If you're weighing a Smith.ai alternative for a roofing or contracting business, the big difference is how you pay. Smith.ai charges per call. Taylor, the AI receptionist from AI Bot Store, charges per minute. This page runs the numbers at the call volumes contractors actually see, and lists what Smith.ai does that Taylor doesn't.
Smith.ai's two kinds of plans
AI Receptionist
Smith.ai's AI Receptionist has a free plan with 25 calls a month ($3.00 per extra call). Pro runs $150 for 75 calls ($2.50 per extra call), $270 for 150 ($2.30) and $500 for 300 ($2.17). Enterprise lists $800 for 500 calls. It's month-to-month, and Smith.ai asks for 30 days' notice to cancel. Every answered call counts toward your quota by default; Smith.ai filters known spammers before the AI answers and lets you remove up to 10% of calls a month as spam.
Virtual receptionists (people)
Smith.ai's live plans are $300 a month for 30 calls ($11.50 per extra call), $810 for 90 ($10.50) and $2,100 for 300 ($8.50). Booking appointments is a $1.50-per-call add-on, a dedicated Spanish line is $1.00 per call, and call recording with transcription is $0.25 per call. There's no setup fee, no charge for spam when your lines pass caller ID, and a 30-day money-back guarantee for new clients.
Per call vs per minute at contractor volumes
Taylor's $300 covers 1,000 minutes of answered calls, measured by the second, and each call can run up to 10 minutes. So how many calls $300 covers depends on how long your calls run. The table uses the lowest-cost mix of each company's listed plans and extra-call rates.
| Calls a month | Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Smith.ai live receptionists | Taylor (AI Bot Store) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | $0 | $300 | $300 |
| 50 | $75 | $530 | $300 |
| 100 | $212.50 | $915 | $300 (100 calls can't pass 1,000 minutes) |
| 150 | $270 | $1,440 | $300 if calls average 6 min 40 s or less |
| 200 | $385 | $1,965 | $300 if calls average 5 min or less |
| 300 | $500 | $2,100 | $300 if calls average 3 min 20 s or less |
| 500 | $800 | $3,800 | $300 if calls average 2 min or less |
Past 1,000 minutes, Taylor adds $0.25 a minute. For example, 300 calls averaging 4 minutes is 1,200 minutes: $350.
Here's what the math says, plainly:
- Up to about 150 calls a month, Smith.ai's AI Receptionist costs less than Taylor. At 25 calls it's free.
- From about 200 calls a month, Taylor costs less unless your calls average more than about 6 minutes. At 200 calls, Taylor stays under Smith.ai's $385 until calls average about 6.7 minutes; at 300 or 500 calls, until they average 6 minutes.
- Smith.ai's live plans cost more than its AI plans at every volume in the table, and more than Taylor above 25 calls. You're paying for people.
Short calls are where per-minute pricing pulls ahead. A 20-second robocall or wrong number costs Taylor seconds. On Smith.ai's AI plans, any answered call that isn't filtered or covered by the 10% spam allowance counts as a full call.
What Smith.ai does that Taylor doesn't
- Books appointments. The AI plans list AI scheduling with Calendly and more; the live plans book for $1.50 a call.
- Transfers calls. Smith.ai's AI page lists warm transfers to your team.
- Human backup. The AI can hand a call to Smith.ai's live North America-based receptionists. AI-initiated escalations carry no fee, and other live-agent help is a per-call add-on.
- Live plans with people. If you want a human on every call, Smith.ai sells that too.
- More integrations. Salesforce, HubSpot and Clio natively, plus 5,000+ apps through Zapier and Make.
- A free plan with 25 calls a month, and a 30-day money-back guarantee on live plans.
- Follow-ups and payments on live plans: text and email follow-up for $0.50 a call, payments for $1.00 a call.
What Taylor does differently
- Minutes, not calls. 1,000 minutes for $300, counted by the second, with no charge for partial minutes.
- Caller sorting built for contractors: new customer, existing customer, supplier, insurance adjuster, job seeker or salesperson, with urgent jobs flagged and robocalls screened out with a polite goodbye.
- A complete message: full name, a callback number read back to confirm, email, property address, what they need and how urgent it is.
- An email right after every call with one-tap Call back, Text them back and Open the call buttons, plus a hang-up alert when someone leaves no message.
- The JobNimbus handoff. New callers become JobNimbus contacts in the workflow, status and source you pick. Smith.ai doesn't list JobNimbus, though it offers Zapier and Make.
- A thank-you email to callers who give their email, from your business name.
- English and Spanish included, with the lead email in English.
- Cancel anytime from Setup, then Manage subscription, with no setup fee.
What Taylor won't do: book appointments, transfer calls, text callers or make outbound calls. Each Taylor receptionist answers up to 5 calls at once and up to 150 calls a day.
Get Taylor today Call the live demo
Who should pick which
Pick Smith.ai's AI Receptionist if you get fewer than about 150 calls a month, you want appointments booked or calls transferred, you want a live person as backup, or you run Salesforce or HubSpot. The free plan lets you try it first.
Pick Smith.ai's live receptionists if you want a person on every call and your call count is low enough that $300 for 30 calls makes sense.
Pick Taylor if you get 200 or more calls a month, lots of them short, you want a complete, sorted message after each one, or you want new leads handed straight to JobNimbus. See how other options compare in our AI receptionist comparison.
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