AI call center savings calculator
Short answer
Enter your monthly calls, average call length and the share you expect AI to resolve. The calculator prices that volume on each vendor’s cheapest published plan and compares it with staff time at BLS median wages. A full-time receptionist at the median wage costs about $3,168 a month before benefits.
At the default inputs: the bill for 300 calls a month
300 calls of 3 minutes, priced on each vendor’s cheapest published plan. Cheapest first.
Vapiusage, platform fee only$45+
Retell AIusage, rate range$63–$279
Bland AIusage, rate range$126
GoodcallGrowth$129
RosieScale$149
UpfirstPro$160
My AI Front DeskBusiness-in-a-Box$274
DialzaraBusiness Elite$349
Smith.ai AI ReceptionistEnterprise$500
Rubyover planAbove published plans
$3,168 a month for one full-time receptionist at the BLS median wage, before benefits. Off this scale.
Same volume, every vendor
| Vendor | Plan used | AI bill / month | Staff time still needed | Total |
|---|
Assumptions you should know
- New to the category? Start with what an AI call center is, how it works and what it costs.
- Staff cost covers only the minutes spent on calls the AI doesn’t resolve. A real front desk also pays for idle time between calls, so savings against a salaried person can be larger than shown.
- “Overhead” is your own estimate for benefits, payroll taxes and management time. BLS wages exclude these.
- Goodcall counts unique callers per month; we treat every call as a new caller, the most expensive case.
- Smith.ai lists Pro as $150/mo at $2.00/call (~75 calls) and Enterprise as $500/mo at $1.67/call (~300 calls); we model calls beyond those counts at the same per-call rate.
- Rosie does not publish an overage rate on the pages we read; volumes beyond the top allowance show as "over plan".
- Ruby is a live human receptionist service; overage rate not captured; volumes beyond 500 minutes show as "over plan".
- Vapi publishes $0.05/min hosting; model, voice and telephony costs are billed on top, so this is a floor, not a total.
- Retell publishes a $0.07–$0.31/min range depending on the voice, model and telephony you choose.
Calculator questions
Where do the default wages come from?
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook: median pay of $18.27 an hour for receptionists and $21.53 an hour for customer service representatives (2025 data). These are wages only; benefits, payroll taxes, training and management time are extra, so use the overhead field.
Why does the AI cost jump at some volumes?
Most vendors sell plans with an allowance of minutes, calls or callers. The calculator picks the cheapest published plan for your volume, including overage where the vendor publishes an overage rate. When a vendor does not publish one, volumes above its top plan show as above published plans.
Does the calculator assume AI handles every call?
No. You set the share of calls the AI resolves without a person. The remaining calls still need staff time, which the calculator adds back at your hourly rate.
Is a per-minute platform cheaper than a receptionist product?
Often on paper, but per-minute platforms like Vapi and Retell AI publish a platform rate that may exclude model, voice or telephony charges, and they need someone to build and maintain the agent. Treat their figures as a floor.
Where these facts come from
- BLS: Receptionists (pay, outlook) (bls.gov)
- BLS: Customer Service Representatives (bls.gov)
- Dialzara pricing (dialzara.com)
- Rosie pricing (heyrosie.com)
- My AI Front Desk pricing (myaifrontdesk.com)
- Upfirst pricing (upfirst.ai)
- Smith.ai AI Receptionist pricing (smith.ai)
- Goodcall pricing (goodcall.com)
- Ruby pricing (ruby.com)
- Retell AI pricing (retellai.com)
- Bland AI pricing (bland.ai)
- Vapi pricing (vapi.ai)