Price research
How Much Does an AI Receptionist Cost in Canada? (October 2026)
Published AI receptionist plans sold to Canadian businesses start at $18.99 a month (Cedri, 30 answered calls), and most entry plans we checked sit between $49 and $150 a month; Jodie's top plan is C$399 a month. Underneath all of them, the voice AI itself costs about $0.07 to $0.31 a minute on Retell AI's published rates, so 500 minutes of calls comes to roughly $35 to $155 in platform fees. A custom front desk agent costs more up front and is only worth it when it has to book into your real calendar, quote from your price list or update your CRM.
By Scott Holmes · Published October 6, 2026
Last updated: October 6, 2026. Prices change, so check each provider's page before buying.
What do AI receptionist apps charge in Canada?
We opened each provider's own pricing page on October 6, 2026 and copied the price as published. Sorted by the lowest paid monthly price on each page.
| Provider | Published price | What's included | Pricing model | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cedri | $18.99/mo, or $15.83/mo billed yearly at $189.99 (currency not stated) | 30 answered calls a month. Calls under 10 seconds are free. Extra packs: 10 calls for $12.99. | Monthly plan with a call allowance | cedri.ca |
| AnswerThePhone.ca | $49/mo Basic, $99/mo Pro, $299/mo Scale (currency not stated) | 150, 300 or 1,000 calls a month (about 1 minute average). No setup fee. | Monthly plan with a call allowance | answerthephone.ca |
| Quo (Sona AI agent) | $49/month Sona tier, plus a phone plan from $19 per user/month (USD) | 100 calls, then $0.65 a call. Every plan gets 10 calls free. | Credits per call, on top of a per-user phone plan | quo.com/pricing |
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | Starts at $55 (Canadian site, currency not stated) | "Answer and route calls on any phone system." Minutes not shown beside the price. | Add-on | ringcentral.com/ca |
| Goodcall | $79 monthly per agent Starter, or $66 billed annually (currency not stated) | Unlimited minutes. 100 unique customers a month, then $0.50 each. | Per agent, metered by unique caller | goodcall.com/pricing |
| AlmaTalk | CAD 97.97 per month Starter, CAD 247.97 Pro | 150 or 400 minutes, billed by the second. No setup or per-call fee. | Minute allowance | almatalk.ca |
| Jodie | C$99, C$199 or C$399 per month; Enterprise from C$1,000/month | Unlimited minutes, bookings, call transfers and Zapier listed on all three plans. 7-day free trial. | Flat monthly tiers | heyjodie.com |
| Nextiva XBert | $99/month (currency not stated) | Up to 100 interactions (calls, texts or chats), then $0.99 each. No contract. | Per interaction | nextiva.com |
| Aircall AI Voice Agents | $0.49/min pay-as-you-go; 500 minutes for $175; $100 per month minimum standalone (currency not stated) | Phone licences are $30 per licence/month billed annually, minimum 3, with 50 AI minutes a month included. | Per minute, plus per-licence phone system | aircall.io/pricing |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | $150/mo Pro for 75 calls; free plan $0 for 25 calls (currency not stated) | Pro works out to $2.00 a call. Free plan charges $3.00 a call after 25. | Per call | smith.ai |
| Mihron AI (Toronto) | $299 CAD/mo Starter, $499 CAD/mo Growth | 24/7 answering in English and French, booking, a fair-use minute allowance with overage. 14-day free trial. | Monthly plan, fair-use minutes | mihronai.ca |
Why are these prices so hard to compare?
Each provider meters something different, so the lowest sticker price isn't always the lowest bill:
- Answered calls: Cedri counts answered calls, but anything under 10 seconds is free, so hang-ups and wrong numbers don't use your allowance. AnswerThePhone.ca sizes its plans around calls of about one minute.
- Minutes: AlmaTalk sells minutes and bills by the second. Aircall charges $0.49 a minute pay-as-you-go for its AI Voice Agents.
- Interactions: Nextiva XBert counts a call once it passes 30 seconds, and a text or chat once the AI has replied three times.
- Unique callers: Goodcall's Starter plan has unlimited minutes but covers 100 unique customers a month, then $0.50 for each extra one.
- Flat tiers: Jodie lists unlimited minutes on every plan, so long calls cost you nothing extra.
Before you pick, pull last month's call log. Count the calls, the average length and the repeat callers. That tells you which meter suits you better than any feature list.
What does a voice AI minute really cost underneath?
Many AI receptionists run on voice platforms that charge by the minute. Two well-known ones publish their rates, so you can see the raw cost before anyone adds a dashboard and support.
| Platform | Component | Price as published | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retell AI | Voice infrastructure | $0.055/minute | retellai.com/pricing |
| Retell AI | Phone line (telephony) | $0.015/min | |
| Retell AI | Voice (text-to-speech) | $0.015/minute to $0.10/minute, depending on the voice | |
| Retell AI | Published range for AI voice agents | $0.07-$0.31 / min | |
| Retell AI | Phone number | $2.00/month | |
| Vapi | Platform hosting | Pre-paid, $0.05/min | vapi.ai/pricing |
| Vapi | AI model, transcription, voice | Models pass-through at cost | |
| Vapi | Vapi's own estimate for 1,000 minutes | $82–$129/mo |
Worked example: 200 calls a month
Say your business gets 200 calls a month and the average call lasts 2.5 minutes. That's 500 minutes.
- Retell AI: 500 × $0.07 = $35 at the low end of the published range, and 500 × $0.31 = $155 at the high end, plus $2.00 a month for the phone number.
- Vapi: 500 × $0.05 = $25 in hosting, before the AI model, transcription, voice and phone charges, which are passed through at cost. Vapi's own estimate of $82 to $129 for 1,000 minutes works out to about $41 to $64.50 for 500, if cost rises in a straight line.
So the raw voice cost of a 500-minute month runs from tens of dollars up to about $155. The rest of an app's price or a builder's quote pays for setup, the connections to your calendar, support, and someone keeping it working when a platform changes. That's fair to pay for. It just helps to know the split.
Should you buy an app or have an agent built?
For many small businesses the honest answer is the app. Here's how to tell.
An app is usually the better choice when
- You mostly need calls answered, a message taken and a text or email sent to you.
- Your booking is simple and the app supports your calendar.
- Your calls fit an entry plan, such as 150 calls on AnswerThePhone.ca Basic or 150 minutes on AlmaTalk Starter.
- You're happy to spend an afternoon setting it up yourself.
- You want to try one this week. Jodie offers 7 days free and Mihron AI offers 14.
Paying for a custom build that only takes messages would waste your money.
A done-for-you agent earns its cost when
- It has to book into the calendar or job software you already run, following your rules.
- It has to quote from your actual price list.
- Every call has to land in your CRM with the right fields filled in.
- Calls need routing by job type, service area or urgency.
- You want the accounts, prompts and workflows set up in your name.
When does a custom front desk agent make sense?
Most apps can book an appointment. Fewer can book it the way your business actually works.
For example, a two-truck HVAC company might only book furnace installs on weekday mornings, need an hour of travel time between jobs, and want every caller's address checked against its service area before a slot is offered. App booking settings rarely go that far. A custom agent built on Retell AI or Vapi, connected through n8n to the company's calendar and CRM, can follow those rules on every call.
Quoting is the second common reason. For example, a cleaning company with a price sheet by square footage could have the agent give a ballpark range on the call, then text a written quote for the owner to approve. Most off-the-shelf receptionists take a message and leave the quote to you.
The third is record keeping. If every call should create or update a contact in HubSpot or GoHighLevel, tag the job type and set a follow-up task, that's integration work, and integration work is what you pay a builder for.
If none of those apply, buy an app from the table above. If they do, our Front Desk Agent page explains what a custom build includes.
What do we charge?
We sell agents too. Our prices are below so you can compare.
A single automation, such as texting back every missed call, is from $499. A first custom agent, such as a front desk agent connected to your calendar and CRM, is from $995, fixed in writing before we start and typically live in about 2 weeks. Optional monthly support is from $99/month and includes 150 AI voice minutes a month plus normal text-model use, with any overage billed at cost. Before you pay anything, we build you a working prototype in 5 business days, free.
In the worked example above, 500 minutes a month would be 200 minutes over the included 300. At Retell AI's published range those 200 minutes cost $14 to $62, and overage is billed at what the platform charges.
That's more than the apps in the table, and for simple message-taking we'll tell you to buy one of them. See the full breakdown on our pricing page, or book a free 30-minute call and we'll tell you which way we'd go for your business.
How we collected this
- Pages: each provider's own pricing or product page, linked in the tables. No review sites or third-party price lists.
- Date: every page was checked on October 6, 2026.
- Currency: prices are shown as published, and nothing was converted. Where a page shows a plain $ without saying CAD or USD, the table says "currency not stated".
- Exclusions: if a page wouldn't load or showed no price, the provider was left out. RingCentral's dedicated AI receptionist pricing page showed no price when we checked, so we used the "Starts at $55" figure on its Canadian plans page, which doesn't list included minutes.
- Starting list: our list of providers began with an AI assistant's summary. It labelled several prices C$ or US$ where the provider's own page shows a plain $. We went with the pages.
- Retell AI's model prices: Retell also lists a per-minute price for each AI model. We didn't copy that list and used its published $0.07 to $0.31 range instead.
AI receptionist pricing questions
How much does an AI receptionist cost per month in Canada?
On October 6, 2026, published plans started at $18.99 a month (Cedri, 30 answered calls), and most entry plans we checked sat between $49 and $150 a month. Jodie lists C$99, C$199 and C$399 monthly plans, and AlmaTalk lists CAD 97.97 a month for 150 minutes.
Is it cheaper to pay per call or per minute?
It depends on your calls. Short calls suit per-minute or per-second billing, like AlmaTalk's. Long calls suit per-call or flat plans, like Smith.ai's $2.00 a call on its Pro plan or Jodie's unlimited minutes. Check last month's call log for the average call length before you choose.
What does the AI voice itself cost per minute?
Retell AI publishes $0.07 to $0.31 a minute for AI voice agents, and lists the parts separately: $0.055 a minute for voice infrastructure, plus the AI model, the voice and the phone line. Vapi charges $0.05 a minute for hosting and passes the model, transcription and voice costs through at cost.
Should I build a custom AI receptionist or buy an app?
Buy an app if you mainly need calls answered, messages taken and simple bookings. A custom agent is worth paying for when it has to book into your real calendar with your own rules, quote from your price list or update your CRM on every call.
Are these AI receptionist prices in Canadian dollars?
Some are. Jodie (C$), AlmaTalk (CAD) and Mihron AI (CAD) say so on their pages, and Quo says all its prices are in USD. Several others show a plain dollar sign without naming the currency, and we marked those instead of guessing.
Not sure if an app will do?
Book a free 30-minute call. If a $49 app covers what you need, we'll tell you which one to try.
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