Quick answer: Smith.ai vs Ruby is AI-first against human-first. Ruby (Ruby Receptionists, Inc.) has a real person answer every call and bills per receptionist minute, from $250 for 50 minutes a month. Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist answers with AI, bills per call, and runs $0 for 25 calls up to $800 for 500, plus $3.00 a call when a live agent joins. At 150 calls a month that is $270 on Smith.ai’s AI plan against $1,160 on Ruby at Ruby’s own 2-minute average call (USD, vendors’ own pages, as at 2 November 2026).
This page compares Ruby, the Portland, Oregon virtual receptionist company, with Smith.ai, the Los Altos, California firm that sells an AI Receptionist, a Hybrid service and human Virtual Receptionists. Every figure comes from the vendors’ own pages, read on 2 November 2026, in US dollars as both publish them. We price Smith.ai’s human receptionists too, so you can separate the AI-versus-human question from the Smith.ai-versus-Ruby one.
Where Zian fits
Zian AI is our pick when the answering service is meant to feed a sales pipeline, not just take messages: it answers inbound calls 24/7 as an AI receptionist that qualifies, books, transfers and takes messages, then follows up by voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger. LeadsNow.ai is the done-for-you option, a managed appointment-setting service billed pay-per-result that runs on Zian and answers leads in under 60 seconds, 24/7.
Both vendors centre their phone products on answering. Ruby’s receptionists place outbound “call assists” on request during set hours, Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist sends a text after the call, and Smith.ai sells outreach campaigns as a separate service with its own pricing page. Zian’s Outbound Appointment Setter and Appointment Show-Specialist agents are built for the chase: SmartReach AI™ orchestrates message, channel and timing, and PrecisionPitch AI™ continuously split-tests scripts against real outcomes. The platform handles answering machines and voicemail on calls, works in 30+ languages with voice cloning supported, and connects to HubSpot, Salesforce, HighLevel and Zapier. Zian has run outbound acquisition since 2017 and reports 50,769+ qualified sales appointments set.
The honest gap: Zian is in a partnership-application beta and publishes no price, so no Zian figure appears in the cost tables below. Its three listed plans are Intel + Widgets (Free Forever), More Leads & More Intel, and GodMode Max Profits, and each of its three listed plans, including Intel + Widgets (Free Forever), starts with a partnership application.
Smith.ai vs Ruby at a glance
The platform and done-for-you picks come first by our editorial policy. Smith.ai appears twice because its AI-first and human-first services are priced differently.
| Question | Zian AI (platform pick) | LeadsNow.ai (done-for-you pick) | Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists | Ruby |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Who answers the call | AI receptionist, 24/7 | Managed service that runs on Zian | AI answers; a live agent joins only when you enable it | A live North America-based receptionist | A live US-based receptionist (“not a bot”) |
| Billing unit | No published price (partnership-application beta) | Pay-per-result | Per answered call | Per call | Per receptionist minute, rounded up to the next 60 seconds per call |
| Entry plan | Intel + Widgets (Free Forever), by application | Ask LeadsNow.ai | Free: $0 for 25 calls; Pro from $150 for 75 calls | Starter: $300 for 30 calls | $250 for 50 minutes |
| Beyond the allowance | Ask during your application | Ask LeadsNow.ai | $3.00 to $2.10 a call by tier | $11.50 to $8.50 a call by tier | $5.40 to $3.30 a minute by tier (help centre) |
| Human backup | Transfers to your team | Run for you by LeadsNow.ai | +$3.00 a call when a live agent is involved | Every call is human | Every call is human |
| Languages | 30+ languages | Ask LeadsNow.ai | English and Spanish | English and Spanish; dedicated Spanish line $1.00 a call | English and Spanish, no extra cost |
| Booking | Books from inbound and outbound conversations | Appointment setting is the service | AI scheduling (Calendly and more); Free-plan help articles price real-time booking at $3 a call | $1.50 a call | Included in every Ruby plan |
| Follow-up after the call | Voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, Facebook Messenger | Leads answered in under 60 seconds, 24/7 | Post-call SMS, no extra fee | Text and email follow-up $0.50 a call | Receptionist outbound call assists, billed as minutes |
| Named CRM connections | HubSpot, Salesforce, HighLevel, Zapier | Ask LeadsNow.ai | Salesforce, HubSpot, Clio Grow, Clio Manage, plus 5,000+ apps natively or via Zapier and Make | First CRM free, $0.50 a call per extra CRM | Clio, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier and others; CRM integrations included |
| Contract | Partnership application | Ask LeadsNow.ai | Month-to-month, 30 days’ notice | Month-to-month | 30-day contract, renews automatically |
How we compared them. On 2 November 2026 we read each vendor’s pricing page, help centre, FAQ, terms, sitemap and last 90 days of blog posts, and used only what each vendor says about its own product, never what it says about the other. Zian is described only from its published configuration and zian.ai, and LeadsNow.ai only from its published claims. Disclosure: zian.ai publishes this comparison and Zian appears in it.
Who answers the phone: the real difference between Smith.ai and Ruby
Ruby is a human service that uses AI behind the receptionist. Its FAQ asks “Is Ruby’s virtual receptionist automated?” and answers “No. Ruby is not an automated virtual receptionist. When someone calls your business, a real Ruby receptionist answers.” Ruby’s AI page lists Call Nav, an LLM-powered assistant that pulls answers for the receptionist during the call, plus transcripts, sentiment analysis and robocall filtering, and says “All our AI features are included at no extra cost in every Ruby plan.” Ruby’s FAQ also says its receptionists are US-based.
Smith.ai sells both models. Its own llms.txt file puts it this way: “The AI Receptionist is AI-first and human-backed; whereas the Virtual Receptionists service is human-first and AI-backed.” A third service, Hybrid, has AI answer every call and sends chosen caller types to a live agent.
So “Smith.ai vs Ruby” is two questions: do you want AI to answer, and do you want to pay by the call or by the minute? Ruby’s answer to the first is fixed. Smith.ai lets you choose, and the price moves with your choice.
The quotable version: Ruby always puts a person on the call and bills the person’s minutes; Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist puts AI on the call, bills the call, and charges $3.00 extra when a person joins.
How much do Smith.ai and Ruby cost?
Ruby’s plans and pricing page shows four receptionist plans. Its pricing page does not print the overage rate; Ruby’s help-centre article “Am I on the right billing plan?” (dated 11 December 2025) does, and lists six larger plans. The four base prices agree on both pages.
| Ruby plan | Receptionist minutes included | Monthly price | Each extra minute | Shown on |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Call Ruby 50 | 50 | $250 | $5.40 | Pricing page and help centre |
| Call Ruby 100 | 100 | $395 | $4.50 | Pricing page and help centre |
| Call Ruby 200 | 200 | $720 | $4.40 | Pricing page and help centre |
| Call Ruby 350 | 350 | $1,210 | $4.25 | Help centre only |
| Call Ruby 500 | 500 | $1,725 | $4.00 | Pricing page and help centre |
| Call Ruby 750 | 750 | $2,550 | $3.85 | Help centre only |
| Call Ruby 1,000 | 1,000 | $3,350 | $3.65 | Help centre only |
| Call Ruby 1,500 / 2,000 / 2,500 | 1,500 / 2,000 / 2,500 | $4,945 / $6,400 / $7,875 | $3.50 / $3.40 / $3.30 | Help centre only |
Ruby says its pricing is “inclusive”: “There are no additional or hidden fees for activation, onboarding, setup, customization, or coverage during certain periods.” Its pricing guide names the exceptions: you pay for “your base monthly plan rate, any overage minutes, and optional features such as custom hold music and additional phone lines.” Unused minutes do not roll over, according to its invoice help article, which also lists international dialling as an occasional charge and a 3% surcharge on credit-card payments that you avoid by paying by debit card or ACH.
Smith.ai publishes two price lists for this comparison. The AI Receptionist pricing page:
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist plan | Calls included a month | Monthly price | Each extra call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 25 | $0 | $3.00 (prepaid credits, Extra Calls switched on) |
| Pro | 75 / 150 / 300 | $150 / $270 / $500 | $2.50 / $2.30 / $2.17 |
| Enterprise | 300 / 500 / 1,000+ | $500 / $800 / custom | $2.17 / $2.10 / custom |
And the Virtual Receptionists (human-first) pricing page: Starter $300 for 30 calls ($11.50 each extra call), Basic $810 for 90 calls ($10.50) and Pro $2,100 for 300 calls ($8.50), with Enterprise priced on request. Human-first add-ons are priced per call, including appointment booking at $1.50, a dedicated Spanish line at $1.00 and each CRM after the first at $0.50. Smith.ai’s AI page also mentions “Our 6-month plan”, with rollover calls and “a better rate”, without a figure, and its Human-first FAQ offers “a 10% discount for subscribing for 12 months”.
Want the receptionist and the follow-up in one platform? Zian answers inbound calls 24/7 as an AI receptionist, books the appointment, then follows up by voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram DMs and Facebook Messenger. It is in a partnership-application beta.
What a month costs at 50, 150 and 400 calls
This worked calculation pushes the same three call volumes through every published plan of each service and keeps the lowest bill. Ruby bills minutes, so it needs an average call length. We use Ruby’s own figure: its help article “How long is an average call?” says “a typical inbound call results in around 2 receptionist minutes”, and adds that “there are many factors that may extend this length”, such as lengthy intake forms or talkative callers. Smith.ai bills by the call, so call length does not change its figures.
Assumptions: every call is answered and billable; no spam credits, test calls, tax or Ruby’s 3% credit-card surcharge; standard monthly prices; on Smith.ai’s Free plan, Extra Calls is switched on and funded from prepaid credits. Ruby’s 750-minute plan appears only in its help centre; where it gives the lowest bill, we also show the lowest bill from the four plans on Ruby’s pricing page.
| Service (billing unit) | 50 calls a month | 150 calls a month | 400 calls a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby at 2 receptionist minutes a call (per minute) | 100 minutes: Call Ruby 100, $395.00 ($7.90 a call) | 300 minutes: Call Ruby 200, $720 + 100 × $4.40 = $1,160.00 ($7.73 a call) | 800 minutes: Call Ruby 750, $2,550 + 50 × $3.85 = $2,742.50 ($6.86 a call); pricing-page plans only: Call Ruby 500, $1,725 + 300 × $4.00 = $2,925.00 |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist (per call) | Free, $0 + 25 × $3.00 = $75.00 ($1.50 a call) | Pro 150, $270.00 ($1.80 a call) | 300-call tier, $500 + 100 × $2.17 = $717.00 ($1.79 a call) |
| Smith.ai AI with a live agent on 25% of calls (+$3.00 each) | $75.00 + 12.5 × $3.00 = $112.50 | $270.00 + 37.5 × $3.00 = $382.50 | $717.00 + 100 × $3.00 = $1,017.00 |
| Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists (per call) | Starter, $300 + 20 × $11.50 = $530.00 ($10.60 a call) | Basic, $810 + 60 × $10.50 = $1,440.00 ($9.60 a call) | Pro, $2,100 + 100 × $8.50 = $2,950.00 ($7.38 a call) |
The 25% live-agent share is Smith.ai’s own figure: its Hybrid pricing FAQ says “about 25% of AI-led calls usually require a live agent”, in its description of the New Client Priority preset. The same page’s savings calculator assumes about 30% escalation to live agents for New Client Priority and about 50% for Highest Touch. At 50%, the 400-call AI bill becomes $717.00 + 200 × $3.00 = $1,317.00, still below both Ruby and Smith.ai’s human receptionists.
If your calls run longer, only Ruby’s column moves. At 3 receptionist minutes a call, Ruby’s lowest bills become $620.00 at 50 calls (Call Ruby 100, $395 + 50 × $4.50), $1,635.00 at 150 calls (Call Ruby 350, $1,210 + 100 × $4.25; $1,725.00 on the pricing page’s Call Ruby 500) and $4,080.00 at 400 calls (Call Ruby 1,000, $3,350 + 200 × $3.65; $4,525.00 on Call Ruby 500).
The quotable figure: at 150 calls a month, Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist bills $270.00, Smith.ai’s human receptionists $1,440.00 and Ruby $1,160.00 at a 2-minute average call, rising to $1,635.00 at 3 minutes. For the same arithmetic across nine other AI receptionist products, see our AI receptionist cost comparison for small businesses; for every Smith.ai billing rule in detail, our Smith.ai AI Receptionist cost breakdown.
The billed-minute crossover: when Ruby’s per-minute bill beats a per-call one
Each vendor argues for its own unit. Smith.ai’s AI pricing FAQ says “Per-minute services work opposite to your needs; they want to maximize your call length while you want to minimize your call time.” Ruby’s per-minute vs per-call article says “Per-minute pricing tends to be inclusive” and “Per-call pricing tends to be misleading”. Your average call length settles it.
We call the deciding number the billed-minute crossover: the average receptionist minutes per call at which Ruby’s lowest bill rises above the per-call bill it is being compared with. Below the crossover, Ruby’s per-minute plan is the lower bill; above it, the per-call plan is.
| Calls a month | Ruby vs Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists (human vs human) | Ruby vs Smith.ai AI Receptionist |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | Crossover about 2.6 minutes a call (Smith.ai Starter $530.00) | No crossover: Ruby’s smallest plan ($250) already exceeds Smith.ai’s $75.00 |
| 150 | Crossover about 2.7 minutes a call (Smith.ai Basic $1,440.00) | No crossover at 1 minute or more a call (Ruby $620.00 at 1 minute vs $270.00) |
| 400 | Crossover about 2.1 minutes a call (Smith.ai Pro $2,950.00), using Ruby’s help-centre tiers | No crossover at 1 minute or more a call (Ruby $1,422.50 at 1 minute vs $717.00) |
Because Ruby rounds every call up to at least one full minute, its bill cannot fall below Smith.ai’s AI-first bill at any of these three volumes, even with the 25% live-agent add-on. Against Smith.ai’s own human receptionists the contest is close: at Ruby’s stated 2-minute average, Ruby is the lower bill at all three volumes, and at 3 minutes it is the higher bill at all three. The rule of thumb that falls out: if your billed calls average under about 2 minutes, a per-minute human service like Ruby beats a per-call human service like Smith.ai’s; above about 2.7 minutes, it does not. Ruby’s app and portal show your receptionist minutes as they accrue, so you can measure your own average in the first month.
What each vendor bills, and what it does not
| Event | Ruby | Smith.ai AI Receptionist |
|---|---|---|
| How a call is measured | Receptionist time, 60-second increments, rounded up per call; includes hold time and after-call note time; excludes talk time after transfer to you | One answered call, whatever its length; an AI call handed to a live agent “counts as one call” (Hybrid FAQ) |
| Known spam and robocalls | Optional Robocall Filtering (activated at your request) sends flagged calls to voicemail; they “will not count towards your billable receptionist minutes” | Calls from 20 million+ known spammers are filtered before answer and not counted |
| Spam that gets through | Receptionists ask “Is this a solicitation?” and decline; persistent callers can be blocked in the app | Mark as spam: up to 10% of your call quota a cycle can be removed, spam and test calls combined |
| Calls to after-hours voicemail | “You are never billed for any calls that go to your afterhours voicemail” | Not applicable: AI answers 24/7 |
| Human involvement | Every call | +$3.00 a call flat when a live agent is involved by your settings; AI-initiated escalations, outages and transfers to your business are not billed as add-ons |
| Outbound work | Outbound call assists counted as receptionist minutes, including the follow-up email time | Post-call SMS follow-up, “no additional fee” |
| Running over your allowance | Each extra minute at your plan’s overage rate; alerts at 85% and 100%; not moved up a plan automatically | Each extra call at your plan’s extra-call rate; on Free, call 26 is redirected to you unless Extra Calls is on |
Sources: Ruby’s Terms of Use, billing basics and robocall filtering articles; Smith.ai’s spam help article, live agent billing article, follow-up SMS article and billing credits article.
Hours, Spanish, booking and integrations
Hours. Both answer 24/7, 365 days a year. Ruby charges nothing extra for 24/7 coverage beyond the minutes it uses, and its outbound call assists run on a narrower schedule. Smith.ai’s Human-first page says “Calls at 2 pm and 2 am cost the same.”
Spanish. Ruby’s FAQ says “Optional 24/7 Spanish bilingual service is included with every receptionist service account at no additional cost”; a Spanish-speaking caller is transferred to its bilingual team. Ruby adds that if many callers speak neither language, “we may not be the best fit for your business” (Ruby help centre). Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist offers “Conversational fluency in English and Spanish”, including on the Free plan, and its human plans sell a dedicated Spanish line at $1.00 a call.
Booking and intake. Ruby includes scheduling, lead qualification and intake in every Ruby plan, after it reviews your calendar system against its guidelines. Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist lists AI scheduling with Calendly and other tools; its human plans charge $1.50 a call to book and include five short intake questions free.
Integrations. Ruby’s integrations page lists Clio, 8am MyCase, Filevine, Lawmatics, HubSpot, Salesforce, Calendly and Zapier among others, and names Clio and Grasshopper among its native integrations, with Zapier for the rest; its per-minute article lists CRM integrations as “All for free”. Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist “natively integrates with Salesforce, HubSpot, Clio Grow, Clio Manage, plus 5,000+ apps either natively, or through Zapier and Make”, and on Enterprise it builds “unlimited custom integrations & workflows”.
Contracts, cancellation and money-back terms
Ruby. Ruby’s Terms say the contract “is 30 days” and “automatically renews every 30 days unless cancelled”. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period, or immediately inside the money-back period: first-time customers get a full refund within 21 days or before 500 receptionist minutes, whichever comes first. New customers have a three-billing-cycle “calibration window” to change plans freely; after it, downgrades need three consecutive billing periods on the same plan.
Smith.ai. The AI Receptionist is “a month-to-month service”, and its pricing FAQ adds “If you ever cancel, we need 30 days’ notice”. The free route to try it is the Free plan, which Smith.ai’s Free-plan article says has “no time limit”. On the human side, every Virtual Receptionists plan includes a 30-day money-back guarantee for new clients, capped at $1,000 and excluding overage.
Where the vendors’ own pages disagree
We found six places where a vendor’s own pages say different things. We report both sides rather than choosing.
- Ruby’s Spanish hours. Its pricing page lists “24/7 Spanish and bilingual call handling available”, and its bilingual help article says inbound English and Spanish service runs 24/7. A note in its FAQ says “Ruby’s bilingual service and outgoing call assists are available Monday to Friday, 5am to 6pm Pacific”.
- Ruby’s outbound hours. The FAQ gives Monday to Friday, 5am to 6pm Pacific. Its business hours article (15 April 2026) adds Saturday and Sunday, 5am to 2pm Pacific.
- Ruby’s plan list. The pricing page shows four receptionist plans; the help centre lists ten, with the overage rates the pricing page leaves out.
- Smith.ai’s cancellation notice. The Human-first FAQ says “we bill for and through the end of the current monthly billing cycle”. Smith.ai’s Terms of Service say cancellation “must be made at least thirty (30) days prior to the end of the current subscription cycle”, or you are billed for the following month.
- Smith.ai’s guarantee window. The same FAQ answer promises “a 30-day money-back guarantee” and says “If you decide Smith.ai isn’t for you in the first two weeks, we’ll refund your initial plan”. Its money-back help article names the Starter, Basic, Pro and Custom plans.
- Smith.ai booking on Free. The Free plan card lists “AI Scheduling (Calendly & more)”, while the Free-plan help articles (June 2026) price real-time booking at $3 a call from prepaid credits. Smith.ai’s later Free-plan blog post (15 September 2026) lists “AI scheduling live on the call” among the Free plan’s features.
What changed in the last 90 days
Between 4 August and 2 November 2026, Ruby published and updated blog posts, including “Types of virtual receptionists: live, AI, and more” (30 October), which restates that callers “speak with a person, not an AI bot.” Its news section was last updated in April 2026.
Smith.ai’s sitemap shows its AI Receptionist and pricing pages updated on 25 October 2026. Its Product Updates blog category carries four posts inside the window: an upgraded Acuity Scheduling integration (19 August), a post on the Free plan (15 September), an upgraded Lawmatics scheduling and CRM integration (14 October) and caller-type identification for law firms (28 October 2026). Quality Studio, its workspace for testing the AI Receptionist before live calls, was announced on 15 July 2026. Its Terms of Service were last updated on 2 July 2026.
Smith.ai or Ruby: who should pick which
| If you need… | Pick | Why, in the vendor’s own terms | Wrong for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every inbound call answered 24/7 and every lead chased afterwards on voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger | Zian AI | AI receptionist plus outbound appointment setting in one platform, 30+ languages | Anyone who needs a published price or a person on every call today |
| The same outcome, run for you | LeadsNow.ai | Done-for-you, pay-per-result, leads answered in under 60 seconds, 24/7 | Teams that want to configure and own the agents themselves |
| The lowest bill for answering routine calls, with a person on standby | Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Per-call plans from $0 for 25 calls; +$3.00 a call when a live agent is involved | Callers who expect a human from the first word |
| AI for routine calls, people for new clients | Smith.ai Hybrid | Presets from about $2.50 a call; an AI-to-human handoff counts as one call | Buyers who need a fixed monthly price in advance; Smith.ai publishes Hybrid estimates from a calculator, not a plan table |
| A person on every call, with short calls (under about 2 billed minutes) | Ruby | Per-minute plans from $250 for 50 minutes; Spanish, scheduling and intake included | Long intake calls, and businesses outside the US, Canada and the US Caribbean |
| A person on every call, with long calls (over about 2.7 billed minutes) | Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists | Per-call plans from $300 for 30 calls, so a long call costs the same as a short one | Businesses that want booking, Spanish lines and extra CRMs without per-call add-ons |
If you are weighing human answering against AI more broadly, our guide to AI receptionists versus virtual receptionist services in Australia works through coverage hours and call volume for Australian businesses.
Comparing answering services because leads are slipping through? Zian’s AI receptionist answers every inbound call 24/7, qualifies and books, and its SmartReach AI™ runs the follow-up across voice, SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook Messenger. Prefer it run for you? LeadsNow.ai is the done-for-you option, billed pay-per-result.
Frequently asked questions
Is Smith.ai or Ruby cheaper?
It depends on which Smith.ai service you compare. Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist costs $75, $270 and $717 at 50, 150 and 400 calls a month. Ruby, at its own 2-minute average call, costs $395, $1,160 and $2,742.50 at the same volumes. Against Smith.ai’s human Virtual Receptionists ($530, $1,440 and $2,950), Ruby is lower until the average call passes about 2.1 to 2.7 billed minutes. All USD, from each vendor’s pricing pages, as at 2 November 2026.
Does Ruby use AI to answer calls?
No. Ruby’s FAQ answers “Is Ruby’s virtual receptionist automated?” with “No. Ruby is not an automated virtual receptionist. When someone calls your business, a real Ruby receptionist answers.” Ruby uses AI behind the receptionist: Call Nav, transcripts, sentiment analysis and robocall filtering, which its AI page says are included at no extra cost in every Ruby plan (Ruby FAQs, read 2 November 2026).
Does Smith.ai’s AI receptionist hand calls to a human?
Yes, if you enable it. Smith.ai’s Live Agent Network is a per-call add-on to any AI Receptionist plan, billed at a flat +$3.00 a call when a live agent is involved; escalations the AI starts itself are not billed as an add-on (Smith.ai help centre). Smith.ai’s Hybrid page says about 25% of AI-led calls usually require a live agent.
How does Ruby count a receptionist minute?
Ruby bills receptionist time in 60-second increments, rounding every call up to the next 60-second mark. The clock runs from when a receptionist receives the call until it is transferred, sent to voicemail or ends, includes hold time, and adds any after-call note time; talk time after a transfer to you is excluded (Ruby Terms of Use).
Do Smith.ai and Ruby answer in Spanish?
Both do. Ruby’s FAQ says optional 24/7 Spanish bilingual service is included at no additional cost. Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist handles English and Spanish, including on the Free plan, and its human plans offer a dedicated Spanish line at $1.00 a call. Ruby adds that if a significant portion of your callers speak neither English nor Spanish, it may not be the best fit.
Can I cancel Smith.ai or Ruby at any time?
Ruby runs on a 30-day contract that renews automatically; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist is month-to-month but asks for 30 days’ notice, and Smith.ai’s Terms say a cancellation made within 30 days of the cycle end is billed for the following month. Neither requires a long-term contract on standard plans.
Do spam calls count toward my Smith.ai or Ruby bill?
On Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist, calls from 20 million+ known spammers are filtered before answer and not counted, and you can remove up to 10% of your call quota for spam and test calls. On Ruby, calls flagged by its optional Robocall Filtering go to voicemail and do not count toward billable receptionist minutes; solicitors who reach a receptionist are screened by that receptionist. Smith.ai’s human Virtual Receptionists do not charge for spam or unsolicited sales calls, as long as the lines you forward pass Caller ID.
Can a business outside the US use Ruby or Smith.ai?
Ruby’s FAQ says it provides service anywhere in the United States, Canada and the US Caribbean. Smith.ai describes itself as serving small to medium service businesses across the U.S. with North America-based receptionists. An Australian business should confirm coverage with either vendor before signing; both price in US dollars.
Where every figure on this page comes from
| Figure | Who published it | Link | Date read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby plans $250 / 50 min, $395 / 100, $720 / 200, $1,725 / 500; “no additional or hidden fees”; scheduling, Spanish, intake included | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | Ruby plans and pricing | 2 November 2026 |
| Ruby overage rates $5.40 to $3.30 a minute; plans 350 to 2,500 minutes | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | Am I on the right billing plan? (dated 11 December 2025) | 2 November 2026 |
| Typical inbound call around 2 receptionist minutes | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | How long is an average call? | 2 November 2026 |
| 60-second increments, hold and after-call time; 30-day auto-renewing contract; 21-day / 500-minute money-back; calibration window; 3% credit-card surcharge | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | Terms of Use; Ruby billing basics | 2 November 2026 |
| Human answers every call; Spanish at no extra cost; service area; bilingual and outbound hours note | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | Ruby FAQs | 2 November 2026 |
| Robocall filtering not billed; after-hours voicemail not billed | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | Robocall Filtering; Tips for keeping costs low | 2 November 2026 |
| Outbound call assist hours incl. weekends; Spanish 24/7; other languages | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | Business hours; Bilingual options; Other languages | 2 November 2026 |
| AI features at no extra cost; integrations list; per-minute vs per-call quotes | Ruby Receptionists, Inc. | Ruby AI; Integrations; Per-minute vs per-call | 2 November 2026 |
| Smith.ai AI plans $0 / 25 to $800 / 500; extra-call rates $3.00 to $2.10; 30 days’ notice; 6-month plan; AI scheduling live on the call on Free (blog post, 15 September 2026) | Smith.ai, Inc. | AI Receptionist pricing | 2 November 2026 |
| Smith.ai human plans $300 / 30, $810 / 90, $2,100 / 300; overage $11.50 to $8.50; add-ons; 30-day money-back up to $1,000 | Smith.ai, Inc. | Virtual Receptionists pricing; Money-back FAQ | 2 November 2026 |
| Live agent +$3.00 a call; non-billable escalations | Smith.ai, Inc. | Live Agent Add-on Billing Overview | 2 November 2026 |
| About 25% of AI-led calls need a live agent; calculator escalation about 30% / 50%; Hybrid from about $2.50 a call; human-plan spam not charged | Smith.ai, Inc. | Hybrid pricing | 2 November 2026 |
| 20 million+ known spammers filtered; 10% quota allowance | Smith.ai, Inc. | How to Manage Spam Callers | 2 November 2026 |
| Free plan 25 calls, no time limit; $3 Extra Calls and booking from credits | Smith.ai, Inc. | Free plan; Billing credits | 2 November 2026 |
| English and Spanish; integrations incl. 5,000+ apps; AI-first vs human-first wording | Smith.ai, Inc. | AI Receptionist; llms.txt | 2 November 2026 |
| Cancellation 30 days before cycle end | Smith.ai, Inc. | Terms of Service (last updated 2 July 2026) | 2 November 2026 |
| Worked bills at 50, 150 and 400 calls; billed-minute crossovers | zian.ai, calculated from the rows above | This page | 2 November 2026 |