What a legal answering service costs, and why an AI minute is not billed like a human one.

Seven vendors split first by billing unit and price disclosure

A law firm shopping for a legal answering service can sort these seven vendors into two groups before calling sales. Six publish minute-based plans. Smith.ai bills by answered call instead. Five publish US dollar tiers with set minute allotments, while AnswerConnect directs prospective customers to a pricing request flow without publishing a US dollar price.

This comparison comes from each vendor's own pricing page, read directly at the vendor's domain on September 28, 2026. It does not use reseller listings or review site summaries. When a vendor did not show a US dollar figure, that absence is the finding.

Ruby and Abby publish four main minute-based tiers

Ruby's Virtual Receptionist plans run from $250 a month for 50 minutes to $1,725 a month for 500 minutes. The intermediate plans are $395 for 100 minutes and $720 for 200 minutes. Ruby labels the 50-minute plan "Great for startups," the 100-minute plan "Great for one-person businesses," the 200-minute plan "Most popular," and the 500-minute plan "Great for larger and growing businesses."

Ruby states that all tiers have identical features. Only the minute allotment changes. Its page also states that activation, onboarding, setup, customization, and after-hours coverage carry no additional or hidden fees. Ruby separately sells live chat plans priced from $143 to $520 a month. A bundled receptionist-and-chat plan carries a stated 20% bundle discount. The page does not state a free trial length.

Abby's Virtual Receptionist plans run from $165 a month for 50 Abby Minutes to $1,380 a month for 500 Abby Minutes. The 100-minute plan costs $329, and the 200-minute plan costs $599. Abby labels the 500-minute plan "Most Popular." Enterprise pricing is custom, with no fixed minute allotment published.

Abby states that every plan carries a free trial, without giving its length. The page also states no setup fee and month-to-month billing. Its definition of an Abby Minute creates a separate price distinction between human and AI answering, covered below.

PATLive and MAP Communications show how overage rates change

PATLive publishes seven Live Call Answering options. Pay as you go costs $49 a month with no minutes included and a $2.99-per-minute charge. The 50-minute plan costs $99, with $2.29 per minute for overage. The 100-minute plan costs $189, with $2.09 per minute for overage. The 200-minute plan costs $349, with a $1.99 overage rate.

At the larger tiers, PATLive charges $759 for 500 minutes, with $1.79 per minute for overage; $1,499 for 1,000 minutes, with $1.69 per minute; and $6,899 for 5,000 minutes, with $1.49 per minute. The posted overage rate falls from $2.99 to $1.49 as the published plan size increases. PATLive offers a stated 14-day free trial on any plan.

MAP Communications lists a $49 pay-as-you-go plan with no minutes included and a $1.37 charge for each additional minute. Its Business plan costs $179 for 125 included minutes, with $1.30 per additional minute. The page labels that plan "Most Popular." Enterprise costs $339 for 250 minutes, with a $1.28 additional-minute rate. Premium costs $649 for 500 minutes, also with a $1.28 rate.

MAP's page states that answering services in general "can cost as little as $49 per month or as much as $650+ per month." Its own published Premium plan is $649.

Alert Communications adds legal intake and retainer tiers

Alert Communications presents a legal-sector-specific answering service. Its Basic tier costs $240 a month for 100 minutes and includes message-taking plus 24/7 coverage. Advanced costs $590 for 250 minutes and adds intake.

Premier also includes 250 minutes. It costs $550 a month plus a $75 retainer and adds retainer handling. Alert Go uses pay-as-you-go billing at $2.50 per minute plus a $100 retainer, with no monthly minimum.

Alert's page states that additional usage, overages, setup fees, and add-ons may apply. It also lists "Voice + AI Services," but provides no price or feature list for that service on the same page. No price is stated here for Alert's AI offering, because none is published.

Abby treats one AI minute as two Abby Minutes

Abby's pricing page uses different billing definitions depending on who answers. For human answering, the page states: "1 Abby Minute = 1 minute." For AI answering, it states: "1 Abby Minute = 2 minutes." The page describes AI answering as time that "stretches twice as far."

The result is a verified price difference inside every published Abby tier. One minute of AI-answered call time uses half an Abby Minute. One minute of human-answered call time uses a full Abby Minute. At every published tier, an AI-answered minute therefore costs a firm half as much as a human-answered minute under Abby's own minute accounting.

Mixed use is billed at each service's own rate. A firm comparing Abby's plans needs to estimate not only total call time, but also how much of that time will be answered by a human and how much by AI.

Smith.ai charges for each answered call

Smith.ai uses a different unit entirely. Its Starter plan costs $300 a month and includes 30 calls, with $11.50 for each call above 30. Basic costs $810 for 90 calls, with $10.50 per additional call. Pro costs $2,100 for 300 calls, with $8.50 per additional call. Enterprise pricing is custom.

A short call and a long call cost the same under this model. That is the opposite tradeoff from a per-minute plan, where call duration directly affects usage. Smith.ai's per-call prices cannot be translated into a minute-for-minute comparison with the other vendors without call-duration data, the same kind of unit mismatch this desk flagged when comparing per-seat and usage-based legal AI pricing in a different vendor category three days earlier.

Smith.ai states a 30-day money-back guarantee, no long-term contract, and a 10% discount for annual payment. Its legal page describes the service as "24/7 AI Receptionists + Live Agents" and states a claimed "99.9% Accuracy" figure for AI and live-agent intake delivery. That figure is Smith.ai's own claim, not an independently verified one.

AnswerConnect sends US buyers to a quote request

AnswerConnect's homepage states: "You'll choose a monthly plan based on how many minutes you think you'll use. We calculate minutes based on the total time required to handle the call, including any after-call work."

The site directs visitors to a "Plans & Pricing" request flow and a phone number. It does not list US dollar tiers or monthly prices on the page itself. This desk read each of the seven vendors' pricing pages directly, at the vendor's own domain, rather than from a reseller or review-site summary, and treated a missing US figure as the finding instead of filling it in from elsewhere. That is exactly what happened here: the only downloadable pricing sheet found on AnswerConnect's own domain turned out to be for its Canada operation, denominated in Canadian dollars. It cannot establish a US price, so none is reported.

The phone answer may be only one part of the purchase

These seven vendors price the answering step, with some pages also listing intake, message-taking, retainer handling, or AI answering as add-ons within that same step. A firm comparing them should identify whether it is buying call coverage alone or a larger intake and matter-management function, the same distinction this desk drew out in full in a review of what intake automation actually automates.

Archivar, which publishes The Docket, is an AI operating system built for law firms. It answers every call a firm receives, 24 hours a day, in English and Spanish, and it also runs intake, manages matters, and keeps a memory of what the firm has done across every call and matter. A firm comparing the seven vendors above is pricing only the answering step; Archivar's stated scope covers answering plus the intake and matter-management work that a live or AI receptionist service alone does not do.

Price the unit each vendor actually bills.

Ask for a US dollar number when the page will not give you one.