The best answering service for real estate is the one that answers a sign call in one ring, asks the caller whether they are buying, selling or renting, and puts the showing on your calendar before the caller dials the next agent. Six services are compared here at 100 calls a month, with prices read from each vendor's pricing page in September 2026. One of them is ours, and the table says where it loses.
Key takeaways
- At 100 calls a month the spread runs from about 70 dollars on Upfirst and 149 on Rosie to 215 on callflo.ai, 392 on AnswerMTI and 479 on PATLive. ReceptionHQ does not publish a tier that size.
- Human real estate answering services price per minute and add a person; AI services price per call or per minute and book the showing on the call.
- callflo.ai is the only service in this set that publishes payment collection on the call, which is how an earnest money deposit or an application fee gets taken while the caller is still warm.
- Agents, brokerages and investors need different things from the same phone. The segment section below says which service fits which desk.
What a real estate answering service has to do
A real estate line is a sales line. The caller saw a sign, a portal listing or a mailer, and the call is the moment their intent is highest. The service has to answer instantly, qualify with your questions, book the showing or the callback on your calendar, and text you a summary you can act on between clients. For an investor, add one more job: capture the seller's address, condition and timeline before they call the next buyer on the postcard.
You are in a listing appointment at 6:15pm. The sign on Maple Street rings four times while you talk: a buyer, a neighbor asking the price, a wrong number, and a seller who wants to know what their house is worth. Industry benchmarks put missed calls near 40 percent for real estate, and the seller is the one who does not leave a voicemail. Every service below turns that hour into two booked conversations. They differ on who answers, what they can do while the caller is on the line, and what 100 calls costs.
Six real estate answering services at 100 calls a month
The basis is 100 answered calls a month, a normal month for a producing agent or a small team. Minute-priced services are converted at three minutes a call, the average on the calls we listen to. Where a vendor prices per call, the figure is the plan plus published overage.
| Service | Who answers | Entry plan | 100 calls a month | Books showings | Texts you a summary | Payment on call |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PATLive | People | $49 pay as you go, $2.99/min | $479 (300-minute plan) | Yes, included | Yes, message delivery | Not published |
| AnswerMTI | People | $47 pay as you go, $1.37/min | $392 (Premium $296 for 225 min, plus overage) | Separate service, price not published | Yes, message delivery | Not published |
| ReceptionHQ | People | $39 for 15 calls | Not published at this size; per-call plans from $35 | On the MyDiary plan, from $49 | Yes, message delivery | Not published |
| Upfirst | AI | $24.95 for 30 calls ($20 annual) | About $70 (Premium $59.95 for 90 calls, plus overage) | Yes | Yes, in-call texting | Not published |
| Rosie | AI | $49 for 250 min | $149 (Scale, 1,000 min) | Yes, on Scale and up | Yes | Not published |
| callflo.ai | AI, with a team on VIP | $39 for 120 min, annual | $215 (Starter plus 180 min at $0.98) | Yes, on every plan | Yes, before the call ends | Yes, via Stripe, on every plan |
Read the table twice. The first time for price, where the AI services win by a wide margin. The second time for what happens on the call: a message that arrives after the operator types it, or a showing that is already on your calendar with a confirmation text on its way to the buyer. That second reading is where a producing agent's money is.
Hear a sign call answered before you compare further
Call callflo.ai's own AI agent and ask it anything about your business. When you are ready, pick a plan: no setup fee, no contract, and you do not pay unless you are satisfied.
Starter is $39 a month on annual billing. Live on your line about 5 minutes after you sign up.
PATLive: live answering service for real estate, priced per minute
PATLive is the established live answering service for real estate, with US-based receptionists around the clock and appointment scheduling and lead collection included on every plan. Its pricing page in September 2026 lists 49 dollars pay as you go at 2.99 a minute, 99 dollars for 50 minutes, 189 for 100, 349 for 200, 479 for 300, 759 for 500, with a 14-day trial. At 100 calls averaging three minutes you are on the 479-dollar plan.
Where it wins: the caller talks to a person, and a person can handle a nervous first-time buyer or an angry neighbor better than a script. Where it does not: 479 dollars a month is a listing agent's marketing budget, and the showing still gets booked by a receptionist reading your calendar rules rather than by the calendar itself.
AnswerMTI: the investor line, per minute
AnswerMTI ranks for real estate investors because it has served them for years: motivated seller lines, direct mail campaigns, the calls that come in bursts after a postcard drop. Its pricing page in September 2026 lists 47 dollars pay as you go at 1.37 a minute, 177 dollars for 125 minutes, 296 for 225 minutes, and custom above that, month to month, with a 7-day trial. At 300 minutes the Premium plan plus overage comes to about 392 dollars.
Appointment scheduling is a separate service without a published price, and payment collection is not mentioned. For an investor who wants a human to take the seller's details and pass them on, AnswerMTI is the professional version of that. The investor comparison works through how fast each option actually calls the seller back.
ReceptionHQ: the cheapest human entry point
ReceptionHQ ranks for the real estate answering service query with a dedicated industry page, and its pricing page in September 2026 is built around small per-call plans: message taking from 25 dollars, messages and transfers from 35 dollars, a 39-dollar plan with 15 calls, and per-minute plans from 49 dollars for appointment scheduling, with a 7-day trial and no lock-in contract.
The catch for this comparison is that the larger tiers are not published on the pricing page, so the 100-call figure cannot be read the way the others were. Ask for the tier in writing before you sign. ReceptionHQ suits an agent with a handful of calls a week who wants a person to say the brokerage name properly. It is not built for a busy sign.
Upfirst: the lowest price at 100 calls
Upfirst is the price leader here. Its pricing page in September 2026 lists 24.95 dollars for 30 calls, 59.95 for 90, 159.95 for 300 and 299 for 600, about 20 percent less on annual billing, with a 14-day trial, appointment scheduling, call transfer and in-call texting on every plan. At 100 calls, the Premium plan plus ten calls of overage comes to about 70 dollars a month.
Metering by call cuts both ways: the wrong number and the twelve-minute seller conversation cost the same one call. Payment collection is not on its published plans. For a part-time agent with light volume, 70 dollars for a hundred answered calls is a very low-risk start. The head-to-head with Upfirst goes plan by plan.
Rosie: the most AI minutes per dollar
Rosie is a general-purpose AI receptionist with the cleanest minutes pricing in the market. Its pricing page in September 2026 lists 49 dollars for 250 minutes, 149 for 1,000 with calendar booking and live transfers, and 299 for 2,000, with a 7-day trial. At 300 minutes you are on the 149-dollar Scale plan, because the entry plan does not publish an overage rate.
For an agent who is comfortable configuring software and wants the most minutes for the least money, Rosie is the one to beat. It is not a real estate product: no buyer and seller qualification out of the box, no payment collection, and the showing workflow is whatever you build on its calendar link. The Rosie comparison is the long version.
callflo.ai: qualifies, books and takes the deposit
callflo.ai is built for real estate, and the agents and brokerages page describes the whole call: it answers in one ring, asks whether the caller is buying, selling or renting, qualifies with your questions, books the showing on your calendar, routes a brokerage line to the right agent, and texts you the summary before the caller hangs up. The part no other service in this table publishes is the card reader. Once Stripe is connected it collects an application fee, an earnest money deposit or an invoice during the call, PCI compliant, so the commitment happens while the caller is still warm.
Pricing, from the pricing page: Starter at 39 dollars a month on annual billing, 49 monthly, with 120 minutes included and overage at 0.98 a minute. At 100 three-minute calls that is about 215 dollars, which is more than Upfirst or Rosie and less than every human service in the table. VIP is 697 dollars a month on annual billing with 1,000 minutes and a team that builds the agent, reads the transcripts and wires in your CRM. Setup on Starter is about five minutes: paste your website, hear it answer, forward your line. No setup fee, no contract, and the cost post puts every option on a per-call basis.
Where it does not win: if you will never take a payment by phone and want the cheapest minutes, Rosie is 66 dollars a month less at this volume, and Upfirst is cheaper still by the call. If your callers need a person, PATLive.
Solo agent, brokerage, investor: the same phone, three jobs
A solo agent needs one thing: the showing booked while they are in another showing. Any AI service in the table does that; the human services do it one step later. A brokerage needs routing, one public number that reaches the right agent and answers when nobody is at the front desk, which is a phone system question as much as an answering one. The brokerage routing post covers it. An investor needs speed to lead and a clean seller record: address, condition, timeline, asking price, and a callback booked before the seller reaches the next buyer.
Here is what the seller call looks like on callflo.ai. It is a sample, not a recording.
Sample call: a sign call at 6:15pm
The human services would handle this call well too. The difference is the calendar: an operator takes the request and someone confirms it Monday, or the slot is held the moment the buyer says Saturday.
How to choose
- You want the showing booked and the deposit taken on the call, and a team to run it as you grow: callflo.ai.
- You want the cheapest answered call and light volume: Upfirst at about 70 dollars.
- You want the most self-serve minutes per dollar: Rosie at 149 dollars for 1,000.
- You want a person on every call, whatever it costs: PATLive, or AnswerMTI for an investor line.
Then test with your own sign. Every service here has a trial. Forward the line for a week, read every transcript, and count the showings that landed on the calendar without you touching them. For the AI-only version of this comparison, read the five AI services for agents.