An answering service
answers the phone
It won't answer the contact form that landed at 11pm — that isn't what you're paying it for. Here's what receptionist services actually cost today, what they're genuinely great at, and the one gap LeadsApp fills.
Businesses whose phone is the front door. A trained human picks up 24/7, takes a message, qualifies a caller, sometimes books an appointment. Priced in minutes or calls — the plans we read today start around $75 a month pay-as-you-go and climb well into four figures at the volumes a busy firm actually uses. If your phone rings and nobody answers, this is a genuinely good purchase and no software replaces it.
The other half of your inbound. Small professional-service firms get most inquiries in writing now — a form fill, an email, a “hi, do you handle…” at midnight. LeadsApp answers those in under 60 seconds in your voice, asks your qualifying questions, scores each one 0-100, sends your booking link to the serious ones, and follows up on day 1, 3 and 7.
Two different front doors, and only one of them rings
This page is often written as a fight. It isn't one. A receptionist service covers a channel we don't touch, and we cover a channel they were never staffed for. The thing worth actually comparing is where your leads come from. If it's mostly the phone, hire the receptionist. If it's mostly your contact form and your inbox, a per-minute phone service is money spent on the wrong door. Published benchmarks put the median first response to a new inquiry at 42 hours, and 63% of companies take longer than an hour — while replying inside five minutes converts roughly nine times better. That 42 hours is almost never the phone call. It's the email nobody got to.
Side by side
Verified 2026-07-28Swipe the table sideways to see both columns →
| Answering services | LeadsApp | |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | Your phone line, answered by a trained human 24/7 — plus live web chat as a separate paid service at Ruby and PATLive.[1][2][3] | Inbound email and web-form inquiries. We never touch your phone line. |
| What you're billed for | Minutes or calls. Ruby's receptionist plans are sold in monthly minutes; PATLive's in minutes with per-minute overage; Smith.ai's live-staffed plans in calls.[1][2][3] | Leads worked. One person and their whole conversation — first reply, qualifying questions, booking link and every follow-up — counts once. |
| Published entry price | Ruby: $250/mo for 50 receptionist minutes. PATLive: $75/mo pay-as-you-go at $2.60/min, or $250/mo for 75 minutes. Smith.ai live-staffed: $300/mo for 30 calls.[1][2][3] | $0/mo for 25 leads with no card, then $149 for 250 leads a month. |
| What the bigger plans cost | Ruby: $395 (100 min), $720 (200 min), $1,725 (500 min). PATLive: $460 (200 min), $720 (350 min), $1,170 (600 min). Smith.ai: $810 (90 calls), $2,100 (300 calls).[1][2][3] | $299/mo for 1,000 leads and $499/mo for unlimited. Same features on every tier. |
| Going over your allowance | Per-minute or per-call overage. PATLive lists $2.00-$2.60 a minute depending on plan; Smith.ai lists $8.50-$11.50 a call on its live-staffed tiers.[2][3] | Nothing extra is charged. Leads past your limit are still captured and stored — the AI just waits for an upgrade before working them. |
| Setup fee | None listed on the live-answering plans we read. Ruby says there are no fees for activation, onboarding, setup or customisation, and Smith.ai says "No setup fees". PATLive lists none on its answering plans either, though its separate outbound-calling product carries a $250 one-time setup fee.[1][2][3] | None. |
| Free trial | PATLive lists a 14-day free trial with no contract. Ruby's pricing page doesn't mention one. Smith.ai offers a 30-day money-back guarantee (capped at $1,000) rather than a trial.[1][2][3] | Yes — 25 leads a month, free, no card, and it doesn't expire. |
| Answers a form-fill at 11pm | Not what a receptionist is for. Their answering plans are priced and staffed around calls; web chat, where offered, is a separate live service on its own plan.[1][2][3] | Yes. That's the entire job — a written reply in under 60 seconds, in your voice, whatever the hour. |
| Chases a lead who goes quiet on day 3 | Not described on the pricing pages we read. A receptionist handles the conversation in front of them.[1][2][3] | Built in. Nudges on day 1, 3 and 7, written for where the conversation actually stalled, stopping the moment they reply, book, or opt out. |
- [1]ruby.com/pricing — virtual receptionist and live chat plans
- [2]patlive.com/pricing — live answering, web chat, free trial
- [3]smith.ai/pricing — live-staffed receptionist plans and terms
Prices and plan details belong to their owners and change without notice. Everything above was read from the linked pages on 2026-07-28 — check the source before you buy, and tell us at support@leadsapp.com if anything here has gone stale.
How to read those numbers
Minutes go faster than people expect. A single intake call that runs six or seven minutes eats a meaningful slice of a 50-minute plan, and once the included minutes are gone you're into per-minute overage on top of the monthly fee. That's not a criticism — a human being is genuinely on the line, and human time is the product. It just means the honest way to price an answering service is minutes-you-will-actually-use, not the headline number.
LeadsApp prices differently because there's no human on the clock: a lead is a lead whether the conversation takes two emails or nine, and there is no overage. That's the whole trade — you give up a human voice, you get a written reply in under a minute and a flat bill.
Buy an answering service if…
- Your phone rings with new business and calls are going to voicemail.
- Your clients expect to reach a human being, and an email reply won't do.
- You need after-hours or overflow cover, live transfers, or a real person taking messages.
- Your intake happens on the call — qualifying, scheduling and handoff in one conversation.
- You'd rather pay for judgment than for software you have to set up.
Buy LeadsApp if…
- Most of your inquiries arrive as a contact-form fill or an email.
- You do reply — just hours or days later, by which time they've hired someone else.
- You want the first reply to sound like you, with your services and your prices in it.
- You want somebody chasing the quiet ones on day 3 and day 7 without you remembering.
- You want a flat monthly bill with no per-minute meter running.
What LeadsApp does not do
Worth knowing before you switch anything off. If one of these is the job you need done, buy the product that does it.
- No phone answering. We never pick up a call — not a live agent, not an AI voice. If your phone rings and nobody answers, LeadsApp does not help with that.
- No SMS or text messages. Email and web-form inquiries only.
- No cold outreach, ever. LeadsApp replies to people who contacted you first. It will not email a purchased list, and we don't sell one.
- No live humans on your account. Every reply is written by AI and, by default, waits for you to approve it.
- No calendar management. We put your booking link in front of the serious leads — we don't read your availability, move appointments, or run your diary.
Most firms should run both
A receptionist on the phone and LeadsApp on the inbox is not double-paying — the two never touch the same lead. If you already have an answering service, keep it. Start LeadsApp on the free tier, point your contact form at it, and after a month you'll have an honest answer to a question most owners are guessing at: which door is your work actually walking through, and which one is leaking.
Try it on your own leads
Keep whatever answers your phone. Point your contact form and your inquiry inbox at LeadsApp and it works your next 25 leads for free — every draft waiting for you to approve.
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Ruby, PATLive and Smith.ai are trademarks of their respective owners and we are not affiliated with any of them. They are cited here as examples of the answering-service category because they publish their prices; this is not a ranking. Every figure was read from the pages linked above on 2026-07-28.
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