What does an AI receptionist cost a law firm?

At published prices I checked in October 2026, AI receptionist plans start anywhere from free to $500 a month. Smith.ai's AI plans work out to about $1.60 to $3 per answered call, and Rosie starts at $49 a month for 250 minutes. The human answering services I checked start between $65 and $300 a month and climb past $1,700 a month at higher volumes, because you are paying for people's time.

Those ranges are a starting point, not a quote. The add-ons a law firm actually needs, like deeper intake, calendar booking and case-management integration, can change the real monthly number quite a bit. Here is how the pricing works and what to ask before you sign anything.

What published prices look like right now

These are the plans as listed on each vendor's own pricing page in October 2026. Prices change, so check the page before you budget.

Two things stand out. First, the AI plans are cheaper per call at published rates, often by a wide margin. Second, the billing unit matters. A per-minute plan rewards short calls, while a per-call plan is friendlier to a long intake conversation.

What actually drives the cost

• Call volume and the billing unit. Know how many calls you get and how long they run. Ask what counts as a call. Smith.ai, for example, says known spam is filtered before its AI answers and does not count toward your quota.
• Intake depth. A few basic questions are often included. Smith.ai's human plans include five intake questions and charge $1.50 per call for six more, or $0.25 per custom question.
• Calendar booking. Booking the consult directly is where the time savings live. Smith.ai's human plans add $1.50 per call for appointment booking. Rosie books on your calendar starting with its $149 plan and sends booking links on its $49 plan.
• After-hours coverage. AI answers around the clock by design. Ruby and Smith.ai's human service both say 24/7 coverage is included.
• Bilingual answering. Rosie includes English and Spanish on all plans. Smith.ai's human service charges $1 per call for a dedicated Spanish line. Posh lists bilingual service as included.
• Integrations. Smith.ai includes your first CRM integration on its human plans and charges $0.50 per call for each additional one. Its AI plans list native integrations such as Clio.
• Setup. Smith.ai, Ruby and Posh say they charge no setup fee. Custom-built receptionists often do, because someone has to write your intake script, connect your calendar and test it.

The cost on the other side of the ledger: unanswered calls

The 2024 Clio Legal Trends Report, as summarized by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, sent secret shoppers to 500 U.S. law firms. Only 40% of firms answered the phone, and 48% neither answered nor called back. Shoppers who reached a person were far more likely to recommend the firm.

I am not going to put a dollar figure on a missed call, because it depends entirely on your practice. Here is the honest way to think about it: take the fee from one typical new matter, multiply by how often a consult turns into a client, and compare that with a month of coverage. For many firms, one retained matter covers months of service. For others, with few calls and someone always at the desk, it may not.

What Call Camila costs

We build Call Camila, an AI receptionist for law firms, in partnership with LegalEdge Services. Camila answers, captures the caller's details, books the consult on your calendar and emails a summary to the firm. It is in pilot, and pricing is set per firm during the pilot as a setup fee plus a monthly fee. We do not publish a number yet.

The easiest way to judge whether it is worth a conversation is to call the public demo line at (754) 812-9005 and hear it for yourself. Warm transfer is turned off on the demo line, so ask us how handoffs to your team would work.

How to compare quotes without surprises

1. Pull three months of call logs so you know your real volume and average call length.
2. Write down your must-haves: intake questions, booking, Spanish, after-hours, which case-management system.
3. Price each vendor with those add-ons included, not the headline plan.
4. Ask what happens when you go over your plan, and whether spam and wrong numbers count.
5. Ask how the service handles confidentiality and what it tells callers about who they are talking to. Our piece on AI receptionist ethics walks through those questions.

When an AI receptionist is not the right spend

If your firm gets a handful of calls a week and a trusted person reliably answers them, you may not need any service. If many of your callers are in crisis, as in criminal defense or family law, you may want a human answering first, or a hybrid setup. We compare those options plainly in AI receptionist vs. a human answering service. And if you have not decided who you take as a client, settle that first. No receptionist, human or AI, can screen for criteria you have not written down.