Simple Phones vs Smith.ai
Smith.ai starts $97/mo cheaper than Simple Phones.
Both pages checked by August 19, 2026
- 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.
- Smith.aiAI + human backup
- $0/mo
- AI Receptionist — Free plan
- Smith.ai sells small and mid-sized businesses two products off one platform: an AI Receptionist that answers, qualifies and books 24/7 with escalation to its North America-based Live Agent Network, and a fully human Virtual Receptionist service, both billed per call rather than per minute.
The differences that matter
- Simple Phones is ai only; Smith.ai is ai + human backup. That is the real decision here, not the price.
- On published allowances, Simple Phones works out to about $0.97 per answered call against $1.60 for Smith.ai.
- Smith.ai can put a human on the line; Simple Phones is bot-only.
Feature by feature
| Capability | Simple Phones | Smith.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Live transfer | Yes | Yes |
| Books appointments | Yes | Yes |
| Text follow-up | Yes | Yes |
| Outbound calls | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes |
| Human backup | No | Yes |
| Call recordings | unstated | Yes |
| Transcripts | Yes | Yes |
| Spam screening | unstated | Yes |
| Custom voice | unstated | Yes |
| 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.
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 | — | — |
Smith.ai plans
| Plan | Published price | Includes | Over that |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Receptionist — Free | $0 mo | 25 calls | 25 calls/mo ($3.00/call after that) |
| AI Receptionist — Pro (75 calls) | $150 /mo — $2.00/call (~2–3 calls/day) | 75 calls | $2.50 |
| AI Receptionist — Pro (150 calls) | $270/mo | 150 calls | $2.30 |
| AI Receptionist — Enterprise (300 calls) | $500 /mo — $1.67/call (~10 calls/day) | 300 calls | $2.17 |
| AI Receptionist — Enterprise (500 calls) | $800/mo | 500 calls | $2.10 |
| AI Receptionist — Enterprise (1,000+ calls) | Custom | — | Custom |
| Virtual Receptionist (human) — Starter | $300 / month | 30 calls | Overage: $11.50/call over 30 |
| Virtual Receptionist (human) — Basic | $810 / month | 90 calls | Overage: $10.50/call over 90 |
| Virtual Receptionist (human) — Pro | $2,100 / month | 300 calls | Overage: $8.50/call over 300 |
| Virtual Receptionist (human) — Enterprise | Custom | — | — |
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
Smith.ai sources
- AI Receptionist plans & pricing (tiers, per-call rates, feature table, FAQ)smith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Virtual Receptionist plans & pricing (tiers, overage, add-ons, FAQ)smith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Pricing hub (AI-first vs human-first toggle, add-on price list, money-back guarantee, porting)smith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- AI Receptionist product page (capabilities, live agent network, integrations FAQ)smith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- All features listsmith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Integrations directorysmith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Sitemap — enumerates 147 /integrates-with/ integration pagessmith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Why us / leadership — "we started out in Palo Alto, CA", fully remotesmith.ai · read August 19, 2026
- Privacy policy (entity name Smith.ai, Inc.; no address published)smith.ai · read August 19, 2026