earn its place through the experience and outcomes you value.
The Telnyx configuration compared here includes Kimi hosted by Telnyx, alongside its speech and orchestration services. Model tokens are an additional line already counted in the estimate. You do not need your own model API key for that configuration.
A system can stop speaking when interrupted while still processing speech recognition, reasoning and speech generation in sequence. GPT-Live-1 can listen and speak together in a single voice model. Architecture alone does not establish better results; test noisy calls, overlap and real receptionist tasks.
Yes. That can reduce service charges if you can configure, monitor and maintain the system. Include the phone number, carrier, model, backend tools, hosting and engineering time in your budget. The lowest API invoice is only one part of the decision.
The new Live service is an early-access pilot for answering and capturing messages, with provider configuration managed by an administrator. Automated booking, live transfers, human backup and notification workflows are not included in that pilot. Request access so we can confirm your specific setup before activation.
Tell us how your business answers today, and what you’d like to improve.