Rosie's $149 buys 1,000 minutes, about 787 calls. Minute 1,001 costs an unpublished amount.
Rosie is an American AI receptionist with the most generous minute allowances in this comparison: $49 for 250 minutes, $149 for 1,000, and $299 for 2,000, with a free website chat widget included on every plan and a 7-day trial. At our measured call length that mid-tier works out to roughly nineteen cents a call, which is the best headline rate we found anywhere. Their pricing page does not publish an overage rate.
Who is Rosie actually for, and who are we for?
Rosie is for a business that wants a lot of included minutes cheaply and expects to stay inside them. We are for a business whose calls need building for rather than budgeting for.
Rosie
A small American business with steady, predictable call volume that wants the most minutes per dollar available and does not expect to exceed them. Rosie is self-serve, has a 7-day trial, includes a website chat widget free on every tier, and supports English and Spanish. If your volume is stable and comfortably inside 1,000 minutes, their mid-tier is genuinely the best-value metered plan in this comparison and we would not pretend otherwise.
AnswerAI
A business whose phone carries decisions (what to refuse, who to escalate to, what must be asked first) and whose volume is spiky enough that an unpublished overage rate is a risk rather than a footnote. We build one agent against one business's own call log over about two weeks.
Rosie figures read from heyrosie.com/pricing on August 9, 2026. Their full plan ladder is printed in the pricing section below.
| Rosie | AnswerAI | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | A self-serve product you set up yourself | Custom software written for one business, against your own call log. |
| Billing model | Included minutes per month | One flat monthly fee. Unlimited calls, no meter, no overage line. |
| What the monthly covers | $49 covers 250 minutes; $149 covers 1,000, about $0.19 a call | Every call, every month; the fee is agreed in writing before anything is built. |
| When you go over | No overage rate on their pricing page | None. There is no meter to go over. |
| Website chat | Included free on every plan | Not offered: the build is the phone call, end to end |
| Languages | English and Spanish | More than seventy languages on the platform. English and French is a starting point, not a premium tier, and there is no per-language charge. |
| Currency | US dollars | Canadian dollars |
The chat row is a genuine extra we do not match. We build phone agents; a free chat widget on every tier is real added value for a business that wants both.
What does a Rosie minute work out to per call?
Between $0.15 and $0.25 a call across their three tiers, the cheapest metered rates in this comparison by a clear margin. The number the model cannot give you is what call 788 costs, because that rate is not on their pricing page.
A model: Rosie's published rates, our measured call length
Rosie's own published plans (verified August 9, 2026) converted at an average call length of 76 seconds, or 1.27 minutes. That average is ours: 80 calls handled for Lammer Enterprises, one Calgary landscaping company, April 21 to August 6 2026. One business, one trade. Substitute your own average; the division is shown so you can.
- Professional: $49 for 250 minutes$0.25 / call250 ÷ 1.27 = 196.8 calls. $49 ÷ 196.8 = $0.25.
- Scale: $149 for 1,000 minutes$0.19 / call1,000 ÷ 1.27 = 787.4 calls. $149 ÷ 787.4 = $0.19. Marked most popular, and the best headline rate in this entire comparison.
- Growth: $299 for 2,000 minutes$0.19 / call2,000 ÷ 1.27 = 1,574.8 calls. $299 ÷ 1,574.8 = $0.19. Note that the top tier does not improve on the middle one.
- The call after your minutes run outNo rate on their pageThis is the entire risk in a metered plan, and it is the one figure their pricing page does not state.
Best published rate per call in this comparison, if you stay inside the allowance$0.19 / call
We want to be fair about what this does and does not show. Rosie's included rates are excellent and the model is not criticising them. But an unpublished overage on a metered plan means the cheapest plan in the comparison is also the one whose worst case cannot be calculated, and for a business with seasonal spikes that is the wrong pair of properties to have together. Ask for the rate in writing before signing; it may well be competitive.
Every rate above is Rosie’s own published figure, read from their pricing page on August 9, 2026. Prices in this category move; check before you decide anything on them.
Where is Rosie genuinely better than us?
Price per included minute, by a distance, plus a free chat widget and a self-serve trial. If your call volume is steady and sits inside their allowance, they are cheaper than we will ever be.
Nineteen cents a call is a rate we are not going to beat, and it is not close. A business with predictable volume that fits inside 1,000 minutes a month is being offered a genuinely good deal, and the correct advice for that business is to take it. Our build costs more because it is a build; that is the trade, and it only makes sense when the calls are worth building for.
They also ship a free website chat widget on every plan, which is a real product we do not offer at all. We build phone agents. A small business that wants both the phone answered and the website chat covered gets two things from Rosie and one thing from us.
And they are self-serve with a 7-day trial. You can evaluate Rosie without speaking to anyone, on your own timeline, and find out whether the voice quality and behaviour suit you. Our process starts with a conversation, which is a real obstacle for a buyer who wants to look before engaging.
Where are we better than Rosie?
We publish what a busy month costs, because there is no meter to run. And the agent is built against your own call log rather than configured from a template, which is what makes it able to refuse things reliably.
The overage gap is the practical difference. On a metered plan the published price describes your good months and the unpublished rate describes your bad ones. Our own client data shows how sharply that matters: when it snows in Calgary, a landscaping company's phone does not get busier gradually, it gets busier all at once. A plan whose worst case you cannot calculate is a plan you cannot budget.
The build difference shows on calls that need rules rather than settings. An agent that has to price a med-spa treatment and then decline to say whether the caller is a candidate for it is holding a regulatory line, not a tone preference. An agent that must take both parties' names before hearing any facts about a legal matter is protecting the firm from disqualification. Those are built, not configured, and they are why the engagement takes two weeks.
We are also Canadian, billing in Canadian dollars, working from PIPEDA, PHIPA and Alberta's Health Information Act rather than translating from US requirements. Rosie prices in USD, which for a Canadian buyer means the real cost moves with the exchange rate on top of everything else.
How does the pricing model differ?
Rosie sells included minutes at the best rate in this comparison, and their page does not state what a call costs once you pass them. AnswerAI is one flat monthly fee for unlimited calls: no allowance to pass, no overage line, no setup fee.
- Professional$49250 minutes
- Scale$1491,000 minutes
- Growth$2992,000 minutes
Website chat included free on every plan. Read from Rosie’s own pricing page on August 9, 2026.
The difference is where the uncertainty sits. Theirs is at the top end of a busy month, which is the month you least want a surprise on. Ours is at the start of the conversation, and it is settled in writing before anything is built, after which a busy month costs exactly what a quiet one does.
One structural detail worth noticing on their ladder: the $299 tier does not improve the per-minute rate over the $149 tier. Both work out to about nineteen cents a call. So the Scale plan at $149 is the value tier, and moving to Growth buys headroom rather than a better rate, which is useful to know before assuming the top plan is the efficient one.
On a metered plan, the published price describes your quiet months and the unpublished overage describes your busy ones, and only one of those is the month you actually needed the phone answered.
If your volume is steady and fits inside a thousand minutes, Rosie is cheaper than us. Better you know that now than spend your first call on it.
Start free pilotSo who should pick which?
Pick on how predictable your volume is. Steady and inside the allowance points at Rosie; spiky, or judgment-heavy, points at a build.
Pick Rosie if
- Your call volume is steady and comfortably inside 1,000 minutes
- You want the lowest cost per call available and will accept the unknown overage
- You want a website chat widget included at no extra cost
- You are a US business and USD billing is simpler
- You want to evaluate self-serve without talking to anyone
- English and Spanish covers your callers
Pick AnswerAI if
- Your volume spikes (weather, seasons, campaigns) and a metered worst case scares you
- The phone has to refuse certain questions reliably, every time
- You want to know what a busy month costs before it happens
- You are Canadian and want CAD billing and Canadian privacy law as the starting point
- You have hard cases you can name and a call log to build against
- You want the person who built the agent to be the person you call
Questions about Rosie vs AnswerAI
Their published plans are $49 for 250 minutes, $149 for 1,000, and $299 for 2,000, verified August 9, 2026. Converted at a 76-second average call, our own measured figure from 80 calls at one Calgary landscaping company, that works out to roughly $0.25, $0.19 and $0.19 per call. The $149 Scale tier is the value plan; the $299 tier buys headroom rather than a better rate.
Their pricing page does not publish one, verified August 9, 2026. On a metered plan that is the figure which determines what a busy month costs, so we would ask for it in writing before signing. Four of the eleven companies in our competitive scan publish no overage rate; Rosie is one of them, alongside Ruby, Metrili and Dark Harbor.
Almost certainly, if your volume stays inside their included minutes. Nineteen cents a call is the best published rate in this comparison and we are not going to beat it; we are priced as a build, not a subscription. If cost per call is the deciding factor and your calls are straightforward, Rosie is a strong answer and we would tell you so on the first call.
Yes, free on every plan, verified August 9, 2026. That is a genuine extra we do not match at all; we build phone agents and nothing else. For a business that wants both channels covered by one vendor, that is a real point in their favour.
Get the overage rate in writing first
Whatever you decide, ask Rosie what a minute costs past your allowance and get the answer in writing. If your volume is spiky enough that the question worries you, our pilot is free: about fourteen days to a working line, no call limit, no meter.
Start free pilot