AI receptionists for small businesses: three options to compare before you switch

An AI receptionist answers your business line when nobody is free. It handles routine questions such as hours or services and takes messages. Depending on the tool, it can also route callers or book appointments. The aim is fewer interruptions during on-site jobs and customer meetings. It does not guarantee revenue, speed or savings. List the calls you get every week, then trial a tool on a small share of them first.

AI receptionist, phone menu, human service or developer platform?

• Phone menu (IVR): callers follow predefined menu paths by keypad or, on some systems, by speech recognition. It follows a set menu rather than an open conversation.
• AI receptionist: understands spoken requests and answers from information you approve.
• Human answering service: people use judgment on unusual or sensitive calls.
• Developer voice platform: building blocks for a custom agent. It needs technical setup.

This guide covers ready-made AI receptionists.

How this guide was researched

Research date: 2026-10-18. We read each vendor’s official product and pricing pages and recorded public G2 and Trustpilot ratings that day. We opened no accounts, placed no live calls and ran no benchmark. The product descriptions here are vendor claims, not test results. We researched offers sold internationally; much of the evidence is US-oriented.

The three options are not ranked and have no combined score. Each showed independent ratings of at least 3.9/5. Several of those ratings cover a whole company or platform, and the table shows the scope of each. Commercial relationships do not determine the order or the external ratings shown. This site may earn a commission on eligible partner links.

Quick choice by need

• You want to estimate costs from published prices: start with Smith.ai AI Receptionist.
• Your phone lines already run on Quo: ask about Quo Sona before any migration.
• You need callers qualified and routed to a rep: check full pricing for KrispCall AI Voice Agent.

Any shortlist also depends on where you operate and which calendar or CRM has to connect.

Comparison at a glance

Smith.ai AI Receptionist

Fit: owners who want to model monthly costs from published per-call prices.

Limits: overage costs grow with volume. The G2 score comes from 32 reviews on a profile named AI Receptionist, but some visible reviews describe human-only receptionist experiences, so it is not an isolated rating of the AI. The Trustpilot score covers the whole company, including its other services. Smith.ai also sells human receptionists, so do not assume an AI plan includes human backup.

Verify: Which tier fits my volume? What counts as a billable call? Is transfer to a person included? Do Calendly bookings reach my team’s calendar? Where are recordings stored, and can I limit them?

Quo Sona

Fit: teams already on Quo. The vendor presents Sona as reception built into its phone platform.

Limits: Quo’s pricing page: Starter is 19 USD/user/month, billed monthly. Each plan includes 1,000 credits (10 Sona calls); a 25 USD/month add-on gives 4,000 credits (40 calls), then 0.75 USD/call. Taxes and fees extra; other plans exist. Total cost depends on usage and configuration. The 4.2/5 rating covers Quo as a whole, not Sona.

Booking: Quo’s appointment setter page lists English, Spanish and French support and texting callers a booking link. Sending a link does not prove Sona books calendars autonomously. German and Portuguese support is not yet confirmed.

Verify: How many credits will my call volume use? Which plan is required for call transfer? How do messages and leads reach the team? Can callers reach a person? What call data is kept, and for how long?

Quo’s Sona page currently lists English, Spanish and French, and Sona cannot detect or switch languages mid-call. This evidence does not support German or Portuguese voice use.

KrispCall AI Voice Agent

Fit: businesses that want inbound callers screened and passed to a rep (vendor page).

Limits: the subscription on the pricing page is not a verified full cost for the agent. Calls and SMS are pay-as-you-go. Both ratings cover the whole platform.

Verify: Is the agent included or billed separately, and at what rate? Are seats mandatory? How do calls and SMS add up at my volume? What happens when no rep is free? Which recording controls exist?

Quote-only: KrispCall lists AI Agent at Custom Pricing (Contact Sales), plus calling and SMS charges. No exact total published; a generic phone plan is not the AI price.

The same official page advertises Google or Outlook Calendar connection plus number porting and forwarding. AI Hunter has not tested this; confirm your local number and integration eligibility with KrispCall.

KrispCall → · KrispCall ↗

Cost scenario (illustrative only)

Hypothesis: 50, 150 or 500 calls a month at three minutes each, which is 150, 450 or 1,500 minutes. Minutes matter where telephony is billed per minute. Smith.ai’s AI prices are per call.

Calls per month (minutes)	Smith.ai, staying on Free: $0 + (calls above 25) x $3	Smith.ai Pro: $150 + (calls above 75) x $2.50
50 (150)	$75	$150
150 (450)	$375	$337.50
500 (1,500)	$1,425	$1,212.50

These figures are editorial arithmetic. They are not measured usage or an invoice, and they exclude taxes and options. The Free column shows what staying on Free would cost. It is not a recommended plan, and larger tiers we did not compare may cost less. For Quo Sona, start from the published tariff (19 USD/user/month billed monthly, 10 Sona calls included, then usage, taxes and fees extra). For KrispCall, ask for full pricing. For both, fill in this formula: base plan + mandatory seats + AI usage beyond the allowance + telephony + SMS + setup and options. Until every input is known, total spend is unknown. Prices are shown in USD without conversion.

Installation checklist

1. Write an approved information sheet: hours, services, area covered and what you do not do.
2. Collect the least data needed, usually name, number and reason for the call.
3. Define the handoff to a person and a callback fallback for when nobody is free.
4. Before launch, run twelve scenarios: hours, services, out-of-scope request, unknown question, booking, scheduling conflict, contact correction, cancellation, request for a human, unavailable person, background noise and a caller in a second language. We did not run any of them for this guide.
5. Start with a small subset of calls, such as overflow or after-hours calls.
6. Check each booking in the calendar instead of trusting what the agent said.
7. Ask the provider about data handling, retention and recording controls. Consult an appropriate professional if your obligations are unclear.
8. Every week, track unresolved requests, correct bookings, handoffs and review time, not only answer rate.
9. Update the sheet whenever your hours or services change.

Fictional workflow: a two-person plumbing business

This is an invented example, not a customer case. Dana is under a sink when the phone rings. The agent gives the hours and service area and collects the caller’s name, number, address and reason for calling. It books a slot only if the tool’s calendar connection supports it. Otherwise, it promises a callback. At lunch, Dana reads the summaries and calls back the one request that did not fit the script. Diagnosis, quotes and exceptions, such as an urgent leak after hours, stay with Dana.

What stays human

Diagnosis, quotes, pricing exceptions, complaints, sensitive situations and relationships with regular customers stay with you and your team. The agent handles routine calls so your time goes to in-person work and expertise.

Practical verdict

No option wins by default. If published prices matter most, look at Smith.ai first. If you already use Quo, estimate your Sona usage against the published tariff before changing anything. If routing callers to reps is the priority, ask KrispCall for full pricing. Whichever you trial, start small, measure what stays unresolved and keep a clear path to a person.

FAQ

How much does an AI receptionist cost?

It depends on the base plan, included usage, overage, telephony, SMS, mandatory seats and options. On 2026-10-18, Smith.ai published a Free tier at $0/month with 25 calls, then $3 per call, and a Pro tier at $150/month with 75 calls, then $2.50 per call. Quo publishes a Starter plan at 19 USD/user/month billed monthly, with 10 Sona calls included, then usage-based billing, taxes and fees extra (pricing); the final cost depends on your configuration and usage. The full cost of the KrispCall AI Voice Agent was not verified, so ask the vendor.

Is there a free AI receptionist?

Smith.ai lists a Free tier at $0/month that includes 25 calls. Every extra call costs $3, so it stays free only while you remain within the allowance. Before relying on it, ask what counts as a billable call.

Can I keep my current business number?

We did not verify this for these offers. Ask each provider whether it supports forwarding calls from your existing number or porting the number, and in which countries. Quo Sona sits inside the Quo phone platform, so ask what using it means for your current number.

Can an AI receptionist book appointments?

Smith.ai advertises scheduling through Calendly. Quo’s appointment setter page says Sona can text callers a booking link, which does not prove it writes appointments directly into your calendar. We did not verify booking for the KrispCall AI Voice Agent, so ask KrispCall directly. With any tool, check that each booking actually appears in your calendar. The same official page advertises Google or Outlook Calendar connection plus number porting and forwarding. AI Hunter has not tested this; confirm your local number and integration eligibility with KrispCall.

Can callers still reach a human?

KrispCall advertises routing to a rep. Smith.ai advertises call routing and also sells a separate human receptionist service, so confirm whether human handling is included or billed. For Quo Sona, ask how a caller reaches a person. In every case, set a callback fallback for when nobody is available.

Does it handle other languages?

Quo’s appointment setter page lists English, Spanish and French for Sona; German and Portuguese are not confirmed there, which does not mean they are unavailable. We did not verify language support for Smith.ai or KrispCall, or real-world quality for any of the three. Ask each vendor which languages are supported, then test with a second-language caller and the accents your customers actually have before going live.

Is an AI receptionist a good idea for a small business?

It can help when many calls are repetitive and interrupt in-person work. It is less suitable when most calls need diagnosis, negotiation or sensitive handling. It guarantees no revenue, speed or savings. Start with a small share of calls and measure unresolved requests and correct bookings.

Can I just use ChatGPT or Claude instead?

General assistants such as ChatGPT or Claude can help you draft call scripts and information sheets, and they can review anonymized call examples. On their own, they are not a turnkey business phone receptionist. You still need a phone line, call handling, routing and calendar connections, which receptionist products or developer voice platforms provide.

Related guides

• Best AI Agents in 2026: OpenClaw vs Claude Code vs Lindy vs Relevance AI
• Best AI Voice Generators in 2026: Murf AI vs ElevenLabs Compared
• Best AI No-Code Automation Tools in 2026: Make vs Zapier vs n8n vs Activepieces