This explainer uses what four providers publish about pricing and setup, read on 3 October 2026: Bland, Retell, Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist, and AgentsFast. It isn’t a side-by-side hands-on comparison, and prices change, so check each provider’s page before you decide. AgentsFast is made by DavidAgents, which publishes this site.
Per call, per minute, or per month
The unit a provider charges by decides which of your habits cost money.
- Per call. The base rate doesn’t change with call length, but plans can still cap calls, charge more past the allowance or add fees. Short calls you didn’t want, like spam and wrong numbers, may count too, so check how the provider counts them.
- Per minute. Long calls cost more, and the total depends on everything that’s billed by the minute, which isn’t always one number.
- Monthly allowance. You pay a fixed amount for a block of minutes. It’s predictable up to the cap; past it, you need to know what happens. Minutes you don’t use may simply expire.
| Provider | Unit | Published starting point | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Per call | Free plan with 25 calls a month, then $3.00 a call. Paid plans from $150 a month for 75 calls. | Every answered call counts toward the quota, with an allowance to remove up to 10% for spam. Calls past the allowance cost more each. |
| Bland | Per minute | $0.14 a minute with no platform fee, or $0.12 a minute plus $299 a month. | Phone-line (telephony) costs are billed separately, and transfer minutes have their own rate. |
| Retell | Per minute, by component | Separate per-minute prices for the voice platform, the AI model, the voice, and phone service. | Model choice moves the total a lot; numbers and extra concurrent calls are monthly items. |
| AgentsFast (Voice plans) | Monthly allowance | From $199 a month for 1,000 active minutes of the standard voice styles, including the base subscription and one US number. The styles sold under Premium Voice need that add-on. | Plans are capped, unused minutes don't roll over, and each call rounds up to a whole minute. |
Swipe the table sideways to see all four columns.
Starting points as published on 3 October 2026. They are not comparable totals: each depends on your call volume, call length and options.
What a headline price can leave out
A headline price, per minute or per month, usually covers the core service but not everything you might use. On the pages we read:
- Phone service. Bland says its rate covers the AI model, speech recognition and the voice, and that phone service is billed separately, on your own carrier or at pass-through cost. Retell lists phone service as its own line; if you bring your own phone setup, Retell doesn’t charge for it, but your carrier still does.
- Transfer time. Bland bills the minutes after a call is transferred at a separate rate, unless you bring your own phone service.
- The AI model. Retell prices each model separately, from fractions of a cent to over 60 cents a minute. Its advertised range is a guide, not a ceiling, and its speech-to-speech options are priced differently again.
- Monthly items. Phone numbers, platform fees and extra simultaneous calls can be monthly charges on top of the minutes. Bland’s lower per-minute rate comes with a monthly platform fee; Retell includes 20 simultaneous calls and charges for more.
- Add-on packages. Some capabilities are separate packages. At AgentsFast: The voices you can hear in our demos are Ultra Natural, Ultra Accurate, Essential, Essential Plus and Expert. Ultra Natural, Ultra Accurate and Expert come with the Premium Voice add-on ($99 a month, 500 fast minutes; Expert adds 8 cents a minute). Essential and Essential Plus are demo voices, not something you can buy today. After the 500 fast minutes, calls use the standard voice. Its Call Center package for your own staff is $99 a month plus $49 for each extra seat, and extra phone numbers are $15 a month each. Smith.ai’s live receptionists are a per-call add-on.
Plans also have limits that aren’t prices. Bland’s entry plan caps calls per day and per hour. AgentsFast’s voice plans are capped by minutes. If your phone rings in bursts, check the limits before the price.
Who does the setup
Getting it working takes effort as well as money: count your own setup time, plus any setup or onboarding fee the provider publishes. The four providers split that work differently.
- You build it, with tools. Bland and Retell are platforms for building your own phone agent. Bland documents a visual builder where you connect conversation steps, plus an API; Retell documents a dashboard with an AI assistant that helps build and test the agent. The tools are there, but the design decisions are yours.
- You set it up, with support, or they do it. Smith.ai’s Pro plan is described as set up yourself with dedicated support; its Enterprise plan is built and run for you.
- An agent sets it up in chat. AgentsFast describes a manager agent that configures its workspace from a conversation about your business.
Whichever route, count the hours. A cheaper rate that needs a weekend of setup and regular tuning can cost more than it looks.
Your people or theirs
“Hands off to a human” can mean two different things, and they’re priced differently.
- Transfer to your own people. All four document a way to send a call to a number or a person on your side. Some charge for the minutes after the transfer.
- The provider’s own staff. Smith.ai offers its live receptionists as a per-call add-on to the AI service. That is a staffed service, not a transfer back to you.
- Seats for your own team. AgentsFast sells a Call Center add-on, priced per employee seat, for your own staff to take calls in the same system.
Features you configure
A feature on a price page isn’t always ready to use on day one. Booking shows the range:
- Retell documents a native Cal.com integration that can check availability, book, reschedule and cancel. It requires a connected Cal.com account: you point each booking tool at an appointment type and connect your calendar in Cal.com.
- Smith.ai documents its AI Receptionist booking through Calendly during the call: it offers open slots, reserves the caller’s chosen time and collects the booking questions. Its getting-started steps list a paid Calendly subscription as a requirement, a cost on top of the Smith.ai plan. Its pricing lists AI scheduling with Calendly and other tools.
- Bland’s pricing table marks its appointment scheduling step as not included on its two self-serve plans.
- AgentsFast’s phone page describes scheduling callbacks at the caller’s chosen time and saving the details to the CRM. It doesn’t say it books appointments into your calendar.
For any feature you’re paying for, ask two things: who sets it up, and what exactly it writes to.
Can you start today?
Bland, Retell and Smith.ai each offer a free way to sign up and start. AgentsFast is in a private beta by invitation: you request access, and a request doesn’t guarantee a place. If you need something running this week, that matters as much as the price.
Work out your own cost
There’s no single “cheapest”. The answer depends on your calls. Fill in these numbers first, then price each option with them, including the extras above.
| Your number | Why it matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|
| Calls a month | Count from your phone bill or call log, including spam and wrong numbers. | |
| Average call length | Minutes per call. Per-minute and allowance pricing depend on it; per-call pricing doesn't. | |
| Share of calls transferred | Transfers can add their own minutes or fees. | |
| Calls in your busiest hour | Some plans cap calls per hour or per day. | |
| Calls at the same moment | The most calls connected at once. Some plans cap simultaneous calls. | |
| Numbers you need | Main line, second location, tracking numbers. | |
| Setup time | Your hours, or a setup fee, to get it working the way you need. |
Then ask each provider, in writing, what a month of your calls would cost, and what is not included in that figure. And before you sign, test it on your own situations: our buyer checklist covers how.
What this explainer can’t tell you
It compares what providers publish, not how they perform. Plan details change, and some costs only appear once you’re set up. It doesn’t say which provider is cheapest or best, because that depends on your calls and on testing we haven’t done.
Sources
All pages read on 3 October 2026. Vendor pages describe what the vendor offers; they are not test results.
- Bland pricing and pricing FAQ.
- Bland docs: Conversational Pathways.
- Retell pricing.
- Retell docs: introduction.
- Retell docs: Cal.com booking tools.
- Smith.ai AI Receptionist plans and pricing.
- Smith.ai AI Receptionist.
- Smith.ai blog: AI scheduling with Calendly.
- AI phone agents (DavidAgents).
- AgentsFast home page.
Change log: October 2026, first version.