AI Phone Ordering for Restaurants

What a restaurant phone agent handles

AI phone agents for restaurants manage three core call types: reservations, hours and location questions, and takeout ordering. Slang.ai is built specifically for restaurants and handles end-to-end reservation flows 24/7, integrates with OpenTable, SevenRooms, Yelp, and Resy, and routes VIPs straight to staff. When a guest's first choice is unavailable, it suggests reservations at nearby or sister locations.

Rosie books reservations, takes orders, and answers FAQs for restaurants. Its restaurant page states that 80% of callers hang up when they hit voicemail and move to the next restaurant that picks up. Rosie books appointments directly into your calendar on the $149 Scale plan and up, or texts a scheduling link on the $49 Professional plan (Rosie pricing).

Retell AI, Synthflow, PolyAI, and ElevenLabs Agents are voice-agent platforms that state restaurant or hospitality use cases. PolyAI lists booking and reservations as a named use case and cites '$250K from after-hours bookings' and '42,000 missed calls turned into bookings' from customer stories (PolyAI pricing). ElevenLabs describes a hospitality virtual receptionist that handles calls 24/7 to greet guests, answer common questions, capture reservation details, and route requests to the right department.

How much does AI phone ordering for restaurants cost?

Pricing splits into two models: per-location flat monthly fees and per-minute usage billing.

Slang.ai's Core plan costs $399 per location and includes reservation management, text links and confirmations, full reservation integrations, VIP call handling, and bilingual support. The Premium plan is $599 and adds 97 languages, custom branding, and reservation cross-selling. The source text does not specify whether published prices are monthly or annual rates.

Rosie's Professional plan is $49/month for 250 minutes. The Scale plan is $149/month for 1,000 minutes and adds calendar booking and warm transfers. The Growth plan is $299/month for 2,000 minutes and includes waterfall transfers and custom agent training. Overage handling is unknown; the FAQ asks 'What happens if I go over my minutes?' but no answer appears in the text.

Retell AI bills $0.07-$0.31 per minute depending on the LLM, text-to-speech voice, and add-ons selected. Billing covers the entire call duration including silence and hold time. Once a call is transferred to a human, the AI voice agent fee stops. Additional costs include $8 per concurrent call per month beyond the 20 free included, $2 per month for Retell phone numbers, and $10 per month for verified phone numbers.

PolyAI's Dialog-RSN-1 API tier is 2¢ per connected minute, billed per second, but excludes telephony and orchestration. Platform pricing is quote-only. ElevenLabs uses a credit system; the Free plan includes 10,000 credits per month, and paid plans start at $6/month (promotional $1 first month) for 30,000 credits. Specific per-minute or per-call rates for conversational AI agents are not explicitly stated in the pricing text.

Synthflow publishes one enterprise tier starting at $30,000 annually (Synthflow pricing). Final pricing depends on call volume, concurrency, telephony setup, integrations, security needs and launch support. A pay-as-you-go model is described for self-serve users, but no per-minute or per-call rate is published.

Per-location pricing vs per-minute

Slang.ai charges $399 per location. For a single-location restaurant, that's $399 monthly. For a five-location group, that's $1,995 monthly. The source text does not specify whether published prices are monthly or annual rates, so confirm the billing cycle with the vendor.

Per-minute platforms charge only for call time. Retell AI's $0.07-$0.31 per minute range means a 100-minute month costs $7-$31. A 500-minute month costs $35-$155. Billing continues during silence and hold time because the speech-to-text engine remains active.

Rosie's flat monthly plans include minute caps. The $49 Professional plan includes 250 minutes. The $149 Scale plan includes 1,000 minutes. The $299 Growth plan includes 2,000 minutes. Overage handling is unknown.

For multi-unit operators, per-location pricing scales linearly. Per-minute pricing scales with call volume. A restaurant group with five locations and 2,000 total monthly minutes would pay $1,995 monthly with Slang.ai (5 × $399) or $140-$620 with Retell AI (2,000 × $0.07-$0.31). Use our AI call center savings calculator to model your call volume.

POS and reservation system questions

Ask vendors which POS and reservation systems they integrate with directly. Slang.ai lists OpenTable, SevenRooms, Yelp, Resy, Tripleseat, and Perfect Venue. Rosie lists Zapier and Google Business Profile. Retell AI lists Make, Twilio, Vonage, Go High Level, n8n, Hubspot, SIP trunking, Telnyx, ElevenLabs, and OpenAI. Synthflow lists Cisco, Avaya, Genesys, RingCentral, Freshcaller, Freshdesk, Freshservice, Google Cloud, Zapier, HubSpot, Cal.com, GoHighLevel, and Salesforce. ElevenLabs lists Zapier, Stripe, Cal.com, Twilio, Zendesk, HubSpot, Salesforce, Gmail, Slack, Genesys, Vonage, Telynx, and Plivo. PolyAI does not name specific third-party integrations; the site refers only to pre-built connectors, a Connect Portal and open APIs.

If your POS or reservation system is not listed, ask whether the vendor can build a custom integration and what that costs. Slang.ai's Enterprise plan includes custom integrations. Synthflow's Enterprise plan includes CRM/calendar/contact-center integrations. Retell AI's Enterprise plan includes dedicated implementation support as an add-on.

Ask whether the AI can check real-time table availability and book directly, or whether it only captures details for staff to confirm later. Slang.ai's Core plan includes comprehensive reservation management with end-to-end reservation flows 24/7. Rosie's Scale plan and up book directly on your calendar; Professional only texts appointment links.

Which AI phone ordering platform fits your restaurant?

Choose Slang.ai if you run a restaurant or hospitality group and need AI phone answering that integrates with OpenTable, SevenRooms, or Resy and can handle reservations in multiple languages. Skip it if you need transparent per-minute or per-call pricing, or you operate outside the restaurant and hospitality industry.

Choose Rosie if you're a small service business that wants a low-cost, self-setup AI receptionist with bilingual answering and published per-minute plan tiers. Skip it if you need named compliance certifications, published overage rates, or direct CRM/calendar integrations beyond Zapier.

Choose Retell AI if you want a per-minute voice AI platform with no annual contract, published rates, and compliance certifications for healthcare or regulated industries. Skip it if you need a flat monthly subscription with predictable costs or a fully managed service where the vendor handles setup and ongoing changes.

Choose PolyAI if you're an enterprise team with developer resources that need high-volume, compliance-certified voice automation across calls, chat and messaging. Skip it if you're a small business wanting a published monthly price and a self-serve, ready-to-run receptionist without developer setup.

Choose ElevenLabs Agents if you need a scalable voice and chat AI platform with strong multilingual support (90+ languages) and enterprise compliance requirements (HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR). Skip it if you require transparent per-minute or per-call pricing for voice agents without calculating credit consumption, or prefer a flat-rate unlimited plan.

Choose Synthflow if you're an enterprise team that wants to automate high-volume phone calls with its own telephony control, compliance needs and CRM integrations. Skip it if you're a small business wanting transparent, low-cost monthly pricing or a published per-minute rate.

What to check before you buy

Confirm whether the vendor's published price is monthly or annual. Slang.ai's source text does not specify whether published prices are monthly or annual rates.

Ask about overage rates and what happens when you exceed your plan's included minutes. Rosie's FAQ asks 'What happens if I go over my minutes?' but no answer appears in the text.

Check whether the AI can transfer calls to a human when needed. Slang.ai's Instant Human Transfer connects guests immediately when they ask; if a question is not recognized, Slang AI automatically forwards to a human or texts a link with contact information. Rosie transfers calls to you or your team, warm or cold. Scale adds warm transfers where Rosie briefs your team before connecting and live call transfers; Growth adds waterfall transfers that try multiple numbers until someone answers. Retell AI agents can brief human agents, answer follow-up questions, and confirm they're ready to take over before connecting the customer. Once transferred, the AI voice agent fee stops. Synthflow has built-in human handoff when needed; agents can escalate to a human, transfer urgent calls to the right team, and handoff triggers can be controlled based on failed attempts or sentiment. ElevenLabs lets you define workflows, actions, and escalation paths so it handles real-world scenarios precisely. PolyAI's site says agents resolve conversations 'without escalation' and lists 'human-in-the-loop' as a governance feature; no specific transfer or takeover process is described.

Ask about language support. Slang.ai supports 97 languages with automatic detection and switching, even mid-call; bilingual support in Spanish on Core plan. Rosie speaks fluent English and Spanish on every call. Retell AI voice agents can hold conversations in multiple languages. Synthflow has multi-language support; one deployment handled English & Spanish calls. ElevenLabs supports 90+ languages with real-time language detection and switching. PolyAI's Dialog-RAVEN-3.5 is described as 'Multilingual by design'; no specific languages are listed.

Review compliance certifications if you handle payment card data or operate in a regulated industry. Retell AI lists HIPAA, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and ISO 27001. Synthflow lists SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR. PolyAI lists SOC 2+ Type 2, ISO 27001, PCI DSS, and GDPR. ElevenLabs lists SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR. Slang.ai lists SOC II. Rosie does not state compliance certifications.