First, the disclosure
We sell AI voice agents to Colorado businesses, so this page compares two competitors against us. We have tried to keep it useful anyway, the same way we would on a sales call: real numbers from everyone's published pricing, what each option is genuinely good at, and plain statements of who should not buy from us. If a number below has drifted since the verification date printed on the tables, the source links are at the bottom.
What Smith.ai and Ruby actually are
Smith.ai sells receptionist coverage priced per call - $300 a month for 30 calls on the entry plan, $2,100 for 300 on Pro, with overage at $8.50-$11.50 per call. It offers both human-first and AI-first answering at the same published plan prices, with add-ons like appointment booking and SMS notifications billed per call on top. It is a polished, national operation.
Ruby sells staffed receptionist time priced per minute - $250 a month for 50 minutes, up to $1,725 for 500, which works out to $3.45-$5.00 per receptionist minute. Its reputation is built on warm, professional human answering, and that reputation is deserved. It also sells website chat and bundles.
Both are message-and-transfer businesses at heart: excellent at answering as your business and getting the caller's details to you. Deep integration into your own booking systems and workflows is where per-call script-based services hit their structural ceiling.
The prices, side by side
| Smith.ai | Ruby | AI DEN (us) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $300/mo, 30 calls | $250/mo, 50 minutes | $197/mo, 200 minutes + $450 setup |
| Mid plan | $810/mo, 90 calls | $395/mo, 100 minutes | $397/mo, 500 minutes + $750 setup |
| Upper plan | $2,100/mo, 300 calls | $1,725/mo, 500 minutes | $797/mo, 1,200 minutes + $1,950 setup |
| Overage | $8.50-$11.50/call | Per-minute, varies by plan | $0.40-$0.50/min |
| Who answers | Human or AI, your choice | Human | AI, built from your calls, transfers to you |
| Booking | Add-on, per-call fee | Included scheduling on plans | Direct calendar/CRM booking on Full Reception and up |
| Setup fee | None | None | $450-$1,950 standard tiers |
| Trial | 30-day money-back | 21-day money-back (chat plans) | $350 21-day pilot, credited to setup |
Verified against smith.ai/pricing and ruby.com/plans-and-pricing on August 31, 2026. Plan names simplified; check each provider's page for current terms and included features.
Who should pick which
Pick Ruby if the human touch is the product you are buying. If your callers are anxious, grieving, or high-stakes, a warm trained person on the first ring is worth staffed rates, and Ruby does that as well as anyone in the country.
Pick Smith.ai if you want a big-vendor relationship with per-call predictability and a national footprint, and your volume fits inside its call buckets without much overage. Its per-call model is easy to budget at low, steady volumes.
Pick us if the math is about coverage hours and booking: you want every call answered around the clock, turned into a real appointment in your own calendar or field-service software, at a per-minute cost human services cannot structurally match - and you want to deal with the Colorado-based person who built your agent rather than a support queue. Our setup fee is real money, and it is the reason the agent knows your services, prices, and booking rules instead of a generic script.
Pick none of us if your call volume is a handful a week. At that volume every option on this page is overhead, and a disciplined callback habit is free.
The question to ask any provider
Whoever you are evaluating, ask one question: 'When a call ends, what exists in my systems?' A message in your inbox means you still do the booking work. An appointment on your calendar, a lead in your CRM, and a transcript you can read means the call was actually handled. Price per call matters less than what a completed call produces - a cheap answer that ends in a sticky note is more expensive than it looks.
Common questions
Are Smith.ai and Ruby bad services?
No. Both are well-run companies that do staffed answering well, and this page says so. The comparison is structural: staffed time costs staffed rates and scripts have depth limits. Which trade-off is right depends on your calls, not on anyone's marketing - including ours.
Why do you charge setup fees when they don't?
Because we build the agent from your actual calls - your services, prices, booking rules, transfer paths - and then test it against real recordings before it goes live. No-setup services onboard you into a standardized script instead. The fee is the difference between those two products, published up front.
Do you only serve Colorado?
Colorado is who we build for and where we answer the phone - Denver metro and the Front Range, with named service areas. That focus is deliberate. If you are elsewhere, both companies above serve nationally.