Nine AI receptionists for contractors, with the prices they publish
A buying list for the one-to-five-person HVAC, plumbing, electrical or painting shop: nine AI receptionists, the entry price each one prints on its own site, what that price includes, who it suits, and — because one of the nine is ours — when to pick each of the other eight instead of Rivet.
Which AI receptionist should a 1–5 person contractor pick?
Pick by what you need after the call is answered, then by billing unit, then by price. A shop that already runs Jobber should take Jobber's Receptionist at $29/mo, because the booked call lands where the rest of the work lives. A shop that only needs messages taken and callbacks captured has three cheap, published options: SkipCalls at $29.99/mo flat, Rosie at $49/mo for 250 minutes, and OnCrew at $49/mo for 100 calls. A shop with repeat callers should look at Goodcall, which charges per unique customer rather than per call. A shop that wants to start free can begin on Smith.ai's 25-call tier. Rivet App is the pick when the owner is also the office and wants the booking, quote, invoice and follow-up drafted for approval rather than just the call taken, and can live with a $79/mo plan whose answering minutes are a smaller bundle than the per-minute vendors sell. Every figure here is the vendor's own, read on the date shown.
How this list was made. Each price below was read from the vendor’s own pricing page, most of them on October 22, 2026, and each entry links to that page with the date beside it. We print no averages and no “typical” figures, we did not ask any vendor for a quote, and where a page had changed or gone missing we say so rather than guessing. The list is alphabetical; Rivet sits where the alphabet puts it. The rules we hold ourselves to are on the editorial standards page, and if a linked page now shows a different number, their page wins.
| Vendor | Starts at | Billed by | Read |
|---|---|---|---|
| AgentZap | $109/mo + $499 setup | minutes (150) | 2026-10-22 |
| Goodcall | $79/mo | unique customers (100) | 2026-10-22 |
| Jobber Receptionist | $29/mo add-on | conversations (30) | 2026-10-22 |
| OnCrew | $49/mo | answered calls (100) | 2026-10-22 |
| Rivet App (us) | $79/mo | AI answering minutes (60), capped overage | 2026-09-25 |
| Rosie | $49/mo | minutes (250) | 2026-10-22 |
| SkipCalls | $29.99/mo | flat, fair-usage policy | 2026-10-22 |
| Smith.ai (AI) | $0 (25 calls), $150/mo | calls (25 / 75) | 2026-10-22 |
| Sophiie | $99/mo (last read) | calls (30) | 2026-08-26 |
What does each of the nine cost, and who is it for?
Nine short profiles, alphabetical. Each gives the published entry plan and what it buys, the kind of shop it fits, and the honest line about when it beats Rivet — or, for Rivet, when something else does.
AgentZap
AgentZap sells a configured AI receptionist with trade-specific setups, and its pricing page bills per minute: AgentZap Starter is $109/mo for 150 minutes, with $0.85/min past that, and every plan carries a $499 one-time setup fee unless you sign a six-month term on Professional, which is $295/mo for 450 minutes. There is no free trial listed; there is a 30-day money-back guarantee. Best for a shop that wants someone else to build the call flow and will stay long enough to amortise the setup. Pick it over Rivet App when you want a done-for-you configuration and a per-minute meter with a published rate, and you don’t need the quote, invoice and follow-up drafted after the call.
Goodcall
Goodcall meters neither minutes nor calls. Its unit is the unique customer, meaning one phone number, once a month, and Goodcall’s Starter is $79/mo for 100 of them (the page estimates that at about 150 calls), then $0.79 per extra customer; Goodcall Growth is $129/mo for 500 and Scale $299/mo for 2,000, with spam and wrong numbers excluded. You can build and test an agent free and pay only when you connect a number. Best for a shop whose regulars ring several times a month, because the second and third call from the same number cost nothing. Pick it over Rivet App when repeat callers dominate your line and you want the receptionist alone, without the booking-to-invoice loop behind it.
Jobber AI Receptionist
Jobber’s Receptionist is the AI add-on inside the Jobber field-service platform: $29/mo for 30 conversations, then $0.79 per conversation, and included on the Jobber Plus plan at $499/mo (help article updated July 9, 2026). A conversation is a call where the AI engaged the caller, or a text thread counted once per 24 hours; spam does not count. It needs a Jobber subscription underneath, so the cheapest answering Jobber is Core at $49/mo plus the add-on. Best for a shop already running quotes, scheduling and invoicing in Jobber, where a booked call lands straight in the account. Pick it over Rivet App when you are staying on Jobber anyway; the add-on is cheaper than a second system and already knows your customers.
OnCrew
OnCrew is a receptionist built for trades shops and billed per answered call: OnCrew Starter is $49/mo for 100 calls, Pro $149/mo for 400, Multi-Truck $349/mo for 1,000, and every plan charges $0.99 per call past the allowance. Only calls OnCrew actually answers count, alert texts are bundled (150 a month on Starter, then $0.05 each), and the trial is 14 days with no card. Best for a shop that takes short, numerous calls, since a two-minute call and a ten-minute call cost the same, and that wants the lowest published paid plan among the per-call vendors here. Pick it over Rivet App when your calls are brief and plentiful, you book jobs yourself from the summary, and you don’t need the paperwork drafted afterwards.
Rivet App (that's us)
Rivet App is the one on this list that keeps going after the call: it answers as your shop, triages urgency, books against your real calendar, then drafts the quote, invoice and follow-up as proposals you approve; nothing sends without your yes. Two flat plans: $79/mo (60 AI answering minutes, two people) and $199/mo (200 minutes, up to five people), overage $1.25/min capped at your plan price, so the worst month is twice the plan. Best for a one-to-five-person HVAC, plumbing, electrical or painting shop where the owner is the office; it is in early access. Pick something else when you already run a field-service platform you like, want a human voice on the line, or take long and many calls: a cheaper per-minute rate bills less in a 120-minute month, as the billing guide works out.
Rosie
Rosie is a standalone AI receptionist that bills per minute: Rosie Professional is $49/mo for 250 minutes and takes messages, sending appointment links by text; booking directly on your calendar and call transfers start on Scale at $149/mo for 1,000 minutes, and Growth is $299/mo for 2,000. The pricing page lists a 7-day trial but does not publish a rate for minutes past the allowance, so the cost of minute 251 is a question for sales. Best for a shop that mainly needs messages taken and callbacks captured at a low monthly price. Pick it over Rivet App when message-taking is enough, your volume fits comfortably inside 250 minutes, and you would rather pay less for a receptionist that stops at the message.
SkipCalls
SkipCalls is the flat-price option: SkipCalls is $29.99/mo, or $249.99 a year ($20.83/mo billed yearly), for AI call answering that books into your calendar, with a 7-day free trial. Its page sets no minute number and applies a fair-usage policy instead, which is the clause to read before you lean on it in a busy season, because a fair-usage policy is a ceiling without a figure. Best for a very small shop that wants the phone answered for the price of a lunch and will handle the follow-up itself. Pick it over Rivet App when price is the deciding factor, your volume is modest, and you don’t need urgency triage or anything drafted once the call ends.
Smith.ai (AI receptionist)
Smith.ai’s AI receptionist bills per call, and it is the one genuine free tier here: 25 real calls a month at $0, then Smith.ai charges $3.00/call. Smith.ai Pro is $150/mo for 75 calls at a stated $2.00/call, with $2.50 for each extra, and Enterprise at $500/mo covers 300. Known spam is filtered before it counts, and the same company sells human receptionists, so a person can take some calls if you want that. Best for a shop that wants to start free, or wants live and AI answering under the same roof. Pick it over Rivet App when you take fewer than 25 calls a month and want to pay nothing until you do, or when a blend of AI and human answering matters more than what happens after the call.
Sophiie
Sophiie is an AI receptionist for trades that also sends quotes and invoices and follows up on them. When we last read its pricing page, on August 26, 2026, it billed per call: a free tier with 25 AI actions and no calls, Starter at $99/mo for 30 calls and 300 texts, Pro at $299/mo for 500 calls, Max at $819/mo for 2,500. On October 22, 2026 that pricing URL redirected to the homepage, so treat those figures as the last published ones rather than current ones, and ask before you buy. Best for a shop that wants the receptionist and the quote-chasing in one tool and is comfortable with per-call billing. Pick it over Rivet App when you want quoting and follow-up bundled with the receptionist and can confirm a current price that suits your call count.
How do you compare them when the billing units differ?
Count last month's answered calls and total minutes, then price that month on each vendor's own unit: minutes at Rosie, AgentZap and Rivet, calls at OnCrew and Smith.ai, unique customers at Goodcall, conversations at Jobber. The ranking flips with call length, which is why no single vendor is cheapest for every shop.
We worked exactly that exercise for one illustrative month, 40 answered calls averaging three minutes, step by step and at each vendor’s published entry rate, in how AI answering services bill: minutes vs calls. Rivet is not the cheapest line in it, and the page says so. For the wider table, with live human answering services alongside the AI ones, see what answering services publish as their prices.
Who was left off, and why?
Vendors without a usable published price, vendors priced for bigger shops, and vendors not yet selling. Housecall Pro's CSR AI publishes no price; Avoca is quote-only. Sameday publishes “starts at” $449/mo for 500 minutes and positions itself at multi-truck operations. ServiceAgent lists $49/mo for 2,000 credits but its page says it launches soon. Dialzara, at $29/mo for 60 minutes, was read today and is in the billing guide; it missed this nine only because the nine were set before we read it.
Markate’s Kate, at $1 per call on top of a $49.95/mo plan, is a field-service add-on rather than a standalone receptionist, so it belongs in the Jobber alternatives comparison instead. Every one of those figures is in the same sourced data file as the nine above, with its page and date.
Common questions
What is the cheapest AI receptionist for a contractor?
By published entry price, read 2026-10-22: Jobber's Receptionist at $29/mo, but only on top of a Jobber plan from $49/mo; Dialzara at $29/mo for 60 minutes; SkipCalls at $29.99/mo with a fair-usage policy instead of a minute count; and Smith.ai's free tier, 25 calls at $0. Cheapest at entry is not cheapest in your busiest month — the overage terms decide that.
Is Rivet App the best AI receptionist for contractors?
It is ours, so weigh the answer accordingly. Rivet is the right pick when a one-to-five-person shop wants the call answered and the booking, quote, invoice and follow-up drafted for approval in one place. It is the wrong pick for a shop happy on a field-service platform with its own AI, a shop that wants a human on the line, or a shop whose minutes run long enough that a cheaper per-minute rate wins.
How were these prices verified?
Each figure was read from the vendor's own pricing page and stored with its URL and the date read; most rows were re-read on 2026-10-22. A build check fails if any row goes more than 90 days without being re-read, and a second check fails if a page's prose quotes a figure its row no longer contains. Where a page had gone missing, as Sophiie's had, the entry says so.
Do these AI receptionists book jobs, or only take messages?
It varies by tier. Rosie takes messages on its $49/mo plan and books on your calendar from Scale at $149/mo. Jobber's Receptionist books visits into your Jobber account. SkipCalls says it books into your calendar. Rivet proposes the booking against your real calendar while the caller is on the line and you approve it. For the others, check the feature list on the plan you would actually buy.
Why is Sophiie listed with an old price?
Because its pricing page, which published $99/mo for 30 calls when we read it on August 26, 2026, redirected to the homepage when we checked again on 2026-10-22. We kept the last published figure, labelled as such, rather than invent a current one.
Reviewed · vendor prices read 2026-10-22 · how we check
One of the nine, with the paperwork drafted too
Rivet answers as your shop, books the job and drafts the quote, invoice and follow-up for your approval. Early access, two flat plans.
Flat monthly pricing from $79/mo · overage capped at your plan price · no per-truck fees · cancel any time