ComparisonsComparisons and alternatives
EzyConn vs Smith.ai: Pricing, Calls and Chat
Smith.ai bills every answered call, whether a person or its AI picks up, and sells website chat as a separate plan. EzyConn prices one workspace that covers the phone line, the chat and WhatsApp. We priced a small plumbing firm’s month on both.
The short answer
Smith.ai sells live receptionists, from $300 a month for 30 calls, and an AI Receptionist that is free for 25 calls a month, then $150 for 75 calls, with bigger bundles down to $1.60 a call. Its web chat is a separate plan. EzyConn prices the workspace: Starter at $25 a month covers 4 people, the website chat, WhatsApp and inbound calls on your own Twilio number, which Twilio bills directly. For the 220-call plumbing firm in our worked month, Smith.ai’s cheapest AI option comes to $431 and its receptionists to $2,100. With the plan and Twilio together, the same month comes to about $56. Checked on 3 November 2026.
Smith.ai is one of the best known names in small business call answering. It started with live receptionists and now sells an AI Receptionist beside them. People who search for a Smith.ai alternative usually want one of two things: the same calls answered for less, or one tool that answers the phone, the website and messages from the same information.
We read Smith.ai’s four pricing pages as they stood on 3 November 2026 and priced one made-up plumbing firm’s month three ways: Smith.ai’s AI, its people, and EzyConn on the firm’s own Twilio number.
Smith.ai in brief: one name, three front desks
Smith.ai, Inc. sorts its front desk into three kinds, which its pricing pages call AI-first, Hybrid and Human-first. AI-first is the AI Receptionist: software that answers every call, day and night, qualifies the caller, books appointments and routes calls to your team. Human-first is the virtual receptionist service: real people answering your calls around the clock, who Smith.ai says are based in North America. Hybrid puts the AI on every call and brings a live receptionist in for the calls you choose.
Its pages are written for businesses where a missed call is a missed client. Law firms get the most attention: the AI Receptionist page talks about matter types, consultations and retainers, and the receptionist add-ons include conflict checks. Home services, real estate, agencies and IT firms come next.
Smith.ai pricing, checked 3 November 2026
The AI Receptionist
The AI plans are sold by calls a month. The more you buy, the less each costs, and calls beyond your bundle cost a little more (Smith.ai AI Receptionist pricing).
| Option | A month | Per call | Each extra call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free, 25 calls | $0 | Free | $3.00 |
| Pro, 75 calls | $150 | $2.00 | $2.50 |
| Pro, 150 calls | $270 | $1.80 | $2.30 |
| Pro, 300 calls | $500 | $1.67 | $2.17 |
| Enterprise, 500 calls | $800 | $1.60 | $2.10 |
| Enterprise, 1,000 calls or more | Custom | Custom | Custom |
The Free tier is not a trial: it answers 25 live calls a month with every core feature, including Quality Studio, recordings and summaries, lead qualification and AI scheduling. A card is needed at signup, and overages on Free stay off until you switch them on. Pro adds dedicated onboarding and live support; Enterprise adds custom prompting, custom integrations and multi-location support. The AI plans run month to month with 30 days’ notice to cancel.
What counts as a call
Every call the AI answers counts towards your bundle by default. Calls from what Smith.ai says are more than 20 million known spam numbers are blocked before the AI picks up and do not count, and you can remove up to 10% of a month’s calls from your bill as spam. A call costs the same whether it lasts 40 seconds or 12 minutes. When the AI decides to pass a caller to one of Smith.ai’s live receptionists, there is no extra fee.
Live receptionists
| Plan | Calls a month | A month | Each extra call | Transfer destinations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 30 | $300 | $11.50 | 1 |
| Basic | 90 | $810 | $10.50 | 2 |
| Pro | 300 | $2,100 | $8.50 | 10 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Every receptionist plan includes lead screening and intake, 24/7 live staff, the first CRM integration and a dedicated number, or porting your own for free. Spam and sales calls are not charged, provided the lines you forward pass caller ID (Smith.ai receptionist pricing). Extras are priced per call: booking an appointment $1.50, text and email follow-up $0.50, recording and transcription $0.25, a dedicated Spanish line $1.00. New clients get a 30-day money-back guarantee, up to $1,000.
Hybrid and web chat
Hybrid starts at about $2.50 a call: the AI answers every call and a person takes the ones you choose, such as new clients. Smith.ai’s own example prices 300 calls a month at $771 to $1,131, against about $2,100 with a person on every call.
Its web chat is a separate product, staffed by live agents with AI answers built from your website: $10 a chat pay as you go, or $140 for 20 chats, $300 for 50 and $600 for 120 a month. Smith.ai bills only relevant chats, the ones where it collects a name and email and works out what the visitor wants.
How EzyConn charges, and why the price tags differ
EzyConn prices the workspace, not the call or the person. Each plan includes people, monthly messages and AI credits, each capped per plan, and the AI agent is in every plan.
- Free: free, no card, no end date. 2 people, 500 messages and 1,000 AI credits a month.
- Starter: $25 a month (₹2,499 at checkout). 4 people, 5,000 messages and 10,000 AI credits a month, with bookings in the chat and the phone line on your own Twilio number.
- Professional: $95 a month (₹6,499 at checkout). 11 people, 25,000 messages and 50,000 AI credits a month, and AI replies on email.
- Enterprise: talk to us.
Paid plans start with one month free, and annual billing saves 20%. Checkout bills in Indian rupees, which is why each dollar price has a rupee amount beside it. The phone line runs on a number in your own Twilio account, so Twilio bills the number, the minutes and its speech recognition to you.
So the headline numbers cannot be set side by side. Smith.ai’s unit is the answered call, with the line included. EzyConn’s unit is a monthly allowance of messages across every channel, with the line billed by the minute by Twilio. The fair test is one real month, priced both ways.
Where Smith.ai is strong
People behind the AI. Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist comes with its own bench of receptionists. Smith.ai says more than 500 of them, based in North America, sit behind the AI, and when the AI itself decides a caller needs a person there is no extra fee. For a firm that cannot risk a confused caller, that backstop is the product.
It acts on the call. The AI qualifies callers against your criteria, books appointments through Calendly and other schedulers on every plan including Free, and warm-transfers callers to the right person with the context attached. The receptionist plans add complex routing and taking payments through Square, PayPal or LawPay.
Testing before launch. Quality Studio lets you set goals, run simulated calls and fix gaps before a real caller hears anything, and test calls do not use your bundle. After launch, an AI Quality Index scores calls against your goals, and knowledge gaps come back as suggested answers.
Built for law firms and their tools. Native connections to Clio Grow, Clio Manage, HubSpot and Salesforce, plus more than 5,000 apps through Zapier and Make. The AI speaks English and Spanish with more than 12 voices, and a caller who talks for ten minutes costs the same as one who hangs up after one.
One plumbing firm’s month, priced three ways
Brightwell Plumbing & Heating is a firm we made up for this example. Four people work there: the owner and two plumbers, out on jobs most of the day, and an office manager at the desk from 08:00 to 16:00 on weekdays. The firm wants every call answered, so 220 calls a month go to whichever service it picks. Most are short: prices, availability, whether it covers a postcode.
The website chat gets about 140 conversations a month and WhatsApp about 90, mostly in the evening. About 35 of all of them need a person: an invoice query, a complaint, a tricky quote. Our assumptions: 3 billed minutes and 5 caller turns per call, about 6 messages per written conversation, and 4 messages from a teammate on each one handed over.
On Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist
Three Pro options could cover 220 calls. The 75-call option at $150, plus 145 extra calls at $2.50, comes to $512.50. The 150-call option at $270, plus 70 extra calls at $2.30 ($161), comes to $431. The 300-call option is $500 flat. So the cheapest is $431 a month, and with no yearly discount listed, $5,172 a year.
That covers the phone. Smith.ai’s staffed web chat would be a separate plan, from $140 for 20 relevant chats. How many of the 140 chats count as relevant depends on how many visitors leave a name and email, so we leave chat out of the Smith.ai total rather than guess.
On Smith.ai’s live receptionists
Basic includes 90 calls for $810; the other 130 at $10.50 each add $1,365, making $2,175. Pro includes 300 calls for $2,100, which is cheaper at this volume, so Pro it is: $2,100 a month, or $1,890 a month on a 12-month subscription. Booking appointments on the call would add $1.50 for each call where it is used.
On EzyConn, on the firm’s own Twilio number
The month fits Starter, $25 a month (₹2,499 at checkout), which covers 4 people: the whole firm. The phone line is a local number in the firm’s own Twilio account, and Twilio bills it separately at its published US rates, checked 3 November 2026:
| Line | The arithmetic | A month |
|---|---|---|
| Local phone number | 1 number × $1.15 a month | $1.15 |
| Incoming minutes | 660 minutes × $0.0085 | $5.61 |
| Speech recognition | 1,100 uses × $0.02 | $22.00 |
| Spoken replies | 264,000 characters × $0.0008 per 100 | $2.11 |
| Twilio for the month | Billed by Twilio to the firm | $30.87 |
Then the messages. Counted the cautious way, with every caller turn and every reply on a call counted, the 220 calls use 2,200 messages, the 140 website chats 840, the 90 WhatsApp conversations 540, and the team’s replies on the 35 handed over another 140. That is 3,720 of the 5,000 messages in the plan. WhatsApp has its own small print: from 1 October 2026 Meta gives each business number 1,000 free service messages a month (Meta WhatsApp pricing), and the AI’s WhatsApp replies here come to about 270.
So the plan is $25 and Twilio’s bill is about $30.87. Together that is about $56 a month for the phone line, the website chat and WhatsApp. On annual billing the plan is $240 a year, which with twelve months of Twilio makes about $610.
| Line | Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Smith.ai receptionists | EzyConn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheapest fit for 220 calls | $270 for 150 calls, plus 70 × $2.30 | Pro, $2,100 for 300 calls | Starter plan |
| Phone line | Included in the call price | Included in the call price | Your own Twilio number, $30.87 this month |
| Website chat and WhatsApp | Website chat is a separate plan, from $140 for 20 chats | Website chat is a separate plan, from $140 for 20 chats | In the plan: 3,720 of 5,000 messages |
| A month, billed monthly | $431 | $2,100 | About $56 |
| A year | $5,172 (12 × $431) | $22,680 with the 10% yearly discount | About $610 on annual billing |
Read the gap for what it is. Smith.ai’s price buys people on standby, transfers and booking during the call, and a service that runs the line for you. EzyConn’s price buys one AI agent that answers the phone, the website and WhatsApp from the same content, on a number the firm owns, with the firm’s own four people stepping in from one inbox.
Feature by feature
Smith.ai’s cells come from its pricing and product pages; EzyConn’s from its plan data.
Three conversations from a Tuesday at Brightwell
12:10, the website chat: “Can someone look at a leaking radiator this week?”
The office manager is on another line. The AI answers from the firm’s services page, then offers times from the connected Google Calendar: “We have Thursday at 10:00 or Thursday at 14:00. Which suits you?” The customer picks 10:00 and gives a name and email, the booking goes into the diary, and the customer gets a confirmation. Nobody at the firm typed anything.
18:20, WhatsApp: “Why is there a call-out charge on my invoice?”
The firm’s written answers explain the charge, but this customer wants to argue it and asks for a person. The AI offers one, and once they accept they see “Thanks, I’m connecting you to a support specialist now. Please hold for a moment.” The firm assigns to whoever was last active, so the office manager is notified with the whole conversation and the AI pauses. She replies from a Slack thread on her way home, the reply lands in WhatsApp, and one click hands the conversation back to the AI.
22:35, a call: “Water is coming through the kitchen ceiling”
Brightwell wrote its emergency advice and on-call number into its answers, so the AI answers the firm’s own number, tells the caller to turn off the water at the stopcock and gives them the number to ring. The call is saved as a conversation, with everything the caller said, so the owner reads it first thing.
Which one fits a small service firm
The phone, the website chat and WhatsApp on one small budget
EzyConnStarter covers 4 people, 5,000 messages a month and the phone line on your own Twilio number, priced per workspace.
Customers book a visit while they are typing
EzyConnBookings in the chat come from Starter: the AI offers free times from Google Calendar or Microsoft 365, books the slot and the customer gets a confirmation.
Calls answered at any hour from your own content
EitherBoth answer every call around the clock. Smith.ai trains its AI in Quality Studio; EzyConn answers from your website pages, files and written answers, the same knowledge as the chat.
The number stays in your own account
EzyConnThe line is a Twilio number you own. Twilio bills the number and minutes to you at its published rates.
Where EzyConn fits
EzyConn is an AI agent for customer conversations, a product of Omegaswift, for small and mid-size businesses that want an affordable way to answer every customer. The AI is in every plan. It answers from your website pages, from PDF, Word, plain text, Markdown and CSV files, from text you write, and from exact questions and answers you set, which it uses first. Each answer shows its source, and it answers in multiple languages.
Customers write on the website chat, WhatsApp and Telegram, and from Starter they can call your own Twilio number, where the AI answers with your greeting and one of six English voices and saves every call as a conversation. AI replies on email come with Professional. Your team replies from a shared inbox or from Slack threads that reply to the customer, and you choose Answer and hand over, Answer only, or People only.
The AI phone answering page has the Twilio setup steps, the bookings page shows the chat booking, and EzyConn for plumbers covers the trade. Every limit is on the pricing page. The quickest test is your own: put a free AI chatbot on your website, or start free and ask it the ten questions your phone gets most.
EzyConn vs Smith.ai: common questions
Is there a free Smith.ai alternative?
Yes. EzyConn’s Free plan covers 2 people, 500 messages and 1,000 AI credits a month, with the AI agent on your website chat, no card and no end date. The phone line on your own Twilio number comes with Starter. Smith.ai has a free tier too: its AI Receptionist answers 25 calls a month, with a card on file.
Smith.ai pricing: how much does it cost?
On 3 November 2026 Smith.ai’s AI Receptionist was free for 25 calls a month, then $150 for 75 calls, $270 for 150 or $500 for 300 on Pro, with Enterprise from $500. Its live receptionists cost $300 for 30 calls, $810 for 90 and $2,100 for 300, with 10% off for 12 months. Hybrid starts at about $2.50 a call, and staffed web chat runs from $140 for 20 chats.
What counts as a call on Smith.ai?
Every call the AI Receptionist answers counts by default. Calls from more than 20 million known spam numbers are blocked before it answers and do not count, and you can remove up to 10% of a month’s calls as spam. Both the AI and the live receptionists bill per call, not per minute.
Smith.ai AI Receptionist review: is it any good?
For firms that live on new client calls, it is thorough. It qualifies callers, books appointments, warm-transfers to your team, speaks English and Spanish, connects to Clio, HubSpot and Salesforce, and can pass a call to a live North American receptionist. Plan for the per-call price as volume grows, and for website chat being a separate plan.
Is EzyConn cheaper than Smith.ai?
For the 220-call plumbing firm in this article, yes. Smith.ai’s cheapest AI option for that month is $431 and its receptionists $2,100. EzyConn’s Starter plan is $25 a month. Twilio’s charges for the number, minutes and speech recognition add about $31, and the same plan also covers the website chat and WhatsApp.
Does Smith.ai do website chat?
Yes, as a separate product: live agents 24/7 with AI answers built from your website. It costs $10 a chat pay as you go, or from $140 for 20 chats a month, and only chats where Smith.ai collects a name and email count.
Can EzyConn answer my business phone?
Yes, from Starter. The AI agent answers inbound calls on your own Twilio number with your greeting and one of six English voices, answers callers’ questions from the same content as your website chat, and saves each call as a conversation in the inbox. Twilio bills the number and minutes to you directly. Bookings happen in the website chat or on WhatsApp.
Bottom line
Smith.ai is a serious, well-run answering service, and its AI Receptionist is unusual in having real receptionists behind it. If your calls are long, high value and need someone to act during the call, it is built for you. Its price climbs with every call, and website chat is a second plan.
For a small service firm where most callers want a price, an area or a time, and just as many customers write on the website or WhatsApp, EzyConn answers all of it from one set of content, in one inbox, on a number you own, starting free. Price your own month both ways before you decide.
The comparison hub covers the rest of the category. For other AI answering options, see EzyConn vs Rosie, EzyConn vs Dante AI and EzyConn vs Voiceflow.
Keep reading
- AI receptionists for small business: the 2026 guide
- An AI chatbot for plumbers
- AI voice agents vs chatbots: which one your business needs
- How a chatbot hands a conversation to a person
- Capturing website leads after hours
Pricing and features for EzyConn and Smith.ai were checked on each vendor’s published pages on 3 November 2026.