PATLive vs Simple Phones
Simple Phones starts $3/mo cheaper than PATLive.
Both pages checked by August 19, 2026
- PATLiveHuman agents
- $100/mo
- Live Web Chat - Starter plan
- 24/7 live answering service staffed entirely by US-based human virtual receptionists who screen and transfer calls, take messages, capture leads, book appointments and handle web chat for small businesses.
- Simple PhonesAI only
- $97/mo
- Basic plan
- Turnkey AI phone answering service for small businesses: Simple Phones generates a starter agent from your business details, assigns a number you forward missed calls to, and their team makes ongoing agent customizations on request rather than you building the agent yourself.
The differences that matter
- PATLive is human agents; Simple Phones is ai only. That is the real decision here, not the price.
- On published allowances, Simple Phones works out to about $0.97 per answered call against $7 for PATLive.
- PATLive can put a human on the line; Simple Phones is bot-only.
Feature by feature
| Capability | PATLive | Simple Phones |
|---|---|---|
| Live transfer | Yes | Yes |
| Books appointments | Yes | Yes |
| Text follow-up | Yes | Yes |
| Outbound calls | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes |
| Human backup | Yes | No |
| Call recordings | Yes | unstated |
| Transcripts | unstated | Yes |
| Spam screening | unstated | unstated |
| Custom voice | unstated | unstated |
| API | Yes | Yes |
"unstated" means the vendor doesn't claim it in their own documentation. It is not the same as no — it means nobody will put it in writing.
PATLive plans
| Plan | Published price | Includes | Over that |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live Phone Answering - Basic | $75/mo | — | $2.60/min |
| Live Phone Answering - Starter | $250/mo | 75 min | $2.35/add'l min |
| Live Phone Answering - Standard | $460/mo | 200 min | $2.20/add'l min |
| Live Phone Answering - Premium | $720/mo | 350 min | $2.10/add'l min |
| Live Phone Answering - Pro | $1170/mo | 600 min | $2.00/add'l min |
| Outbound Calling | $460/mo | 40 calls | $12/additional contact |
| Live Web Chat - Starter | $100/mo | 10 calls | $10/add'l chat |
| Live Web Chat - Standard | $270/mo | 30 calls | $9/add'l chat |
| Live Web Chat - Premium | $400/mo | 50 calls | $8/add'l chat |
| Live Web Chat - Pro | $700/mo | 100 calls | $7/add'l chat |
Simple Phones plans
| Plan | Published price | Includes | Over that |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | Simple Phones starts at $97/mo for 100 calls/mo. | 100 calls | If you cancel your plan, or you exceed the number of calls per month for your tier, your phone numbers will be released. |
| Advanced | not published | 500 calls | If you cancel your plan, or you exceed the number of calls per month for your tier, your phone numbers will be released. |
| Premium | not published | 2500 calls | If you cancel your plan, or you exceed the number of calls per month for your tier, your phone numbers will be released. |
| Pay As You Go | $0.19/min | — | — |
PATLive sources
- Pricing page (all phone, chat and outbound tiers, included minutes, per-minute overage rates, $250 outbound setup fee, $20/mo bilingual and multi-script add-ons, no contracts)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- FAQ (6-second billing increments after a full first minute, 14-day trial, no contracts, free number porting in and out, $20/mo bilingual, call recording opt-in, business texting, API, 100% US-based receptionists)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- Help center billing article (first minute billed in full then 6-second increments, 14-day trial with card required, billing cycles, minutes do not roll over, taxes/overages billed in arrears, cancel anytime)help.patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- Terms of Use (legal name PATLive, Inc.; mailing address 18117 Biscayne Blvd., Suite #2635, Miami, FL 33160; "All receptionist minutes are billed in six-second increments, with a one-minute minimum"; month-to-month auto-renewal; messaging setup fee)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- How it works (forward, port, or take a new local/toll-free number; 14-day trial with no limitations; message delivery by email, text or app)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- Live phone answering product page (call screening and transfers, appointment scheduling with confirmations, order handling, lead capture, bilingual receptionists, named integrations, human-not-AI positioning)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- Integrations page (named calendar, CRM, ecommerce and property-management connectors, native plus Zapier)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- Services overview (call screening and transfers, scheduling, lead collection, client intake, order management, after-hours, 24/7, bilingual, overflow)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- Virtual receptionists page (US-based human receptionists, 120+ hours baseline training; checked for founding year, not published)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
- Homepage (positioning: "24/7/365 live US-based virtual receptionists"; checked footer for address and founding year, neither published)patlive.com · read August 19, 2026
Simple Phones sources
- Pricing / features / FAQ page (renders the site's pricing and FAQ sections: $97 for 100 calls, 14-day free trial, no commitment, overage = numbers released, country list, language list, forwarding, CRM/Zapier, transfer to a team member)simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Homepage (inbound, outbound, logging, customization, routing, voices, crawling)simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- In-app billing screen (tier names "Basic Subscription - 100 calls/month", "Advanced Subscription - 500 calls/month", "Premium Subscription - 2,500 calls/month"; Pay As You Go $0.19/min and its 250 minutes/month minimum; >2,500 calls or >20 agents triggers Pay As You Go; whitelabel answer)app.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Help centre: Creating an agent (one agent on the Basic plan)help.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Help centre: Inbound Callshelp.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Help centre: Outbound Calls (1 call per number per 24h, callback-only unless BYO Twilio)help.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Help centre: Routing (transfer to any number, time-of-day rules, email/text/webhook alerts)help.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Help centre: Crawling (website/FAQ knowledge base)help.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Help centre / API: Call Details & Transcript (response fields: minutesUsed, start/end time, transcript; no recording URL)help.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Help centre documentation indexhelp.simplephones.ai · read August 19, 2026