The best Smith.ai alternatives
AI, live people, or both.

The best Smith.ai alternatives depend on why you are looking: a live receptionist service if you want people on the phone, an AI answering service with live transfers if calls must be put through, or an AI agent on a flat price if you want the bill to stop following your call volume. Here are six, ranked for the firms that usually shortlist Smith.ai, with who each one suits and how each one charges.

Start 7-day free trial See the list

7-day free trial · Cancel anytime

Every channel wired into one agent and out to the tools behind it: email, SMS, phone, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, LINE, Slack, Discord, X, Reddit, Bluesky, website chat, campaign sequences and follow-ups on one side; HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Google Calendar, Microsoft 365, Calendly, HubSpot Meetings, Zoho Bookings, Acuity Scheduling, Cal.com, Square Appointments, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix and Squarespace on the other.

Why firms look for Smith.ai alternatives

Smith.ai sells answered calls. On its own site it offers three ways to have them answered: an AI Receptionist, a Virtual Receptionist service staffed by live agents in North America, and a Hybrid in which the AI takes the routine calls and people take the rest. All three are priced by the call rather than by the minute, with warm transfers to your team, English and Spanish handling, lead intake, consultations booked on the call, and native connections to legal practice systems such as Clio, MyCase, Lawmatics and Filevine. It is built with law firms in mind, and it also lists home services, medical, real estate, finance and marketing agencies among the businesses it serves.

Most people who search for Smith.ai alternatives are not unhappy with the idea of it. They are checking whether the shape still fits. A per-call price suits a firm with a steady, predictable number of calls and a high value on each one. It suits a business less well when calls arrive in bursts, when many of them are short questions about hours, directions and prices, or when the same customers also write in by text, email and Instagram and the business would like one system answering all of it.

The alternatives fall into three groups. Live receptionist services, where a person answers every call and the bill follows the minutes or the calls they handle. AI answering services, which pick up with an AI, take messages, book appointments and, on many plans, put a caller through to you. And AI agents you set up yourself, which answer the phone from your own material and usually work other channels too. Which group you want depends on one question more than any other: when a caller needs a person, must the call be put through live, or is a message with the caller's details and a full transcript enough?

We have ranked six options against what Smith.ai buyers usually need: the call answered at any hour, the consultation or appointment booked while the caller is still on the line, intake taken down accurately, and a record of what was said. Bold Agent Kit is first because we make it, and because it covers those jobs for a flat $25 a month on your own number, with no per-call charge from us. It has no human receptionists, it cannot transfer a live call and it does not take payments, so if any of those matters to you, the live and AI services further down are the better fit, and we say so where they are.

Start 7-day free trial Bold Agent Kit vs Smith.ai

Per call, whichever modelSmith.ai prices its AI, Hybrid and live receptionist plans by the call, with included calls and a rate beyond them.

Live people or an AIThe first decision is whether a person must answer, or an AI that books and records is enough.

Transfers matterSome alternatives put the call through live. Bold Agent Kit takes the details and puts the transcript in your inbox.

Booking on the callMost of the options here can book before the caller hangs up; check which plan includes it.

Beyond the phoneIf customers also text, email or send DMs, count those channels before you choose.

Keep your numberEvery option here works with a forwarded number, so callers dial the one they always have.

Why people switch from Smith.ai

Four reasons come up, and each is a matter of fit rather than fault. They follow from how Smith.ai describes and prices its own service.

The bill follows the phone

Every Smith.ai plan, AI, Hybrid or live, is priced by the call: a monthly plan with a number of included calls, and a rate for each call beyond them. Its AI Receptionist also has a free plan with a small monthly allowance of calls and a per-call rate after that. For a firm whose calls are few and valuable, that is a fair way to buy. For a business whose phone rings all day with short questions about opening hours, parking and prices, each of those is a call on the plan, and a busy month is a bigger bill.

Useful functions are priced on top

On its live receptionist plans, Smith.ai lists add-ons priced per call, and others priced per month, such as additional transfer destinations. That lets a firm pay only for what it uses, which is the point of the model. It also means the cost of an answered call depends on what happened on it, and a business that wants several of those functions on every call has more lines to read on the invoice and more to forecast each month.

Customers do not only call

Smith.ai is built around the phone call, and its plans are described and priced that way. Plenty of businesses now get as many enquiries by text, website chat, email and Instagram as by phone, often from the same person on the same day, and want the same answers given on all of them. That usually means a second tool for the written channels, with its own set of answers to keep in step, or an agent that works every channel from one set of material.

Locations and control sit on the higher tiers

On the AI Receptionist, multi-location support and synchronisation, custom AI prompting by Smith.ai's technical team and unlimited custom integrations are listed on the Enterprise plan. That suits a firm that wants the work done for it. A business that would rather write its own receptionist, change a price the minute it changes, and run one receptionist per location without moving up a tier, looks at software it controls directly.

What to look for in a Smith.ai alternative

Three questions settle most of it. Answer them in this order and the shortlist usually writes itself.

01 / Who answers

A person, an AI, or both

Decide first whether a live person must be available on every call. If they must, or if calls have to be put through to your team while the caller waits, you want a live service, or an AI service whose plan includes live transfers. If a message with the caller's details and a full transcript is enough for the calls you cannot take yourself, an AI agent that answers and books covers everything else.

02 / How it charges

Per call, per minute, per caller, or flat

Answering services charge in four ways: per call, per minute of talk time, per unique caller, or a flat fee for the software with the phone and AI usage billed separately at cost. Take last month's call log and count how many calls there were, how long they lasted and how many different people made them, then read each pricing page against it. The model matters more than the headline figure.

03 / After the call

Booked, recorded and followed up

An answered call is only worth what happens next. Check whether the appointment is written into your real calendar on the call, whether you get a recording and a transcript, where the caller's details end up, and whether the same service can answer the text they send an hour later. For a law firm, check which practice software it writes to before anything else.

Six Smith.ai alternatives, ranked

Bold Agent Kit is first. After it, we ordered the list by how closely each option matches what Smith.ai buyers usually use it for: Ruby next, for firms that want live people on the phone; then Rosie and Dialzara, AI answering services with call transfers and Spanish on their plans; then Goodcall and My AI Front Desk, AI receptionists priced per agent and by bundled usage. Each entry says who it suits and how it charges, from its own website.

We make Bold Agent Kit, which is why it is first on this list. Every other entry is described from its own website, including when it is the better choice.

01 / Best for an AI receptionist on a flat price, on every channel

Bold Agent Kit

Bold Agent Kit is software for building an AI agent that answers your phone. Calls run on a number in your own Twilio account; the agent hears and speaks in real time, using the fastest model your AI provider offers so it does not leave silences, and answers from the knowledge base you gave it: your hours, prices and lead times as data points, your services, policies and intake questions as documents or Q&A pairs. When a caller wants a consultation or an appointment, it is given the slots that are genuinely free in your connected calendar, offers a few, and books the one the caller picks before the call ends. Every call leaves a recording and a transcript in your inbox, on the caller's contact record.

The same agent texts from the same number and answers email, a website chat widget and eleven DM platforms from the same material, so the caller who texts an hour later gets the same answers. It is $25 a month or $200 a year for the whole account, with unlimited agents, so a second office or a second practice area is another agent rather than another plan. The AI runs on your own key with one of sixteen providers, and your carrier bills the number and the minutes directly; nothing is charged per call, minute or message by us.

Choose it if an AI that answers, books and records is what you need, and you are happy to set it up yourself. It has no human receptionists, it cannot put a live call through to your team, and it does not take payments: when a caller needs a person, it takes their details and the transcript is waiting in your inbox. It connects to eighteen named tools, among them HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Jobber, ServiceTitan and eight calendars, and not to legal practice systems such as Clio. If live people are essential, Ruby is the better fit; if live transfers or intake written to your practice software are essential, Smith.ai itself, or an AI service with transfers such as Rosie, will suit you better.

Start 7-day free trial

Best foran AI receptionist on a flat price, on every channel

Pricing$25 a month or $200 a year, flat. Carrier and AI usage billed to you at cost

ChannelsCalls and texts on your own number, email, website chat, 11 DM platforms

Books on the callReal open slots from your calendar, and only a slot it offered can be booked.

Flat, whatever the volume$25 a month for the account, with no per-call, per-minute or per-seat charge from us.

One agent, every channelCalls, texts, email, website chat and DMs, answered from one knowledge base.

No people, no live transferWhen a caller needs you, it takes details and puts the transcript in your inbox.

02 / Best for live receptionists on every call

Ruby

Ruby is a live receptionist service. Its site describes call answering powered by people and enhanced by AI, and its pricing page says the communication is entirely live, with receptionists covering the phone around the clock, including after hours, at weekends and on holidays. They handle lead qualification and intake, schedule appointments, collect payments and make outbound calls, in English and Spanish, and a mobile app lets you manage it. Ruby also runs a managed live chat service for your website, sold on its own plans or added to a receptionist plan at a saving.

Where Smith.ai prices by the call, Ruby prices by the minute. At the time of writing, its published receptionist plans start at $250 a month, each plan a monthly allowance of receptionist minutes, and its live chat plans are priced by the number of chats a month. Calls reach Ruby by forwarding your existing number, and it offers local or toll-free number hosting, with calls and texts from your business number, if you want a new one.

Choose Ruby if the reason you bought Smith.ai was the people, and you want a person to answer every call rather than an AI. It is a service rather than software you configure, so you brief its receptionists rather than editing a knowledge base yourself, and the bill follows the minutes they spend on your calls. If an AI that answers and books is enough for most of your calls, the AI options on this list charge on different models, and it is worth reading them against your call log.

Visit Ruby

Best forlive receptionists on every call

PricingMonthly plans by receptionist minutes; live chat plans by number of chats

ChannelsPhone calls, managed website chat

Live peopleReceptionists answer every call, around the clock, in English and Spanish.

Chat as wellA managed live chat service for your website, alone or bundled with the phone.

Priced by the minutePlans are monthly allowances of receptionist minutes, so longer calls use more.

A service, not a buildYou brief the receptionists rather than configuring an agent yourself.

03 / Best for an AI answering service with live transfers

Rosie

Rosie is an AI answering service for small businesses. It answers calls around the clock, answers questions from what it has learned about your business, takes messages to the scenarios you set, filters spam and sales calls, and texts you the details of every call, with summaries, transcripts and recordings. It speaks English and Spanish on every call, lets you pick your area code, and has iOS and Android apps. There is no need to change your number: you forward your calls to Rosie and keep the one your customers know.

For a Smith.ai buyer, the part that matters is transfers. Rosie lists warm transfers, in which it briefs your team before connecting the caller, and live call transfers on its Scale plan, with waterfall transfers on Growth. Direct booking into Google Calendar, Calendly, Acuity and Appointlet is also on Scale and above; the entry plan sends appointment links by text. At the time of writing, its published plans start at $49 a month, each with a monthly allowance of minutes, with website chat at no added cost and website texting as an add-on.

Choose Rosie if you want an AI on the phone but still need the call put through to a person when it matters, in English or Spanish, and you like managing calls from your phone. Because its plans are measured in minutes, read them against the length of your calls as well as their number. It is a phone-first service; if your enquiries arrive by email and DM as well, count those before you choose.

Bold Agent Kit vs Rosie

Best foran AI answering service with live transfers

PricingMonthly plans by minutes of talk time; annual option; 7-day free trial

ChannelsPhone calls, website chat, caller texting; website texting add-on

Warm and live transfersOn the Scale plan and above, with waterfall transfers on Growth.

English and SpanishOn every call, on every plan.

Booking on higher tiersDirect calendar booking from Scale; appointment links by text on the entry plan.

Minutes are the meterEach plan is a monthly allowance of talk time, so long calls count for more.

04 / Best for AI answering with transfers, set up for you

Dialzara

Dialzara is an AI phone answering service. Its AI receptionist answers calls in your business's voice and tone, books appointments into your calendar, screens spam, qualifies leads, emails a detailed summary of every call, and transfers calls to the numbers and on the conditions you set. Its inbound plans list 24/7 answering, call routing, voicemail transcription, CRM and calendar integration, English and Spanish, and a custom AI voice. You forward your existing business number to it, or take a new local or toll-free number from Dialzara.

Beyond inbound calls, Dialzara sells an AI SMS agent that books appointments and qualifies leads by text, a website chatbot trained on your business, and outbound calling for follow-ups, reminders and reactivation, each priced as its own product; its pricing page lists the SMS agent as free with any inbound voice plan. At the time of writing, its published inbound plans start at $29 a month, each a monthly allowance of receptionist minutes with a per-minute rate beyond it, and every tier comes with seven days free and white-glove setup.

Choose Dialzara if you want an AI receptionist that transfers calls and handles Spanish, with a small plan to start on and the setup done for you, and you may later want texts, chat or outbound calls from the same vendor. Like Rosie, it measures usage in minutes, so a firm with long intake calls should read the tiers against its call log before it commits.

Bold Agent Kit vs Dialzara

Best forAI answering with transfers, set up for you

PricingMonthly plans by receptionist minutes, with a per-minute overage; 7 days free

ChannelsPhone calls; SMS agent, website chat and outbound calls as separate products

Transfers on your conditionsTransfer numbers and rules you set, with multiple extensions.

English and SpanishListed on every inbound voice plan.

More than the phoneSMS, website chat and outbound calling, each priced as its own product.

Minutes, then a ratePlans include a monthly allowance of minutes, with a per-minute rate beyond it.

05 / Best for no charge for calls or minutes

Goodcall

Goodcall is an AI phone agent built to answer and automate customer service and sales requests on every call. It handles appointments through a sync with your calendar or CRM, captures every inbound caller and shares the details by SMS, email, Google Sheets or your CRM, takes messages, and transfers calls to the people in your directory. Its site says you can launch a custom agent without an engineering team, and it connects to Zapier. You keep your number by setting up conditional call forwarding, so calls you do not answer go to Goodcall.

Its pricing model is the reason some Smith.ai buyers look at it. Goodcall says it does not charge for calls, call minutes or AI tokens. Each plan is priced per agent per month and includes a number of unique customers, meaning callers with distinct phone numbers who interact with the agent in a month, with a charge for each one beyond that. At the time of writing, its published plans start at $79 a month per agent, with a discount for paying annually. The tiers also differ in logic flows, team members, directory contacts and how long call history is kept.

Choose Goodcall if your callers are mostly the same people ringing often, or your calls run long, because neither the number nor the length of calls moves the price. It fits less well when many different people each call once, since each new caller counts towards the allowance. It is built for the phone call, so if customers also write in, plan for those channels separately.

Bold Agent Kit vs Goodcall

Best forno charge for calls or minutes

PricingMonthly per agent, with an allowance of unique callers and a rate beyond it

ChannelsPhone calls; caller details shared by SMS, email, Google Sheets or CRM

No charge per call or minuteIts pricing page says calls, minutes and AI tokens are not charged.

Unique callers are the meterEach plan includes a number of distinct callers a month, with a charge per extra one.

Transfers to your directoryCalls can be put through to directory contacts, who are told of any message.

Plan limits to checkLogic flows, team members, directory contacts and call history vary by plan.

06 / Best for AI answering bundled with texts and web chat

My AI Front Desk

My AI Front Desk now presents itself on its own site as Frontdesk, an AI customer platform that answers, qualifies, books and follows up across voice, text and chat. Its AI receptionist answers calls around the clock, books appointments against your live calendar, writes each interaction to its built-in CRM, and warm-transfers the call or sends a real-time alert with the transcript when a person is needed. The same plan includes a web chatbot, two-way SMS, ticketing and sequence automations, in more than 20 languages, and connects to other tools through Zapier. You forward your existing number to it.

At the time of writing, its published plans start at $79 a month billed annually, or $99 a month billed monthly, with a 7-day free trial and no card required, on a Business-in-a-Box plan that bundles a monthly allowance of voice minutes, chatbot conversations and text messages. Usage beyond the allowance is drawn from credits, with an automatic top-up. A Partner and Enterprise plan on custom pricing adds volume pricing, API access and custom integrations, and agencies can resell it under their own brand through a white-label programme.

Choose it if you want one vendor for calls, texts and a website chatbot on a single bundled plan, and you are happy to run your contacts in its own CRM. Because the meter is minutes and credits, read the allowances against your own call log. It is further from the Smith.ai model than the options above, so it suits a Smith.ai buyer who has decided an AI can take every call.

Bold Agent Kit vs My AI Front Desk

Best forAI answering bundled with texts and web chat

PricingMonthly plan with voice, chat and SMS allowances, then credits; 7-day free trial

ChannelsPhone calls, SMS, website chat; email and WhatsApp named on its site

Voice, text and chat in one planA bundled allowance of minutes, chatbot conversations and SMS.

Warm transfer or alertWhen a person is needed, it puts the call through or sends the transcript.

Its own CRMInteractions are written to a built-in CRM, with Zapier for other tools.

Credits beyond the planExtra minutes, texts and chats are drawn from credits with auto-reload.

Smith.ai alternatives at a glance

The same six, side by side: who each one suits, where it answers, and how it charges, as each vendor's own site describes it.

Tool	Best for	Channels	How it charges
Bold Agent Kit	an AI receptionist on a flat price, on every channel	Calls and texts on your own number, email, website chat, 11 DM platforms	$25 a month or $200 a year, flat. Carrier and AI usage billed to you at cost
Ruby	live receptionists on every call	Phone calls, managed website chat	Monthly plans by receptionist minutes; live chat plans by number of chats
Rosie	an AI answering service with live transfers	Phone calls, website chat, caller texting; website texting add-on	Monthly plans by minutes of talk time; annual option; 7-day free trial
Dialzara	AI answering with transfers, set up for you	Phone calls; SMS agent, website chat and outbound calls as separate products	Monthly plans by receptionist minutes, with a per-minute overage; 7 days free
Goodcall	no charge for calls or minutes	Phone calls; caller details shared by SMS, email, Google Sheets or CRM	Monthly per agent, with an allowance of unique callers and a rate beyond it
My AI Front Desk	AI answering bundled with texts and web chat	Phone calls, SMS, website chat; email and WhatsApp named on its site	Monthly plan with voice, chat and SMS allowances, then credits; 7-day free trial

Every service here except Bold Agent Kit is priced by usage of one kind or another: minutes, unique callers or credits. That is not a flaw, and for a firm with few, long, valuable calls it can be exactly right. Bold Agent Kit is $25 a month or $200 a year for the account, with unlimited agents and no per-call, per-minute or per-message charge from us; your carrier bills the number and the minutes, and your AI provider bills the model, both directly and at cost.

We checked each tool’s public website on 11 September 2026 for this page. Plans and features change, so check each vendor’s own site for the current detail. Product names are trademarks of their owners, and Bold Agent Kit is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.

The best Smith.ai alternative, by type of firm

If you chose Smith.ai for the people, stay with people. Ruby answers every call with a live receptionist, prices by the minute, and adds a managed website chat if you want one. If you chose it for the warm transfer, an AI answering service that includes transfers, such as Rosie on its Scale plan and above or Dialzara, which transfers on the conditions you set, keeps the call going to a person when it matters, in English and Spanish. And if you rely on its native connections to Clio, MyCase or another practice system, check that any replacement writes to yours before you move.

If you chose Smith.ai because you needed the phone answered and the appointment booked, and a live person was never the point, the question is how you want to pay. Goodcall charges per agent and by unique callers, with no charge for calls or minutes. Rosie, Dialzara and My AI Front Desk charge by minutes, with My AI Front Desk adding texts and web chat to the same plan. Bold Agent Kit charges nothing per call, minute or message: $25 a month for the account, with your carrier and AI usage billed to you at cost.

We would put Bold Agent Kit first for a business whose customers call, text, email and message, which wants every enquiry answered and booked from one knowledge base and one inbox, and which is comfortable with a message and a transcript in place of a live transfer. It can be answering your number this afternoon, the trial is seven days, and you can ring it yourself before you decide anything.

Start 7-day free trial Bold Agent Kit vs Smith.ai

Powered by your own keys

Each agent uses a model on your own API key, in the same way it sends from your own mailbox and your own phone number. Sixteen providers are supported: OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI and Mistral; DeepSeek, GLM, Kimi, Qwen and MiniMax; Groq, Together, Fireworks and OpenRouter; and Ollama or any other OpenAI-compatible endpoint you host yourself.

Bring your own credentials and you own the whole stack: your model provider, your mailboxes, your carrier, your CRM. We charge for the software and nothing else — no token markup, no metering, no credit packs — so your provider bills you direct at their rates, usually a few dollars a month per agent.

Your key, sixteen providersOpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, xAI, Mistral, DeepSeek, Groq, OpenRouter and more.

Or a model you hostOllama, vLLM, or any other OpenAI-compatible endpoint of your own.

The fast model on callsIt switches automatically, because a phone call cannot wait for a sentence.

No metering from usNo markup, no credit packs, no per-message billing. A busy month costs no more.

Keys stored encryptedYour credentials are yours; we never send them anywhere but your provider.

Sixteen model providers, on your own key

OpenAI
Anthropic
Gemini
xAI
Mistral
DeepSeek
GLM
Kimi
Qwen
MiniMax
Groq
Together
Fireworks
OpenRouter
Ollama
Any OpenAI API

One plan. Everything in it. Monthly or yearly.

No seat tiers, no credit packs, no per-agent or per-channel pricing, and nothing held back behind an enterprise call.

Agents
How many	Unlimited — one per business, brand or job
Shared brain	The same identity, instructions and knowledge on every channel
Knowledge base	Documents, Q&A pairs, data points and pages of your own site
Isolation	One agent's content is never used to reply for another
Client seats	Invite a client into one agent, with their own login
Channels
Email	As many mailboxes per agent as you connect, rotated by campaigns
Text messages	Nine providers — Twilio, Telnyx, SimpleTexting, Plivo, Vonage, Sinch, Bandwidth, MessageBird, ClickSend
Phone calls	Answering and dialling, with recordings and transcripts
Transcription	Google, or Deepgram nova-3 on your own key
Voices	Google, Amazon Polly and ElevenLabs, or your own ElevenLabs / Fish Audio account
Voice cloning	Record a voice in the browser and clone it on your ElevenLabs or Fish Audio key
Website chat	A widget on your site with your colour, image and greeting
Social DMs	Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, LINE, Viber, Slack, Discord, Bluesky, Reddit, X
Inbox
One list	Every channel's conversations together, newest first, tagged by channel
Filters	By channel, by mailbox or number, or by agent
Takeover	Reply yourself and the agent stands down on that thread
Hand back	Return the thread to the agent when you are done
Campaigns
Multichannel sequences	Email, text and call steps in one campaign, each with its own timing
Send conditions	Send a step only if they opened, did not open, clicked or did not click
Schedule	The days, hours and time zone anything may be sent
Stop rules	A reply, a booking or an opt-out on any channel ends the sequence
Pacing	Per-mailbox and per-number hourly limits, pausable and resumable
Review before start	The full plan is shown; a campaign sends nothing until you start it
Templates	Email, text and call scripts, saved once and reused
Analytics
Funnel	Reached, replied, visited, converted, plus value won and time to convert
By channel	Where each person started, and the channel they converted on
Pages	Which pages known people read, and how many of them converted
Journeys	One row per person: every message, visit, call and booking in order
Goals	A page rule or a manual "won", each with a dollar value
Triggers	A known person returns to a page — notify you, or send a follow-up
Open and click tracking	Recorded per campaign and added to that person's history
Integrations
Calendars	Google, Microsoft 365, Calendly, Cal.com, Acuity, Zoho, Square, HubSpot Meetings
CRMs and commerce	HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Stripe, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix, Squarespace
Booking	Real open slots offered, and only an offered slot can be booked
CRM import	Import a segment of customers into a contact list
Deliverability and compliance
Mailbox warm-up	Ramped sending across the network, with spam rescue and replies
Health score	SPF, DKIM, DMARC, bounce rate and inbox placement, with reasons
Auto-rest	A failing address is removed from rotation automatically
Unsubscribes	One click, honoured automatically, including on queued mail
Reply limits	One reply per thread, per-sender daily and per-channel hourly caps
Filtering	Bounces, out-of-office and no-reply addresses ignored
List building
Contact extraction	Emails, phone numbers and social profiles, on any site. Unlimited.
Deep scan	Follows the pages of a domain most likely to carry contact details
Domain queue	Load a CSV of sites and work through them one at a time
Contacts and lists	Unlimited, by email or phone, with CSV import and export
AI
Your own key	Sixteen providers, including any OpenAI-compatible endpoint you host
What we charge for AI	Nothing — no markup, no metering, no credit packs
On calls	Uses your provider's fastest model automatically
Account
Platforms	Chrome side panel and web dashboard on one login
Members' forum	Six boards, visible only once you are signed in
Referral program	$50 a year per referral ($5 a month), recurring for the life of the account
Support	support@boldagents.co

Monthly Annual save 33%

$25/ month

$200/ year

Billed monthly. No add-ons, no seat tiers. Cancel anytime.

$16.67 a month, billed once a year. No add-ons, no seat tiers. Cancel anytime.

Start 7-day free trial Start 7-day free trial

Before you switch

What is the best Smith.ai alternative?

It depends on what you use Smith.ai for. For live people on every call, Ruby is the closest match: a live receptionist service priced by the minute. For an AI that answers and still puts calls through, Rosie on its Scale plan and above, or Dialzara, both of which handle English and Spanish. For AI answering with no charge per call or minute, Goodcall, which prices per agent and by unique callers. For one AI agent that answers calls, texts, email, website chat and DMs and books on the call for a flat $25 a month, Bold Agent Kit, as long as you do not need a live transfer.

Why do people switch from Smith.ai?

Usually because of fit rather than fault. Smith.ai prices every plan, AI, Hybrid or live, by the call, so the bill follows call volume, and on its live receptionist plans some functions are priced per call on top. Its plans are built around the phone, so a business whose customers also text, email and message needs something for those channels as well. And on its AI Receptionist, multi-location support and custom prompting sit on the Enterprise plan. Businesses that want a flat price, every channel from one place, or direct control over the agent look elsewhere.

How is Bold Agent Kit different from Smith.ai?

Smith.ai is a service: an AI, live North American receptionists, or a hybrid of the two, with warm transfers and legal intake, priced by the call. Bold Agent Kit is software you set up yourself: one AI agent on your own Twilio number and your own AI key, answering calls, texts, email, website chat and DMs from one knowledge base and booking real calendar slots, for $25 a month with no per-call charge from us. It has no human receptionists, cannot transfer a live call and does not take payments. The full side-by-side is on our Bold Agent Kit vs Smith.ai page.

Can I keep my phone number if I switch from Smith.ai?

Yes, with any of the options here. Smith.ai works by forwarding your lines to it, and every alternative on this list also takes forwarded calls. With Bold Agent Kit you forward your existing number to a number in your own Twilio account, or port the number into Twilio if you would rather hold it there, and switch answering on. Then load your hours, prices and intake questions into the knowledge base, connect your calendar, and import your contacts from a CSV or a segment of your CRM. Ring the agent yourself before you move the forwarding across.

Which Smith.ai alternatives use live receptionists?

Of the options here, Ruby is the live receptionist service: people answer every call around the clock, in English and Spanish, and it runs a managed website chat as well. The others are AI services. Rosie and Dialzara put a caller through to your team when needed, Goodcall transfers to directory contacts, and My AI Front Desk warm-transfers or sends an alert. Bold Agent Kit is AI only and does not transfer a live call; it takes the caller's details and puts the transcript in your inbox. If a human voice on every call is the requirement, choose a live service.

Can an AI receptionist handle legal intake?

It can take the details down, if you tell it what to ask. With Bold Agent Kit you write the intake questions into its instructions and knowledge base, and the agent asks them, books the consultation into your calendar, and keeps the recording and transcript on the caller's contact record. What it cannot do is decide whether you take the matter, and it does not write to practice systems such as Clio, because it does not connect to them. Smith.ai lists intake synced to legal systems such as Clio, MyCase and Filevine; if that is essential to you, weigh it first.

What does Bold Agent Kit cost compared with a per-call service?

Bold Agent Kit is $25 a month or $200 a year for the whole account, with unlimited agents and a 7-day free trial. We charge nothing per call, minute, message or seat. The AI runs on your own key with one of sixteen providers, and your carrier bills you for the number and the minutes at its own rates, both at cost. A per-call service bills by the number of calls answered, so whether one costs more than the other in a given month depends on your volume. Read each vendor's pricing page against last month's call log.

What happens when a caller needs a person and Bold Agent Kit is answering?

It does what you told it to. You name the situations in its instructions, an urgent matter, a complaint, an existing client with a problem, and when a call matches, it takes the caller's name, number and reason, tells them what will happen next, and puts the recording and transcript in your inbox with those details, tagged as a call. It cannot put the live call through. The same number texts, so you can reply to the caller in that thread yourself, and the agent stands down while you do.

Other roundups

The best alternatives to the other tools people shortlist for the same jobs.

Ring it before you decide.

Start the 7-day trial, load your hours, prices and intake questions, connect your calendar and a Twilio number, and call it yourself. If it answers the way you would, move the forwarding.

Start 7-day free trial See pricing