Free AI receptionist: plans, trials and limits in 2026
A free AI receptionist means one of four things: a free plan with a small monthly cap, a trial that ends after 7 to 30 days, starter credit on a build-it-yourself platform, or open-source code you host yourself. As of October 2026, we found two free plans that answer real calls at no cost: Smith.ai (25 calls a month) and HireJosie (15 minutes a month).
Checked October 9 and 10, 2026 on each vendor’s own pricing, FAQ or signup page, in US dollars. LobbyStack wrote this guide and sells an AI receptionist. Our Free plan gives you 30 voice minutes a month and a US or Canadian number free for 14 days. After 14 days, the number stops answering unless you choose a paid plan.
What does “free” mean for an AI receptionist?
Vendors use “free” for four different offers. For each one, ask two questions: can it answer calls to your real business number, and for how long?
| Kind of free | What you get | What ends it | Examples (October 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free plan | A small allowance every month, with no end date | Using up the month’s calls or minutes | Smith.ai, HireJosie, LobbyStack |
| Free trial | A paid plan for a set number of days | The trial clock, or the trial’s minutes | Upfirst, ElevenLabs Reception, ModPhone |
| Starter credit | A few dollars of usage on a voice AI platform | The credit balance | Vapi ($5), Retell AI ($10) |
| Open source | Code you run on your own server | Nothing, but your providers bill you | LobbyStack (MIT license) |
A fifth kind comes bundled with software you already pay for. Quo’s Sona agent includes 1,000 credits a month, about 10 calls, but only on a paid Quo plan, which starts at $19 per user a month ($15 billed annually).
Which AI receptionists have a free plan?
Five vendors we checked let you start at $0 without a trial clock. Two of them, Smith.ai and HireJosie, answer real calls at no charge. ServiceAgent bills every AI minute, and the other two are test environments.
| Vendor | Free plan | Answers real calls? | Paid plan after (as of October 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai | 25 real calls a month, plus 25 test and 50 simulated calls | Yes | $3.00 per extra call; Pro is $150 for 75 calls |
| HireJosie | 15 AI minutes a month and 1 number, no card | Yes, then voicemail after 15 minutes | Pro is $49 for 500 minutes, then $0.25 a minute |
| ServiceAgent | Launch plan: $0 a month, no included credits | Yes, paid per credit | About $0.30 to $0.60 per AI voice minute; Core is $49 |
| Goodcall | A demo agent you build and test for free | No; you start paying when you connect a number | Starter is $79 for 100 unique callers |
| LobbyStack (ours) | 30 voice minutes a month, no card | Yes, for 14 days on a free US or Canadian number | Starter is $30 for 150 minutes, then $0.20 a minute |
- Smith.ai has the largest ongoing free allowance we found. Its free plan includes scheduling through tools like Calendly, call routing, recordings, transcripts and summaries. It leaves out live phone, email and chat support and dedicated onboarding. Each call past 25 costs $3.00.
- HireJosie puts a dedicated number, Google Calendar booking and warm transfers on its free plan. Fifteen minutes covers about five 3-minute calls, and then calls switch to voicemail mode. You keep the number only if it gets at least 3 unique customer calls a month, and the free plan carries HireJosie branding.
- ServiceAgent sells field-service software with a receptionist inside, alongside CRM, booking, invoicing and reviews. Its Launch plan has no monthly fee, but each AI voice minute uses 15 credits, and credits cost $0.02 to $0.04 each.
- Goodcall has no free trial. You build and test a demo agent for free and pay once you connect a phone number.
- LobbyStack Free answers real calls on a US or Canadian number for 14 days. Details below.
Some lists and chatbot answers name other free plans. We included only offers we could confirm on the vendor’s own site. RingCentral’s pages, for example, show a 14-day trial and a $49 plan, with no free tier.
Which AI receptionists offer a free trial?
Most of the AI receptionists we checked offer a trial instead of a free plan. The trials we found run 7 to 30 days, and some also cap minutes. ModPhone’s 30 days is the longest stated trial. Upfirst, ElevenLabs Reception, CloudTalk, RingCentral and Nextiva each give 14.
| Vendor | Trial | Free usage | Card needed? | Paid entry plan (as of October 2026) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ModPhone | 30 days | 100 voice minutes, 100 texts, 1 US number | No | From $49 a month |
| Upfirst | 14 days | Real calls you forward to it | No | $24.95 a month for 30 calls |
| ElevenLabs Reception | 14 days | 30 credits (up to 30 phone minutes), 1 number | No | $29 a month for 75 credits |
| CloudTalk | 14 days | 50 AI minutes in your first month | No | $99 a month for 200 minutes |
| RingCentral AI Receptionist | 14 days | Not stated | Not stated | $49 a month for 100 minutes |
| Nextiva XBert | 14 days, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee | Not stated | Not stated | $99 a month for 100 interactions |
| PhoneFlow | No length stated | 200 minutes | No | $0.25 a minute, no monthly minimum |
| AI-Receptionist.com | 7 days | 30 live minutes | No | $14 a month for 75 minutes |
| Rosie | 7 days | Not stated | No | $49 a month for 250 minutes |
| Dialzara | 7 days | Not stated | Not stated | $29 a month for 60 minutes |
| My AI Front Desk | 7 days | Not stated | Not stated | $99 a month for 200 minutes |
| Zoom AI Receptionist | “Try for free,” no length stated | Not stated | Not stated | $29.99 a month for 100 minutes |
“Not stated” means the vendor’s page didn’t say when we checked. CloudTalk lists its AI receptionist as an add-on under its phone-system seat plans, and Quo’s 7-day Sona trial needs a paid Quo plan first.
What to test during a free trial
You learn the most from a trial that runs on real calls. Before the clock ends:
- Forward a slice of real calls. Send overflow or after-hours calls from your business number to the trial number. Our guide on how to forward business calls covers the carrier settings.
- Call it with your three hardest questions. Ask for a price range, report an emergency and ask to move an appointment.
- Check where the work lands. Look for the booking in your calendar and the message in your inbox, and listen to what the caller hears when a transfer doesn’t connect.
- Read the billing terms. Note the unit (per call, per minute or per unique caller) and what happens past the allowance. Rosie, for example, moves you up to its next plan instead of charging per extra minute.
Can you build a free AI receptionist yourself?
You can, until the credit runs out. Voice AI platforms give new accounts starter credit: Vapi gives $5 and Retell AI gives $10 (checked October 10, 2026). Both bill per minute after that.
- Vapi charges $0.05 a minute for hosting, plus the language model, speech and voice providers at cost. If you connect a Twilio number, Twilio bills its minutes too. $5 covers 100 minutes of the hosting fee alone, before those other charges. The pay-as-you-go plan includes one Vapi phone number.
- Retell AI lists voice agents at $0.07 to $0.31 a minute and phone numbers at $2 a month. $10 covers about 32 to 143 minutes, depending on the models you pick.
These platforms give you a voice agent. You build the rest: prompts, calendar booking, call logs, alerts and transfer rules, usually wired together with webhooks or an automation tool. That suits you if you like building. If you need the phone answered this week, it’s slow.
Is an open-source AI receptionist free?
You get the code for free and pay the running costs yourself. LobbyStack’s code is MIT-licensed, so you can self-host it with Docker Compose or a Railway template and pay LobbyStack nothing. A self-hosted install has no LobbyStack plan limits on minutes.
You still pay for:
- a server for the app, database and background worker
- Twilio phone numbers and call minutes
- OpenAI usage for GPT-Live, the voice model that talks to callers
- the hours it takes you to deploy, update and watch it
Twilio and OpenAI process the call audio while a call is live, on a self-hosted install too. Self-hosting suits a business with a technical person on staff, or an agency that wants to run receptionists for clients. The self-hosted AI receptionist page walks through the setup, and our list of open-source AI phone answering services compares other projects.
What does LobbyStack’s Free plan include?
LobbyStack’s Free plan gives you 30 voice minutes a month and a US or Canadian number free for 14 days. It needs no card. For those 14 days, the number answers real calls, and transfers go only to the mobile number you verified. After that, the number stops answering unless you choose Starter or Pro, and you keep testing in your browser. The plan itself doesn’t expire.
Use the 30 minutes to:
- write your greeting, rules and transfer policy in plain language, then hear the receptionist follow them
- load your website and FAQs (up to 1 MB of text on Free) and ask what your callers ask
- test a caller who speaks another language: calls open in your default language, and the receptionist switches to the caller’s language, with 70+ languages through OpenAI GPT-Live
After you use the 30 minutes, test calls stop until the next month or until you upgrade. Free keeps call records for 30 days.
| LobbyStack plan | Price per month | Included | After that |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 30 voice minutes, US or Canadian number free for 14 days | Calls stop until next month |
| Starter | $30, or $24 billed annually | 150 minutes, one business number | $0.20 a minute |
| Pro | $100, or $80 billed annually | 500 minutes, one business number | $0.18 a minute |
No plan has a setup fee. Starter and Pro answer calls on a number in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia or New Zealand. You can forward your existing number for every call, or only for overflow or after-hours calls. The receptionist books appointments into Google Calendar, transfers urgent calls to one number and saves a summary, transcript and recording of every call. Calls under 10 seconds and calls the receptionist ends as spam don’t count toward your minutes.
When does a free AI receptionist stop being enough?
A free option stops being enough when it can’t take the calls you’d otherwise miss. One of four limits decides it:
- It can’t answer your real number, or not for long. Demo agents, such as Goodcall’s, prove the voice and the rules but don’t cover your line. LobbyStack Free covers it for 14 days.
- The cap is smaller than your missed calls. Fifteen minutes covers about five 3-minute calls. Twenty-five calls is less than one a day.
- The trial ends. A 7-day trial may not include your busiest day.
- You need booking, transfers or texts. Check which plan includes them. Rosie’s $49 plan texts callers a booking link instead of booking into your calendar and doesn’t transfer calls. Both start on its $149 plan.
What 60 calls a month cost once free runs out
This table assumes 60 calls a month at 3 minutes each, or 180 minutes. We chose that call length ourselves, so use your own average if you know it. Each row is the cheapest plan, or plan plus overage, that covers the volume.
| Vendor | Cheapest way to cover 60 calls (180 minutes) | Cost per month |
|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai | Free plan: 25 calls, plus 35 extra calls at $3.00 | $105.00 |
| ElevenLabs Reception | Basic: 75 credits, plus 105 extra at $0.45 | $76.25 |
| Upfirst | Premium: 90 calls | $59.95 |
| HireJosie | Pro: 500 minutes | $49.00 |
| AI-Receptionist.com | Essential: 75 minutes, plus 105 Booster minutes at $0.25 | $40.25 |
| LobbyStack (ours) | Starter: 150 minutes, plus 30 at $0.20 | $36.00 |
Plans also differ in how they bill and what they include. Smith.ai and Upfirst bill per call, so a longer call costs you nothing extra. AI-Receptionist.com’s Essential plan lists no texting. At higher volume HireJosie costs less: its Pro plan is $49 for 500 minutes, and LobbyStack Pro is $100 for the same minutes. For paid plans across more vendors, see what an AI receptionist costs.
Questions about free AI receptionists
Is there a free AI answering service?
Yes, though few answer real calls for free. As of October 2026, Smith.ai’s free plan covers 25 real calls a month, and HireJosie’s covers 15 minutes with a dedicated number. Most other AI answering services offer 7- to 30-day trials. Some free plans are browser tests with no phone number. LobbyStack’s adds a US or Canadian number for 14 days.
Can a free AI receptionist answer my business number?
Some can. Smith.ai’s and HireJosie’s free plans take real calls, and the trials from Upfirst, ElevenLabs Reception and ModPhone take real calls while they last. You keep your existing number and set your carrier to forward calls to the AI’s number. LobbyStack Free answers real calls on a US or Canadian number for 14 days. Goodcall’s demo agent can’t answer a phone line.
Do free AI receptionists need a credit card?
Many don’t. HireJosie’s free plan and the trials from ModPhone, Upfirst, ElevenLabs Reception, CloudTalk, PhoneFlow, AI-Receptionist.com and Rosie say you don’t need a card, and LobbyStack Free doesn’t ask for one either. Smith.ai, RingCentral, Nextiva, Dialzara, My AI Front Desk and Zoom didn’t say on the pages we checked.
What happens when the free minutes run out?
It depends on the vendor. HireJosie’s free plan switches calls to voicemail mode, ElevenLabs Reception’s trial stops answering, and LobbyStack Free stops test calls until the next month. Smith.ai charges $3.00 for each call past 25. Before you rely on a free tier, find out whether it stops, charges you or moves you to a bigger plan.
Is a free AI receptionist enough for a small business?
Usually only for testing. A business that misses five calls a week misses about 22 calls a month. That’s well past HireJosie’s 15 minutes and close to Smith.ai’s 25 calls. Use free plans to check the voice and your rules, then pay for a plan sized to your missed calls.
Test it free, then pay for the calls you answer
Use a free plan to hear the voice and check your rules, and run a trial on real forwarded calls. Then pick the plan that covers the calls you miss today.
LobbyStack’s Free plan gives you 30 voice minutes a month and a US or Canadian number free for 14 days, with no card. Write your rules, load your website and call it with your hardest questions. When it sounds right, Starter keeps your number answering at $30 a month for 150 minutes, with no setup fee. Create a free account or compare LobbyStack plans.