How to price an AI receptionist for clients: wholesale cost, retail benchmarks and margin math

The formula

Monthly margin = clients x (client price - variable cost per client) - fixed platform cost. Variable cost per client is the minutes the client uses times your all-in wholesale cost per minute, plus a phone number if the platform charges one. Margin percentage is margin divided by revenue.

Every example below uses the same stated assumptions so only the platform changes: 300 minutes a month per client (about 120 calls at 2.5 minutes), a client price of $199 a month (an assumed figure for illustration), one phone number per client (the Retell and GoHighLevel rows leave the number out; as of October 2026 their pages price one at roughly $1.15 to $2 a month, so subtract that per client there), and no allowance for support time, payment-processing fees, taxes or churn. Change the assumptions to match your clients; the formula does not change.

1. 1

   Estimate minutes per client

   Ask for last month's call count and average length. Multiply, then round up, because several platforms bill each call in whole minutes.

2. 2

   Add up wholesale cost per minute

   Voice platform, language model, speech and phone line. Vendor headline rates often leave one or more of these out.

3. 3

   Add the fixed platform fee

   Include the plan that unlocks reselling or rebilling, not just the cheapest tier.

4. 4

   Check it against retail benchmarks

   See what clients can buy direct from competing AI receptionists, then decide whether you are priced as a service or as a commodity.

5. 5

   Test at 5 and at 20 clients

   A price that works at 20 clients can lose money at 3. Decide the minimum client count that pays for the platform.

What competing AI receptionists charge, as of October 2026

Your client will compare you with the plans below. The range chart shows the lowest to highest published monthly plan for each; the table converts the per-minute plans to a price per included minute so they can be compared with wholesale cost.

Retail price per included minute

Price per included minute is the monthly price divided by included minutes, our own calculation that ignores overage. Goodcall prices per unique customer (for example 100 included on its entry plan) and Smith.ai per call, so neither converts to a per-minute figure without assuming call length.

Wholesale cost per minute from vendor pages

These are the rates a reseller building on each platform sees. They are not like for like: some include the model and voice, some do not, and only some include a client portal or white label. All are as of October 2026; verify on each vendor's site before quoting.

Worked margins at 5 and 20 clients

Applying the formula to the stated assumptions: 300 minutes and a $199 price per client, so $995 of revenue at 5 clients and $3,980 at 20. As of October 2026, the self-built row uses the Retell example rate plus US telephony ($0.125 a minute) with no fixed fee and no client portal. The Autocalls row is its $419 plan, overage past 3,500 minutes, and one $3.99 number per client. As of October 2026, the GoHighLevel row is the $497 Agency Pro plan plus voice engine, voice and inbound phone charges ($0.07165 a minute) and excludes model tokens, so its true margin is lower.

Our calculation from the published rates as of October 2026. The self-built row looks best on paper but gives clients no branded portal, billing or support layer, so you build or buy those. On GoHighLevel's $497 plan (as of October 2026), the break-even is about 3 clients at these assumptions ($497 divided by $199 less $21.50 of usage).

What the margin math leaves out

• Your time: onboarding, prompt changes and answering a client who dislikes a call. At 20 clients this is usually the real constraint, not platform cost.
• Churn and free trials: a month of unpaid onboarding changes the average margin per client.
• Calling-law work: outbound campaigns need consent records, suppression lists and disclosure, and a mistake costs far more than any margin. Our guide on white-label platforms compares what each platform enforces.
• Usage spikes: a client who suddenly uses 1,000 minutes breaks a flat price. Write an overage rate into the contract.
• Carrier fees and registration: texting adds registration and per-message carrier fees on most platforms. Pass them through or build them into the price.

Choosing a pricing model

A flat monthly fee with an included-minutes allowance is easiest for a small business to approve and is how the retail plans above are sold. Pair it with a stated overage rate. A per-minute pass-through with a markup is simpler for you but unpredictable for the client. A setup fee covers onboarding time and filters out clients who are not committed.

If you would rather not assemble the stack yourself, Lead Friendly's reseller programme is described at /partners, and plan details are at /pricing.