A call answering service bills per call or per minute, and it matters

Advertised entry prices, checked

Work out which model is cheaper for you

1. Measure your average call length. Pull a month from your phone system. Most small-business enquiry calls run two to four minutes; intake and booking calls run longer, often six to eight.
2. Multiply both ways. Take your monthly call count against a per-call rate, then your total minutes against a per-minute rate. The gap between the two answers is usually larger than the gap between providers.
3. Add the plan floor. Both models sit on top of a monthly plan with an inclusion. The plan is a floor you pay whether you use it or not, so a quiet month costs the same either way.
4. Check the rounding. Per-minute providers round, and the increment is rarely advertised. A provider rounding each call up to the next minute charges materially more than one billing in seconds.

What the published rates actually say

Among providers that publish a rate at all, the per-minute camp is the larger. Specialty Answering Service prints a dollar fifty four per minute on top of a forty four dollar monthly plan. Posh prints two dollars thirty per minute on a sixty five dollar plan with no minutes included. PATLive prints two ninety nine per minute on a forty nine dollar plan, also with nothing included.

The per-call camp is smaller and priced very differently. Smith.ai prints eleven dollars fifty per call over its included thirty. Gabbyville prints seven dollars per call over an included fifty, on a plan of three hundred and ninety nine dollars a month.

Set those against each other with a real call length and the picture inverts depending on the number you use. At two minutes a call, a per-minute provider at two dollars thirty costs under five dollars where a per-call provider charges seven. At six minutes, the same per-minute provider costs nearly fourteen and the per-call provider still charges seven.

Why providers choose the model they do

A per-call price is a promise that length does not matter, and providers only make it when they control the script tightly enough to know the length will not run away. It suits intake work where the questions are fixed and the operator is not improvising.

A per-minute price passes the risk to you, which is why it is the default in the general market where any call could be anything. It is also the model that makes a pay-as-you-go plan possible: PATLive and Posh both sell a plan with no included minutes at all, which is the cheapest honest way to serve someone taking twenty calls a month.

Neither model is a trick. What causes trouble is comparing a headline plan price across the two without converting to the same unit first, because the plans are not buying the same thing.

The providers that publish neither

Ruby, Abby Connect and AnsweringService.com publish a plan price and no rate for going past it. That is not evidence of a bad deal; it is evidence that you cannot model the deal yourself.

For a low-volume caller who will never approach the inclusion, that may not matter. Ruby's fifty included minutes at two hundred and fifty dollars a month is a clear enough offer if fifty minutes is genuinely your ceiling.

For anyone whose volume is uncertain, an unpublished overage rate is the main risk in the purchase, and it is worth making it the first question rather than the last. Asking three providers the same volume question at once is what the quote form here is for.

Common questions

Is per call or per minute cheaper for a call answering service?

It depends entirely on your average call length. Below roughly three minutes a call, per-minute pricing at typical published rates is cheaper; above about five minutes, per-call pricing usually wins. Measure a month of your own calls before choosing.

Do call answering services charge for wrong numbers and spam?

Policies differ and this is worth asking. Some providers waive obvious wrong numbers and robocalls; others bill every answered call against your inclusion. On a business line taking cold sales calls this can be a noticeable share of the bill.

What is a pay as you go call answering service?

A plan with no included minutes, where you pay a small monthly fee to keep the line open and then only for what you use. PATLive and Posh both publish one, which makes them the straightforward option for very low volume.

How many minutes does a typical call use?

Most small-business enquiry calls run two to four minutes once greeting and message taking are counted. Appointment booking and legal intake run longer. Use your own phone records rather than an average, since this number drives the whole comparison.

Cover by industry

• Answering services with evidenced cover of legal answering service
• Answering services with evidenced cover of answering services for small business