Smith.ai has been answering phones for small businesses for years, first with people and now with AI too. Its AI Receptionist plans are priced per call, and the company also sells human-first and hybrid plans where a real receptionist takes over. Connie does one narrower thing: it answers the calls a contractor misses, books the visit, and emails the details. If you are comparing the two, the real questions are how many calls you miss, how long they run, and whether you need a person on the line.
Side by side
| Connie | Smith.ai AI Receptionist | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $79/mo Starter (150 min). Founding members: $49/mo ($490/yr), every missed call answered (fair use 300 min), locked for life, 20 spots total. Pro $149 (400 min), Scale $249 (1,000 min). Yearly = 2 months free (founding: $490/yr). | Free plan: $0/mo with 25 real calls1. Pro from $150/mo for 75 calls; Enterprise from $500/mo1. |
| Included usage | 150 / 400 / 1,000 AI minutes a month (founding: every missed call, fair use 300). Calls you pick up yourself never use minutes. | Counted in calls, not minutes. Pro tiers: 75, 150 or 300 calls a month ($2.00, $1.80 or $1.67 per call)1. |
| Overage | $0.35 per minute on Founding and Starter, $0.25 on Pro, $0.20 on Scale | $3.00 per call on Free; $2.50 / $2.30 / $2.17 per call on Pro tiers1. |
| Setup fee | None on any plan. You set it up yourself online in a few minutes. | Not stated on the AI pricing page. Pro lists dedicated onboarding1. |
| Contract | None. Month to month, cancel anytime. | Month to month, 30 days' notice to cancel (per the pricing FAQ)1. |
| Free trial / guarantee | First-job guarantee: book a job through Connie in your first 30 days or your first month is refunded. | Free plan to start; no money-back guarantee listed for AI plans1. |
| Call booking | Books visits into Google Calendar, using the hours, service area and job types you set. | AI scheduling (Calendly and more)1. |
| Texting | Email summary after every call today. Text summaries and missed call text back Coming at launch. Carrier texting registration passed through at cost. | Custom SMS branding listed on Pro and up1. |
| Integrations | Google Calendar today. Jobber integration coming on Pro and Scale (not built yet). No Housecall Pro or ServiceTitan. | Native integrations including Clio and Zapier; unlimited custom integrations on Enterprise1. |
| Human handoff / live agents | No live agents. Hands calls to you or your on-call number when you set a rule for it. | Complex calls can transfer to a live North America-based receptionist (per the FAQ)1. Separate human-first plans from $300/mo for 30 calls2. |
| Built for | Home service contractors (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, garage door, roofing) who miss calls on the job. Overflow only: your phone rings first. | Small businesses broadly; long history with law firms and professional services (Clio integration). |
What it costs at three call volumes
Connie bills by the minute. At the pilot shop, a real (non-spam) call averaged about 70 seconds, so the examples below count each call as about 1.2 minutes and pick the cheapest Connie plan for that volume, overage included. There is no setup fee on any Connie plan, so nothing is left out of the monthly figures below.
| Missed calls a month | Connie | Smith.ai AI |
|---|---|---|
| 40 calls (about 47 min) | $79 Starter, or $49 founding | $45 on Free (25 included + 15 × $3.00)1 |
| 150 calls (about 175 min) | $87.75 (Starter $79 + 25 extra min × $0.35) | $270 on the 150-call Pro tier (150 × $1.80)1 |
| 400 calls (about 467 min) | $165.75 (Pro $149 + 67 extra min × $0.25) | About $717 (300-call tier about $500 + 100 × $2.17)1 |
The gap comes from the billing unit. Per-call pricing is simple to predict, but it charges the same for a 20-second “are you open Saturday?” as for a five-minute furnace call. Per-minute pricing charges for time, so short calls are cheap and a rare long call costs more. If your calls are long, rerun the math with your own numbers in the missed call calculator.
Where Connie wins
- Price at contractor volumes. At 150 missed calls a month, Connie is a fraction of Smith.ai's per-call price.
- Built around overflow. Your phone rings first. Connie only takes the calls that ring out, so the calls you answer cost nothing.
- Trade-specific setup. Safety questions for gas smells and CO alarms, service area, the jobs you do and don't take, set up yourself online in a few minutes.
- No contract, no notice period, plus a first-job guarantee.
Where Connie doesn’t (yet)
- No live humans. Smith.ai can hand a hard call to a real receptionist. Connie can only hand it to you.
- Integrations. Smith.ai connects to Zapier, Clio and more. Connie books into Google Calendar and nothing else today; a Jobber integration is coming on Pro and Scale (not built yet).
- Texting isn't live. Text summaries and missed call text back are coming at launch. Email works today.
- Track record. Connie is pre-launch with one live site, a computer repair shop in South Bend. Smith.ai has years of customers.
- Free tier. Smith.ai lets a very low-volume business start at $0. Connie's lowest price is $49 (founding) or $79 (Starter), so at 25 to 40 calls a month Smith.ai's free plan and its $3 extra calls cost less.
Which should you pick?
Pick Smith.ai if you want the option of a real person on hard calls, you need a specific integration it supports, or you miss fewer than about 25 calls a month and the free plan covers you.
Pick Connie if you run an HVAC, plumbing or other trade business, you miss dozens of calls a month on jobs, and you want them answered and booked for a predictable, low monthly price. Google Calendar has to be fine for now.