Ruby Receptionist Pricing and Cost in 2026

Ruby receptionist pricing starts at $250 a month for 50 receptionist minutes, then $395 for 100 minutes, $720 for 200 minutes and $1,725 for 500 minutes. That is $5.00 a minute on the smallest plan and $3.45 on the largest. Ruby charges no setup, onboarding or after-hours fees, includes scheduling and bilingual answering on every plan, and does not publish what it charges for minutes over your plan.

We read Ruby's plans and pricing page on October 13, 2026, along with two of Ruby's own articles on how it bills minutes. Every price below comes from those pages. The cost per minute, the bills at real call volumes and the comparison with other live services are our arithmetic on published numbers.

How much does Ruby cost per month?

Ruby costs $250 to $1,725 a month on its published receptionist plans. The only difference between the four plans is the number of minutes: Ruby states that every plan gets the same features. Businesses that need more than 500 minutes are told to call sales for a larger plan.

The fourth column is ours. Ruby does not print a per-minute rate, and it is worth working out, because the drop from $5.00 to $3.95 between the first two plans is the biggest step on the card: $145 more a month buys twice the minutes. Above 100 minutes the rate barely moves, so a bigger plan mostly buys more minutes, not cheaper ones.

You will find other numbers in search results. Several third-party guides quote $245, $385, $705 and $1,695 for the same four plans, and give overage rates between about $3.30 and $5.40 a minute. Those figures are not on Ruby's page today, and we do not repeat them as Ruby's prices. If a quote you receive differs from the table above, ask Ruby which number is current before you sign.

What does Ruby charge for extra minutes?

Ruby does not publish its overage rate. Its own pricing guide says you pay your base monthly plan rate, any overage minutes and optional features, so extra minutes are billed, but the rate per minute is not on the plans page. Ask for it in writing before you choose a plan, because it decides whether a busy month costs you a little more or jumps you a whole tier.

This matters most on the 200-minute plan. The next step up is the 500-minute plan at $1,725, which is $1,005 more. A business that uses 260 minutes in its busiest month either pays 60 overage minutes at an unknown rate or moves up to a plan with 240 minutes it will not use. Every other big live service we track prints its overage rate: PATLive charges $1.79 to $2.29 a minute on its smaller plans, Moneypenny $1.91 to $2.28, and AnswerConnect $1.85 to $2.50.

How does Ruby count minutes?

Ruby bills per receptionist minute and rounds every call up. According to Ruby's own billing article, the clock starts when a receptionist answers and stops when the call is transferred to you or ends, plus the time the receptionist spends on after-call notes. That article describes the rounding as 60-second increments, so a 61-second call counts as two minutes.

A second Ruby article comparing per-minute and per-call pricing shows the increment as 60 seconds in one version of its table and 30 seconds in another. Rounding to 30 seconds would make a real difference on short calls. Confirm the increment in your agreement, and then estimate your plan honestly: count your calls, multiply by your average call length rounded up, and add a margin for message-taking calls that run long. PATLive sizes its own plans at about 2.5 minutes per call, which is a sensible planning figure for most small offices.

What is included in every Ruby plan?

Ruby's inclusions are its strongest argument. Every plan, from $250 up, lists the same features with no extra charge:

• Answering around the clock, including after hours, weekends and holidays, with no premium for nights
• Spanish and bilingual call handling, which several competitors sell as an add-on
• Scheduling, payment collection, lead qualification and intake
• Outbound call assistance and calling and texting from your business number
• Local or toll-free number hosting, with what Ruby calls phone service hosting
• Voicemail transcription, AI-powered call transcripts and sentiment analysis, and robocall filtering
• HIPAA-compliant services, listed as available on the plans page

Ruby also states that optional AI enhancements are available on all plans at no extra cost, and that there are no fees for activation, onboarding, setup, customization or coverage at certain times. That last point is real money against AnswerConnect, which charges a one-time $49.99 setup fee on most plans and sells Spanish answering at $30 a month and an IVR menu at $30. Ruby's billing guide does mention two optional extras, custom hold music and additional phone lines, without a price.

How much is Ruby live chat?

Ruby sells website chat staffed by the same receptionists. On its own, chat costs $143 a month for 10 chats, $335 for 30 and $520 for 50. Added to a receptionist plan, the same tiers cost $115, $268 and $416, which Ruby describes as a 20% saving. At 10 chats that is $11.50 to $14.30 a conversation, so live chat suits a site where each conversation is a qualified lead. If most website questions are the same ten answers about hours, prices and service area, an AI chatbot that answers visitors from your own pages handles that volume at a different price point, and a person is only needed for the leads.

What Ruby costs at real call volumes, next to other live services

This is the cheapest published plan, or plan plus printed overage, at four call volumes. We assumed 2.5 billed minutes per call for every per-minute service. Smith.ai bills its live receptionists per call, so its column uses the call count. Where Ruby's need falls between two plans, the table uses the larger plan, because Ruby does not publish an overage rate to calculate with.

Ruby is the most expensive per-minute service at every volume, by roughly two to two and a half times PATLive. At 160 calls the gap is over $1,000 a month, and most of that is the missing plan between 200 and 500 minutes. PATLive figures are its published 50, 100, 200 and 300 minute plans plus printed overage, read October 13, 2026. Moneypenny is its US card read the same day: 50 minutes $165, 100 minutes $265, 200 minutes $422, plus $1.91 a minute above 200. AnswerConnect is its Entry, Growth and Standard plans from its pricing guide, plus a one-time $49.99 setup fee. Smith.ai live is $300 for 30 calls and up. Our answering service cost page lists every tier with its cost per minute.

Is Ruby worth the price?

Ruby is worth it when the person answering is part of what you sell. A law office taking new-client intake, a medical or wellness practice that wants a warm voice, or a business that serves Spanish-speaking callers gets bilingual answering, scheduling, intake and payment collection in the base price, with no add-on menu to price out. For that buyer the comparison is not $395 against $189, it is $395 against $189 plus the extras PATLive or AnswerConnect sell separately.

It is a poor fit for a business that mostly needs calls routed. A receptionist minute at $3.60 spent transferring a caller to the service department is an expensive way to do what a phone menu does instantly. It is also expensive for trades with spiky volume. A plumber or HVAC company that uses 100 minutes in May and 400 on the first freeze night of January lands on the $1,725 plan or pays an overage rate it cannot see in advance. Our plumbing answering service and HVAC answering service pages price that seasonal swing month by month.

Ruby alternatives by price

• PATLive is the cheapest published live service at every volume above, from $99 for 50 minutes, with a 14-day free trial and no contract.
• Moneypenny sits between PATLive and Ruby, from $165 for 50 minutes with no contract, and prints its overage rate on each plan.
• AnswerConnect is cheapest from about 300 minutes a month. Our AnswerConnect pricing breakdown covers its setup fee and add-ons.
• Smith.ai bills per call rather than per minute, which suits long calls, and sells an AI receptionist from $150 for 75 calls. Our Smith.ai pricing page works out the bill.
• A phone system with a menu answers every call instantly and routes it with no minute meter. Phoner Team is $17 per user per month billed yearly with a three-user minimum, $51 a month in total, and includes the phone menu, ring groups, a business hours schedule and voicemail to text. It is not a live service. Nobody talks to the caller, takes intake or books an appointment.

Many businesses run both. The phone system owns the number and answers with a menu, and only after-hours or unanswered calls are forwarded to Ruby, so the plan stays at 50 or 100 minutes instead of growing with every routine call. Our best answering service for small business comparison shows which service fits which kind of caller.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ruby's cheapest plan?

Ruby's cheapest receptionist plan is $250 a month for 50 minutes, which Ruby labels great for startups. At $5.00 per included minute it is also the most expensive minute on the card. Its 100-minute plan at $395 brings the rate down to $3.95, and live chat on its own starts at $143 for 10 chats.

Does Ruby have setup fees or contracts?

Ruby states it charges no fees for activation, onboarding, setup, customization or coverage at certain times, such as nights, weekends and holidays. Its plans page does not describe a contract term. Ruby's billing guide lists custom hold music and additional phone lines as optional extras, without a published price.

How much does Ruby charge per minute?

Included minutes cost $5.00 on the 50-minute plan, $3.95 on 100, $3.60 on 200 and $3.45 on 500. Ruby does not publish the rate for minutes over your plan, and it bills from the moment a receptionist answers until the call ends or is transferred, plus after-call notes, rounded up.

Is Ruby more expensive than other answering services?

Yes, per minute. At 100 minutes a month Ruby costs $395, against $189 at PATLive, $265 at Moneypenny and $350 at AnswerConnect. Ruby includes bilingual answering, scheduling, intake and payment collection on every plan with no setup fee, which narrows the gap for businesses that would otherwise buy those as add-ons.

Does Ruby offer HIPAA-compliant answering?

Ruby lists HIPAA-compliant services as available on its plans page and HIPAA-compliant chat as available on its chat plans. It does not print a separate price for them. Medical practices should confirm the business associate agreement and any charge in writing before signing.