What does an AI phone assistant cost? Pricing models for 2026

The three pricing models on the market

1. Per-minute, no base fee. You pay for what is actually spoken — typically €0.15 to €0.35 a minute (as of November 2026). Fair when calls are rare, expensive once they are regular.

2. Monthly package with included minutes. The most common model: a base fee, an allowance of minutes, extra minutes charged on top. This is where the biggest difference hides — for the same €99 a month you get roughly 100 minutes from one provider and roughly 1,000 from another (checked on providers' own pricing pages on 1 November 2026). There is a reason for the roughly tenfold spread: providers with a small allowance usually offer deep integration with industry software, and volume providers usually do not.

3. Billing per call or per conversation. A few providers count transactions rather than minutes. Read the small print: do SMS confirmations or callbacks also count as a "conversation"?

How to do the maths: a scenario

What follows is a worked example, not a statistic. A typical small business: 15 calls per working day, 22 working days, an average of 2.5 minutes per call — that is 330 calls, or roughly 825 minutes a month.

That one number exposes any offer:

• A €99 plan with 1,000 included minutes covers the scenario → an effective €0.12 a minute.
• A €99 plan with 100 included minutes needs 725 extra minutes; at €0.99 per extra minute (as offered in the market, as of 1 November 2026) that is an effective €817 or so a month for the same volume of calls — whatever else the plan includes, such as software integrations, is not counted here.
• A pure per-minute rate at €0.15–0.35 would land at around €124–289 a month.

So always calculate base fee ÷ included minutes, then hold your own volume against it. If a provider does not state an allowance, ask — before you sign.

The hidden costs

Recurring themes from providers' pricing pages (as of November 2026):

• Extra minutes from €0.10 to around €1 — with a thin package, that is the real price
• Surcharges for standard features: multilingual answering costs €99 a month extra at one provider, connecting your own phone system via SIP costs a one-off €99 at another; extended statistics sometimes sit in separate add-on packages (as of 2 November 2026)
• Simultaneous calls: on some entry plans the assistant handles only one call at a time — the next caller hears a busy tone. Ask how many calls the plan guarantees at the same time, what a caller beyond that hears, and what an extra line costs.
• Starting credit or setup fees: occasionally present — ask before signing
• Contract terms: monthly cancellation should be the standard; annual discounts are fine, an annual commitment without a trial is not

What the alternative costs

The honest benchmark is not the cheapest AI plan. It is what being reachable costs otherwise:

• A human answering service: a base fee plus a per-minute or per-call charge — at the volume in the scenario above, roughly €490 to roughly €1,400 a month, depending on the provider and the plan that fits (pricing pages, as of 2 November 2026)
• Your own part-time person on the phone: 20 hours a week at the German statutory minimum wage (€13.90 an hour since 1 January 2026) is about €1,200 gross a month before employer contributions — and they get ill, take holidays, and are at home at 7pm
• Voicemail: free, and worth exactly that (in detail: "AI phone assistant vs. voicemail")

What does scoco.ai cost?

With scoco.ai: 4-week free trial — then from €49 per month (plus VAT). The trial ends after 4 weeks or 100 minutes, whichever comes first, needs no payment details and does not turn into a paid plan on its own. The plans (as of 2026-11-01):

Additional minutes cost €0.15 (€0.12 with yearly billing), billed to the second. An extra phone number costs €9 a month, an extra guaranteed line also €9 a month. Cancellable monthly, no setup fee; the software features are the same on every plan (plans in detail). All prices net, plus 19 % VAT. The offer is for businesses only, not for consumers.

But you do not judge quality from a pricing page, you judge it on the phone: