A Smith.ai alternative for plumbing contractors
Smith.ai is a live receptionist service staffed by people in the US, billed per call: $300 a month for 30 calls, $810 for 90 calls, and $2,100 for 300 calls, with overage on top ($11.50 per call over 30 on the entry plan). Smart Lead Recovery is an AI receptionist built for one trade — plumbing — at $500 to set up and $500 a month flat, with no per-call charge at any volume. The crossover is around 47 calls a month.
Last updated
What Smith.ai does better.
Real people, and good ones. Smith.ai staffs US-based agents rather than offshore call centres, and for a caller who is upset, rambling, or describing something that fits no script, a trained human is simply better than software. That is not a small advantage in a trade where people ring you during the worst hour of their week.
They also serve every industry, and serve them properly — law firms, clinics, agencies. If you run more than one business, or a business that is not plumbing, they can cover all of it and we cannot.
And their entry plan is genuinely cheap if your volume is low. $300 for 30 calls is less than we charge. Below about 47 calls a month, they are the better buy on price and we would tell you so.
The two, side by side.
Smith.ai figures are from their published pricing page, checked July 2026. Ours are on our pricing page.
| Capability | Smith.ai | Smart Lead Recovery |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | Live human receptionists, 24/7, US-based | Riley, an AI trained only on your plumbing business |
| Entry price | $300 a month for 30 calls | $500 a month, unlimited calls |
| At 90 calls a month | $810 (Basic plan) | Yes:$500 |
| At 300 calls a month | $2,100 (Pro plan) | Yes:$500 |
| How it bills | Per call, not per minute | Yes:Flat monthly fee, no per-call or per-minute charge |
| Setup fee | Yes:None | $500 one-time, for building and training it on your shop |
| Built around your trade | Partly:Every industry, from your script | Yes:Plumbing only, trained on your prices and service area |
| Books into dispatch software | Partly:CRM integrations included; extra CRMs $0.50/call | Yes:ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro or Google Calendar |
| An upset or unusual caller | Yes:A trained person, which is better | Partly:Takes details and hands the call to you |
| Guarantee | Month to month, 30-day money-back guarantee up to $1,000 | 3x of month-one cost in booked work, or everything refunded |
Which one fits your shop.
Stay with Smith.ai if your call volume is genuinely low, if you run more than one kind of business, or if you want a person on every call and are happy to pay per call for it. Below roughly 47 calls a month their entry plan costs less than we do, and that is the end of the argument.
Move if the per-call bill is the problem. A plumbing company doing 90 calls a month is at $810 with them and $500 with us — and the months when your phone rings hardest are the months that gap is widest, which is a strange thing to be punished for.
The other difference is depth. Smith.ai's agents work from the script you give them across every industry they serve. Riley is set up for one plumbing company at a time and answers what you actually charge for a call-out, whether you cover a caller's town, and which brands you will not touch — because we spent a day writing that down with you before it went live.
Also worth reading: what we cost, the Ruby comparison, and how this compares to any answering service.
The things people ask.
Smith.ai publishes three plans: $300 a month for 30 calls, $810 for 90 calls, and $2,100 for 300 calls, plus custom enterprise pricing. Overage is charged per call — $11.50 per call over 30 on the entry plan, falling to $8.50 per call over 300 on the top one. There are no setup fees. Checked July 2026.
Cheapest depends entirely on volume, and anyone who answers without asking your call count is guessing. Self-serve AI tools start under $100 a month. We are $500 a month flat. Smith.ai's own entry plan at $300 beats all of that if you take fewer than about 47 calls a month.
Not at everything, and we will not pretend otherwise. A person handles distress, confusion and the genuinely unusual better than software does. What an AI does better is answer instantly every time, take two calls at once, never have an off day, and cost the same in your busiest month as your quietest. Ring our demo line and judge the gap yourself rather than taking either side’s word for it.
Yes — they serve home services among many other industries, and plenty of contractors use them. The trade-off is breadth: their agents cover every industry from the script each client supplies, so what they know about your pricing and service area is what you wrote down. A trade-specific setup goes deeper on that, which is the case we are making here.
Yes. You keep your number and forward it, either always or only after four unanswered rings. Setup takes two business days and nothing goes live until you have rung it yourself and been happy with what you heard.
Don’t take our word for it. Call it.
Ring the demo line and ask it something awkward. Sixty seconds will tell you more than any sales call.