Every comparison page written by a vendor concludes that the vendor wins. This one doesn't. Below is the published pricing from each company's own site, the per-answered-call math that pricing pages avoid printing, and three honest scenarios — two of which end with you choosing someone else.
Most buyers start by comparing prices across every company that answers a phone, which produces a nonsense spreadsheet. These are three different products solving three overlapping problems, and the price gaps between them are structural rather than competitive.
A trained person answers as your business. Ruby and Smith.ai's human tier both do this. You are paying for a salary, a building, and a schedule — which is why it costs what it costs.
A software product you configure yourself. Smith.ai's AI tier is a good example. Cheap per call, fast to start, and the quality of the result depends entirely on how much work you put into the scripts.
Where Glovecars sits. Someone captures your voice, writes the scripts around your trade vocabulary, tests them, integrates your systems, and tunes them monthly. Costs more than self-serve. Should — it's a service, not a login.
Taken from each company's own published pricing page, checked 18 September 2026. Pricing in this category changes; verify before you sign anything.
| Service | Type | Entry plan | Mid plan | High plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ruby | Human | $250 50 minutes |
$720 200 minutes |
$1,725 500 minutes |
| Smith.ai | Human | $300 30 calls |
$810 90 calls |
$2,100 300 calls |
| Smith.ai AI | Self-serve AI | $0 25 calls |
$150 75–300 calls |
$500 300–1,000+ calls |
| Glovecars | Done-for-you AI | $199 – $5,000+ / month, scoped to volume, locations and channels. Quoted after a free audit. Target: 10–20% of tracked delivered revenue. |
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Sources, retrieved 18 September 2026: ruby.com/pricing · smith.ai/pricing · smith.ai/pricing/ai-receptionist. Ruby publishes minutes, Smith.ai publishes calls, which is why the columns are not directly comparable — see the calculator below. Ruby includes AI-assisted features in all plans at no extra cost; its plans are human-staffed. Smith.ai's AI tier lists per-call rates of roughly $1.67–$2.00 with overage at $2.17–$2.50.
Minutes and calls are not the same unit, which makes cross-shopping this category genuinely hard. Put your own volume in and see the comparison in one currency. Change the average call length — the default of three minutes is typical for service businesses, but yours may differ, and it moves the Ruby column a lot.
Your numbers, not ours. Nothing is sent anywhere — this runs in your browser.
What this math does not settle. Cost per call tells you what a conversation costs, not what it earns. A human who saves one $14,000 re-roof is worth every dollar of a $1,725 plan. An AI that answers 400 calls at $1.67 and books none of them is worth nothing. Run the cost comparison, then ask the harder question: what share of these conversations actually turns into booked work, and does the system you are buying do anything to move that number?
Price is the easy axis. These are the ones that actually decide whether a deployment performs.
| Capability | Human services | Self-serve AI | Glovecars |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answers phone 24/7 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Response time | Seconds to a minute | Immediate | Under 60 seconds |
| Instagram & Facebook DMs | Generally not | Rarely | Yes, same 60-second standard |
| Missed-call text-back | Varies by provider | Sometimes | Yes, within 90 seconds |
| Who writes the scripts | Provider, from your brief | You do | We do, in person where possible |
| Trade-specific vocabulary | Depends on the agent | Whatever you configure | Built per vertical |
| Books into dispatch / DMS / PMS | Sometimes, via integrations | Common ones (Clio, Zapier) | ServiceTitan, JobNimbus, Clio, Vagaro, Dentrix, DMS |
| Generates the demand too | No | No | Yes — MyPost Social content layer |
| Start today, self-serve | No | Yes | No — 11–14 day setup |
| Cheapest option in category | No | Yes | No |
Capability rows describe general category behaviour as of September 2026 and are not a claim about any specific plan. Providers ship features continuously — check current capability with each vendor directly before deciding.
Under about thirty inquiries a month, buy none of this. Not us, not them. At that volume the arithmetic does not work for any product in this category, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling. Answer the phone yourself, set up a free missed-call text-back, and revisit when your volume has doubled. We turn away businesses at this stage regularly — it is cheaper than an unhappy client six months in.
Substantially, yes. On published September 2026 pricing, human services work out to roughly $7–$15 per answered call depending on plan and call length, while self-serve AI runs roughly $1.67–$3.00 per call. That is a four- to six-fold gap. Whether it matters depends entirely on whether a human is actually required for your calls — for some businesses it is, and then the gap is irrelevant.
Because it is a service rather than a login. The monthly fee covers script writing against your trade vocabulary, voice capture, integration into your dispatch or case system, testing against realistic scenarios, and ongoing tuning. Self-serve products hand you a configuration screen and that work becomes yours. If you will genuinely do that work, self-serve is the better buy and we will tell you so on the call.
Yes — all 50 states. Deployment is fully remote and the timeline is the same whether you are in Albany or Phoenix. Phone numbers are provisioned in your own area code and A2P 10DLC registration is handled in your state. Capital Region clients additionally get in-person voice capture and on-site quarterly reviews.
Some clients do, and it can be a sensible arrangement. A common split is the answering service keeping the calls that genuinely need a person while Glovecars handles the overflow, the after-hours window, and every non-voice channel. We would rather set that up than argue you into replacing something that works.
Always, and early in the call. This is a conversion decision as much as an ethical one — callers who feel misled disengage, and callers told upfront generally do not mind provided the AI is actually useful. Any vendor offering to hide it is selling you a complaint you have not received yet.
Checked 18 September 2026 against each company's own published pricing page, all of which are linked above. This category reprices frequently, so treat these figures as a starting point and verify directly before signing. If you find something here that has gone stale, tell us and we will correct it.
15 minutes with Igor. He pulls your last 30 days of inbound across every channel and tells you which of the three above fits — including when the answer is a competitor, or nobody yet.
