Comparison
This is not really a like-for-like comparison and it would be dishonest to present it as one. Smith.ai employs actual receptionists in North America, answering around the clock. We are software. The gap in price is the gap in what it is.
| PhonePick | Smith.ai |
|---|---|
| Starter $29100 minutes | Starter $30030 calls · $11.50 each after |
| Busy $55300 minutes | Basic $81090 calls · $10.50 each after |
| Flat out $99650 minutes | Pro $2,100300 calls · $8.50 each after |
Smith.ai's prices as published on their own pricing page, checked 10 September 2026. Prices move — if you are reading this much later, check theirs and tell us if ours is out of date.
Written by us, about a competitor, so read it with that in mind — but these are real and we would rather you knew before you bought than after.
A human can hear that someone is upset, handle a call that goes sideways, and use judgement that no language model should be trusted with. For a law firm's first call with a distressed client, or anything genuinely delicate, that is worth paying for.
Ours is careful and bounded — it says it does not know rather than guessing. A person can work out what a confused caller actually needs. That is a real difference, not a marketing one.
They offer one. We do not.
Their entry plan covers 30 calls a month and costs ten times ours. Above that it is $11.50 a call.
A person takes one call at a time. On the first cold night of the year, or the week after a storm, that is the whole problem.
It says the same correct thing at 3am on a Sunday as it does at 10am on a Tuesday, and it never invents a price.
Full transcript and recording of every call, searchable, on every plan.
If your calls are few, expensive and delicate — and $300 a month is small against one client — hire the humans. If you are missing calls because you are up a ladder and the job is worth a few hundred pounds, paying $300 a month for thirty calls is the wrong shape and $29 is the right one.
How this page is kept honest. Every figure comes from Smith.ai's own published pricing, dated above. We name what they do better because a comparison written only one way is an advertisement, and you can tell. If anything here is wrong or out of date, email support@phonepick.ai and we will correct it.
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