Answering services quote per call, per minute, or per month, and aproperty manager thinks in doors. This post converts the vendor pricing into what a portfolio actually pays, with the numbers read from public pricing pages, so you can put a monthly figure next to the leases and work orders the phone produces.
Key takeaways
- Human-staffed services price per call, from about 300 dollars a month for 30 calls. On a portfolio where every tenant call after 5pm is billable, that meter runs fast.
- AI answering prices per minute, from 29 to 49 dollars a month at entry and 149 to 697 dollars for 1,000 minutes, depending on whether anyone runs it for you.
- Per door, a 100-unit portfolio lands somewhere between 40 cents and 9 dollars a month depending on the option, before counting what a missed leasing call costs.
- The only cost that matters is the one next to the revenue: a filled unit a month sooner pays for a year of most of these.
How answering services price
Three meters exist. Human answering services bill per call, because a person spent time on it. AI services bill per minute of conversation, because that is what the computing costs. A few AI services bill per call too. The unit decides your bill more than the sticker: a two-minute maintenance call and a fifteen-minute leasing conversation cost the same on a per-call meter and differ by 7x on a per-minute one.
The numbers, from public pricing pages
| Service | Staffed by | Entry plan | Around 1,000 minutes or 300 calls | Books tours | Takes payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai | People | $300 / 30 calls | $2,100 / 300 calls | Add-on per call | Add-on per call |
| Dialzara | AI | $29 / 60 min | $349 / 1,000 min | Yes | Not listed |
| Rosie | AI | $49 / 250 min | $149 / 1,000 min | On the $149 plan | Not listed |
| callflo.ai | AI, with a team on VIP | $39 / 120 min, annual | $697 / 1,000 min, run for you | Yes, on every plan | Yes, via Stripe |
Two things to read off that table. Self-serve AI minutes are cheap, and Rosie is the cheapest of them at volume. And callflo.ai's 1,000-minute tier is not priced against Rosie; it includes a team that builds the agent, reads the transcripts, tunes it, and wires your property management software, which is why it sits nearer the human services on price. The Rosie comparison goes plan by plan if self-serve is what you want, and the six-service comparison lines up the human and AI options at 300 minutes.
What it costs per door
Take a 100-unit portfolio that produces about 150 phone calls a month, averaging three minutes: leasing inquiries, maintenance, owners, vendors. That is 450 minutes.
At 100 doors and 450 minutes, callflo.ai VIP at 697 dollars comes to about 7 dollars a door, with the agent integrated into your management software and nobody on your team configuring anything. Whether that is expensive depends entirely on the other side of the ledger. For scale, an average management fee comes to about 126 dollars a door a month on median rent, per what property managers charge.
Costs that are not on the pricing page
- Per-call billing on a tenant line.A portfolio generates calls that are short and frequent. On a per-call meter the 45-second "what is the gate code" call costs the same as a leasing conversation.
- Booking as an add-on. If tours are a per-call extra, price the extra. Booking is the part that fills units.
- Your time configuring it. Self-serve AI is cheap because you do the setup and the tuning. If nobody in the office will, the cheap plan sits half-configured and answers badly.
- Overage.Know the rate before you know your volume. callflo.ai's is 0.98 dollars a minute past the included amount; Dialzara's runs 0.35 to 0.48. On a Starterplan with a busy line, overage is the bill.
How to put a real number on it
- Pull one month of call volume and average length from your phone system.
- Price the three options above on that volume, overage included.
- Run the one that fits for a week on your real line. callflo.ai has no setup fee, no contract, and a satisfaction guarantee on the first subscription, so the week costs you nothing if it did not earn its keep. Put the leases and work orders it produced next to the cost.