AI receptionist minutes and overages, explained with a worksheet
By Antony Boguslavskiy · · 8 min read
The short answer
Estimate your minutes from your own call log: calls a month, times the average AI minutes per call after rounding, times the share of calls the AI will answer. Then compare plans on the total at your volume, not the headline price: included minutes, the overage rate, how calls are rounded, contract length and setup fees all change what you pay.
Most owners pick an AI receptionist plan by its monthly price and find out about minutes on the first invoice. This guide to AI receptionist minutes and overages is the fine print, read in advance: how minutes are counted, a worksheet to estimate yours from your own call log, and what to compare before you sign anything.
If you want the bigger picture on price first, our guide to how much an AI receptionist costs covers the market. This one is about getting the plan size right. For how calls are answered and what the receptionist does with them, see how it works.
Vocenya figures below are from our pricing page and billing help articles as of October 2026. Prices change; check the live page before you decide.
How AI receptionist minutes and overages are counted
A “minute” sounds simple, but vendors count it differently, and the differences add up. Before you compare plans, find out four things from each vendor.
| Question | Why it matters | How Vocenya does it |
|---|---|---|
| How is each call rounded? | Rounding every call up to the next minute can add a lot on short calls | Each call is rounded up to the next minute on its own: a 61-second call is 2 minutes |
| Which part of the call counts? | Some count the whole call, including time with a person | Only the AI receptionist’s part counts |
| Do transferred or forwarded-to-person calls count? | If your team answers many calls, this changes your total | Calls that go straight to a person or your own phone use no AI minutes |
| Do unused minutes roll over? | A quiet month will not save you anything if they don’t | Unused minutes don’t roll over |
Two more to ask: whether test calls count (Vocenya’s signup test calls never do), and what happens when you run out. Some services stop answering. On Vocenya, calls keep being answered past your included minutes and the extra minutes go on your next invoice at your plan’s rate. The details are in our help article on plans and the free trial.
Estimate your minutes from your call log
You do not need a vendor’s calculator. You need one month of call history and ten minutes. If you have never looked closely at your log, our post on auditing your missed calls from your call log shows how to pull it from your phone or carrier.
Fill in this worksheet:
| Line | What to write down | Your number |
|---|---|---|
| A | Calls in a normal month (count inbound calls, not outbound) | |
| B | Average call length in minutes, rounded up per call | |
| C | Share of calls the AI will answer (see below) | |
| D | Estimated AI minutes a month: A × B × C | |
| E | Busy-month buffer: D × 1.25 (or your own peak ratio) |
For line B, rounding matters. If most of your calls last about 2 minutes 10 seconds, each one counts as 3 minutes on a round-up-per-call plan, not 2.2. Take ten typical calls from your log, round each one up, and average those.
For line C, it depends on how you forward:
- Every call goes to the AI first: use 1.0 (100%).
- The AI answers only when you don’t pick up: use your current share of unanswered calls. If you miss 4 of every 10 calls, use 0.4.
- After hours only: use the share of calls that arrive outside your opening hours.
Then subtract calls the AI will pass straight to a person, if that happens early in the call. On Vocenya only the AI’s part counts, so a call transferred after one minute uses about one minute.
A worked example
Say a two-truck plumbing company gets about 200 inbound calls a month. Ten typical calls, each rounded up, average 3 minutes. The owner forwards only calls nobody picks up and misses about half of them.
- A = 200 calls
- B = 3 minutes
- C = 0.5
- D = 200 × 3 × 0.5 = 300 AI minutes
- E = 300 × 1.25 = 375 minutes in a busy month
Your numbers will be different. The point is that this owner should be pricing plans at 300 to 375 minutes, not guessing.
Overage charges: what to compare
The overage rate is what each minute costs after your included minutes run out. It matters more than the headline price in a busy month, and it is where plans that look cheap stop being cheap.
Across the market you will see three pricing shapes:
- Monthly plans with included minutes and a per-minute rate after that. Most ready-made AI receptionists work this way.
- Per-call or per-conversation pricing, where length matters less and volume matters more.
- Pure per-minute pricing, common on developer platforms that you or an agency build on.
The AI receptionists we track list each vendor’s published starting price and plan details, with the source page and the date we read it, so you can compare like for like.
Here are Vocenya’s plans as of October 2026:
| Plan | Price a month | AI minutes included | Each extra minute |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value | $49 | 250 | $0.25 |
| Starter | $99 | 300 | $0.35 |
| Growth | $249 | 1,000 | $0.30 |
| Pro | $499 | 2,500 | $0.25 |
Price the example on two plans
The plumber above needs about 300 minutes, 375 in a busy month. On minutes alone:
- Starter: 300 minutes are included, so a normal month is $99. A 375-minute month adds 75 × $0.35 = $26.25, for $125.25.
- Growth: $249 in either month, with plenty of room.
On minutes, Starter wins easily. You can work out the crossover yourself: Growth costs $150 more, and $150 ÷ $0.35 is about 429 extra minutes, so Starter stays cheaper on minutes alone until roughly 729 minutes a month.
But minutes are not the only difference. On Vocenya, calendar booking, warm transfers, call recordings and website chat start on Growth. If the plumber wants the receptionist to book jobs straight into the calendar, the decision is about features, not minutes. Decide what you need the receptionist to do first, then check the minutes fit.
Contracts, setup fees and cancellation
The second half of the fine print is the agreement itself. Ask every vendor, and get the answer in writing:
- Is there a minimum term? Month to month, or a 12-month commitment?
- Does it auto-renew, and how much notice do you need to give?
- Is there a setup or onboarding fee, and is it refundable?
- What happens to your number if you leave? Can you take it with you?
- Is there a refund for a partial month?
- Can you change plans, and how quickly?
For comparison, Vocenya’s standard plans are month to month with a 14-day free trial (once per account, no card needed to start) and no setup fee. When you cancel, your plan runs to the end of the period you paid for, with no partial refund. Your Vocenya number is held for 30 days after a plan ends so you can come back. To change plans, you contact us and we switch it. Add-ons such as GH Live agents, HIPAA mode and website chat are priced separately; buying two or more paid add-ons earns a bundle discount on the add-ons only, as the help article on add-ons and the bundle discount explains.
A month-to-month plan is not automatically better: a vendor offering a real discount for a year might be worth it once you know your volume. Just do not commit for a year before you have one month of real usage.
Picking a plan that fits, with room to grow
Use your worksheet to choose, in this order:
- List the features you need, such as booking, transfers to a person, recordings or a second number. Cross off plans that do not have them.
- Price each remaining plan at line D and line E. Total cost = price + (minutes over the allowance × overage rate).
- Pick the cheapest total at line E, your busy month, unless the difference is small and the cheaper plan’s overage rate is steep.
- Check after 30 days. Compare the minutes you actually used with your estimate and move up or down.
Signs you are on the wrong plan: you pay overage most months (move up), or you use less than half your minutes for three months running (move down, as long as you keep the features you need).
When per-minute pricing is the better deal
If your calls are very seasonal, say heavy for eight weeks and quiet the rest of the year, a plan with a small allowance and a reasonable overage rate can beat a big plan that sits unused. Run the worksheet for your peak month and your quiet month separately and add up the year.
Next step
Pull last month’s call log and fill in lines A to E. Then price your number on the Vocenya pricing page, or hear the receptionist first on the live demo before you count a single minute.