June 25, 2025
How Much Does an Answering Service Cost?
Paying for a call handling service can be one of the most effective ways to boost efficiency and productivity across your business. But before you can decide if an answering service makes sense for your business, you need to know how much they cost.
Answering service pricing can vary widely, ranging from just $0.25 per minute to $3+ per minute, depending on factors like call volume, service hours, and contract length.
What are the different pricing models for answering services? 📞
There are four main types of pricing models for answering services:
👉 Per-call pricing
👉 Per-minute pricing
👉 Inclusive subscriptions
👉 Custom pricing plans
The right choice for your business will depend on your specific requirements. To give a simple example, if you receive a high volume of short calls, per-minute pricing could be the most cost-effective approach.
Model #1: Per-call pricing
With per-call pricing, you pay your answering service for every call you receive. For example, if they charge a flat fee of $5 per call and you receive 100 calls in January, your bill for the month would be $500.
Simple, huh?
The only trouble with this model is that a “call” could be a potential customer asking about your services, or it could be a wrong number. Either way, you’d pay the same amount.
Model #2: Per-minute pricing
Per-minute pricing somewhat mitigates the risk of wasting a bunch of money on pocket dials by charging you a flat rate per minute of calls answered. With this model, you’ll pay more for longer calls, which are theoretically more valuable to your business.
Just bear in mind that some answering services will bill for a full minute of call handling even if the call only lasted a few seconds.
Model #3: Inclusive subscriptions
Per-call and per-minute pricing are both pay-as-you-go models. An alternative option is to choose an inclusive subscription, which gives you a certain volume of call handling per month – then, if you exceed your allocation, you’ll revert to pay-as-you-go.
For instance, Rosie’s packages include up to 1,000 minutes of call handling per month, with a flat rate of $0.25 per minute thereafter.
Model #4: Custom plans
Want the consistency of an inclusive subscription, but can’t find a package that meets your exact requirements? In that case, you can choose a custom plan. These plans are best for businesses with advanced needs, such as:
⬆️ High call volumes
🗣️ Consistently long calls
📍 Multiple locations
🔁 Custom CRM integrations
🚨 Emergency call transfers to on-call team members
Factors affecting answering service pricing ✅
Answering service pricing can be affected by various factors, from the complexity of your implementation to the type of call handling service you choose and the volume/length of calls answered. If you’re in a particularly complex industry, you may also have to pay more for an answering service with advanced technical expertise.
Service type (live, automated or AI)
You might assume answering services are all broadly the same. But, in reality, there are three distinct types of answering service:
👨 Human answering services involve real, human agents answering calls on behalf of your business. These services are the most expensive.
⚙️ Automated answering services handle calls without requiring a human agent by using pre-programmed scripts, routing, and interactive voice response.
🤖 AI answering services offer the personalization and flexibility of a human answering service, but at a fraction of the cost.
Sure, we’re biased, but in our view AI answering services represent the best value for money for most businesses.
Implementation complexity
Businesses requiring advanced and/or out-of-the-ordinary implementations may have to pay more for onboarding. Or, if the answering service doesn’t charge a separate onboarding fee, this additional work may be reflected in the ongoing cost of the call handling package.
There’s no fixed definition for what counts as a “complex” implementation, but it could include handling calls across multiple locations/time zones or requiring specific integrations. Whatever the case, be sure to ask about setup fees before signing up with an answering service.
Call volume
Unsurprisingly, if you receive a high volume of calls and/or your calls tend to last a long time, you’ll end up paying more for an answering service. It’s only fair – after all, they’re doing more work for you.
💡 Pro tip: If you consistently receive 6+ minutes of calls a day, you’ll almost certainly save money with an inclusive package rather than a pay-as-you-go pricing model.
Industry/call complexity
Some answering services may charge more to deal with especially complex calls that require highly customized scripts and/or integrations with specific tools.
This is most common with human services, because AI-powered call handling services are equally effective in any niche. Indeed, tools like Rosie learn about your business from sources like your website and Google Business profile.
Service hours
Again, a human-powered answering service might charge a higher rate to handle calls at antisocial hours. This is unlikely to be an issue with automated and AI services – because robots never sleep 👀
Optional features
Just like buying a car, you’ll have to pay more for your answering service if you choose optional extras. These vary from one service to the next, but might include things like:
➡️ Call transfers
💬 Sending texts during calls
🎓 Custom agent training
Contract length
Like in many other industries, answering service providers often charge more for the convenience of a shorter contract, or for choosing a plan with no minimum term. Not Rosie, though – all our plans are on rolling monthly contracts, so you can stick with your AI agent for as long as you need it.
(Because, in our experience, customers rarely want to cancel!)
Bilingual support
If your business serves customers in different locations, you might need to offer support in more than one language. And some answering services will make you pay for the privilege.
Again, Rosie is different, because we include bilingual support in English and Spanish as standard with all Rosie plans 🇬🇧🇪🇸 After all, why should you spend more just because you have a multilingual customer base?
Benefits of outsourcing call handling vs hiring an in-house receptionist 🛎️
Don’t want you or your front-line staff to spend a ton of time answering customer calls? You’ve got two main options – hire an in-house receptionist, or outsource call-handling to a third party (like an answering service or call center).
Going the outsourced route can be significantly cheaper than employing a full-time receptionist. Plus an answering service can deal with multiple calls at once – even outside of regular business hours.
Save money on staffing costs
The most obvious benefit of choosing an outsourced answering service is that you don’t have to pay a human receptionist’s full-time salary. Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, receptionists and information clerks earn a mean annual wage of $36,590, climbing to $47,360 for those in the 90th percentile. And if you’re not spending this money on a receptionist, you can invest it in other parts of the business, fuelling your growth.
Cut equipment costs
Think about all the equipment a full-time receptionist needs to do their job, like a…
👉 Desk
👉 Computer
👉 Phone
All that kit can be pretty pricey, and it might require ongoing maintenance and upgrades, too. And then you’ve got smaller, recurring costs like pens, paper, staples – the list goes on.
Alternatively, if you choose an answering service, you don’t have to pay for any of that stuff. So you’re freeing up budget for other essentials.
Provide 24/7 customer support
Even the most diligent human receptionist has to leave the office at some point. Outside of office hours, you might have to rely on a basic interactive voice response system – or, worse, a plain old voicemail service. But many answering services will handle calls around the clock, even on weekends. Especially if you choose an AI-powered system.
Answer multiple calls at once
Even if your human receptionist is a superb multi-tasker, they can’t deal with more than one call at a time. So if you receive several calls at once, some of those callers will be forced to wait in a queue. And if they get fed up with waiting, they might hang up and take their business elsewhere.
Again, this simply isn’t an issue with an answering service, which can handle multiple calls simultaneously.
Deliver consistent customer support
Humans have good days and bad days—it’s only natural. Trouble is, if your receptionist doesn’t feel at the top of their game, they might not provide the high-quality service your customers deserve. There’s zero chance of that happening with an AI call handling service – your AI agent will deliver the same professional support time after time.
So, how much does an answering service cost? 🧾
The cost of an answering service depends on the type of service you choose. For example, human answering services are more expensive than automated or AI systems (even though there are no guarantees they’ll provide higher-quality support).
To give a more concrete answer, let’s consider Rosie, one of the most popular AI answering services. Rosie pricing starts at just $49 per month for up to 250 minutes of monthly call-handling, including…
📝 Message-taking with custom questions
🚫 Smart spam detection
🗣️ Bilingual support (English and Spanish)
…with additional calls billed at $0.25 per minute.
Best of all, you get your first 25 minutes totally free when you create a Rosie account – no credit card required, and you can cancel anytime.
So what are you waiting for?
FAQs
Is an answering service worth it?
An answering service is worth it if your business regularly receives lengthy calls from customers and/or a high volume of shorter calls. Especially for smaller businesses, where every call received is keeping a member of staff from doing their “day job”. Answering services are significantly cheaper than hiring a full-time receptionist – and if they can’t deal with a customer query, they’ll escalate the call to a regular employee.