Ruby receptionist pricing: what minutes cost, and an AI alternative per call
Short answer
Ruby receptionist pricing starts at $250 a month for 50 receptionist minutes and goes to $395 for 100 minutes, $720 for 200 and $1,725 for 500 (as of October 2026). Ruby is a live service: real people answer your calls. If you want every call answered for less and you’re comfortable with an AI that says it’s an AI, AIReceptionistGo is a 100% AI receptionist billed per answered call, with a plan that has no monthly fee.
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What a month of calls costs, converted
Ruby charges by the minute; we charge by the call. To compare, assume 50 calls a month at about 2 minutes each, 100 minutes in total, and that a Ruby minute equals a minute of call time (Ruby doesn’t define it on its pricing page).
| Ruby | AIReceptionistGo | |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | People | AI, and it says so |
| What you pay for | Receptionist minutes | Answered calls, any length |
| Lowest entry | $250 a month for 50 minutes | No monthly fee; $0.99 per answered call |
| A month of 50 calls (100 minutes) | $395 | $29 on the 50-Call Plan |
| If calls run longer | The next plan up is $720 | Same price per call |
| Spanish | Available 24/7 | Included, same line |
| Hours | 24/7 | 24/7 |
| Several calls at once | Not stated on its pricing page | Each call answered |
| Transfers to you | Yes, flexible call forwarding | Yes, by your rules |
| Contract | Not stated on its pricing page | None |
If your calls are long, the gap widens, because a minute plan runs out and a per-call price doesn’t move. How a call is counted is on pay per call answering service, and our full plan list is on pricing.
Facts checked on .
Sources
- ruby.com/pricing, checked October 16, 2026
- ruby.com, checked October 16, 2026
Example call
Hear how a call sounds
A comparison table only goes so far. This is an after-hours call to a plumbing shop, answered by the AI, and the summary the owner gets right after. Press play to hear it.
- It says it’s an AI up front, and again when the caller asks.
- It asks what matters, in order: what’s wrong, how urgent, who and where.
- It never promises what the owner hasn’t approved.
Example call: a leaking water heater after hours, answered by the AI.
Copperline Plumbing
Tuesday, 6:40 p.m. · after hours
Urgent
- AI
- Thanks for calling Copperline Plumbing. This is the shop’s AI assistant. How can I help?
- Caller
- Oh. Am I talking to a real person?
- AI
- No, I’m an AI assistant. I can take the details and get them to the on-call plumber. What’s going on?
- Caller
- My water heater is leaking. It’s not a flood, just a puddle that keeps growing.
- AI
- Okay. Is it still leaking right now?
- Caller
- Yes, it’s still dripping.
- AI
- Got it. I’m marking this urgent for the on-call plumber. Your name and address?
- Caller
- Megan Torres, 31 Willow Bend.
- AI
- Thanks, Megan. I’m sending this to the plumber now, and I’ll text you a confirmation.
Summary sent to you
- Urgent
- Water heater leaking, still dripping.
- Caller
- Megan Torres, 31 Willow Bend.
- Done
- Sent to the on-call plumber; confirmation text sent. No arrival time promised.
Ruby’s plans as of October 2026
From Ruby’s pricing page, October 16, 2026:
| Receptionist minutes | Per month | How Ruby describes it |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | $250 | “Great for startups” |
| 100 | $395 | “Great for one-person businesses” |
| 200 | $720 | “Great for small businesses of all kinds” (marked most popular) |
| 500 | $1,725 | “Great for larger and growing businesses” |
Ruby says there are no extra fees for activation, onboarding or setup, and that Spanish and bilingual call handling is available 24/7. Website chat is sold as a separate plan. Ruby’s pricing page doesn’t publish a rate for minutes beyond your plan.
What you get with Ruby that AI doesn’t give you
A person on the line. For some calls that matters: a caller who is upset and needs reassurance, a conversation that doesn’t fit any pattern, a client who expects a human voice. Ruby’s receptionists also handle website chat. Ruby says it has more than 20 years of experience serving small businesses, and it links to its public Trustpilot reviews from its own site. We won’t pretend an AI is the same thing as a good receptionist. It isn’t, and we built ours to say so on every call.
What stays the same when an AI answers
The part of reception that’s hard to get right isn’t the voice, it’s knowing what to ask. Our call protocols come from nearly two decades of running phone reception for small businesses, the same kind of work a live service does. So the AI follows the rules a trained receptionist follows:
- It asks what matters for your industry, in order: the address for a plumber, the type of case for a law office, the date for a booking.
- It knows when to hand over. Calls you want go to you or your team; if nobody answers, it takes a full message and alerts you.
- You see every call: a short summary in your inbox, with the recording and transcript in your dashboard.
How we build that protocol with you is on our method. If you’re weighing people against AI more broadly, AI receptionist vs. answering service goes through it call type by call type.
Who should stay with Ruby
Stay with Ruby, or choose it, if most of your calls need a human touch, if you also want people answering your website chat, or if your clients would be put off by an AI, however well it works. That’s a fair choice, and paying for it makes sense.
A Ruby alternative makes sense if most of your minutes go on messages, bookings and directions, if you’d like every call answered at once even when three come in together, or if a few hundred dollars a month for reception is more than your call volume justifies. You keep your number and forward it to us; see call forwarding answering service.
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Questions about Ruby
How much does Ruby receptionist cost per month?
As of October 2026, Ruby’s virtual receptionist plans are $250 a month for 50 minutes, $395 for 100, $720 for 200 and $1,725 for 500. It says there are no setup fees. Its pricing page doesn’t list a rate for extra minutes, so ask before you sign up. Current prices are on ruby.com/pricing.
What do Ruby receptionist reviews say?
Ruby links to its Trustpilot reviews from its own site and says more than 15,000 businesses use it. Since it sells people, reviews tell you how its receptionists represent a business. They won’t tell you which plan you’d land on: for that, check how many receptionist minutes your calls would use, because Ruby doesn’t publish what extra minutes cost.
How many calls do 100 Ruby minutes cover?
It depends on call length, and Ruby’s pricing page doesn’t define how a receptionist minute is counted. At about 2 minutes a call, 100 minutes is roughly 50 calls. At 3 minutes, it’s around 33. Count your calls and their average length from last month’s phone bill before choosing a plan.
What happens if the AI doesn’t understand a caller?
It asks again in plain words, and if the call still doesn’t fit your protocol, it follows your rules: it transfers the caller to you or your team, or takes a full message so you can call back. Either way, you get the recording and transcript, so you can see what happened and we can adjust the protocol.
Is an AI receptionist a real alternative to Ruby?
For routine calls, yes: it answers right away, asks your questions, books appointments, transfers calls by your rules and sends you a summary. For calls that need a person’s judgment or warmth, a live service like Ruby does it better. A common setup is AI on every call, with the calls you choose transferred to you.
See your calls handled by AI
If most of your Ruby minutes go on messages and bookings, click “Get started” and tell us which calls you’d still want a person for. Those become transfers to you; the rest follows a protocol you approve first. The steps are on how it works, and other services are on compare AI receptionists.
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