Ruby Receptionists bills the minute. Here is the card.

What they bill is not the length of the call

Ruby’s billing FAQ measures receptionist time, not how long the caller was on the line. Minutes are billed in 30-second increments, rounded up. A 10-second call is 30 seconds on the invoice. The plan fee is billed in advance. If you pass the included minutes, a second charge lands in arrears.

The public FAQ does not print the overage rate. Do not guess it. Before you sign, ask for the per-minute overage on the order form. A $250 plan that quietly becomes a $700 plan is the whole point of reading the second charge.

An older Ruby PDF (January 30, 2025) still shows $245, $385, $705, and $1,695. Ignore it. The live card is the price.

A worked month, labeled as an example

This is not a study. It is 80 calls, so you can see the tier.

PATLive’s own pricing page says 200 minutes is "about 80 calls." That is 2.5 minutes a call, their label, not a measurement of your shop. At that length, 80 calls sit on Ruby’s 200-minute card: $720.

If the receptionist is actually on the call for 3 minutes, 80 calls are 240 minutes. The 200-minute card does not cover it. You are on the $720 plan plus an overage Ruby has not published on the card, or you jump to 500 minutes at $1,725. There is no 300-minute card on the page we read.

Fifty minutes, the $250 plan, is about 16 three-minute calls. That is a slow week, not a summer month.

Where a live receptionist is the right buy

Buy the minutes if a human has to stay on the line. Commercial bids, insurance claims, warranty fights, a caller who will not text. Ruby is a person. PATLive, on its own pricing page, says a live receptionist answers and they do not dump the caller into voicemail unless you tell them to. That is a different product than a text.

Smith.ai’s receptionist cards, same day, are priced per call rather than per minute: 30 calls for $300, 90 for $810, 300 for $2,100. Eighty calls does not fit the $300 card. It fits the $810 card, with 10 calls of room. Different unit, same lesson: read the included count before you hear "starts at."

Where the minute is the wrong unit

Most missed calls on a van are not a conversation a receptionist needs to finish. The owner is on a roof or under a sink. The caller needs a text in the first minute, a couple of questions, and a time on the board. A 30-second rounded-up receptionist minute does not do that job cheaper. It does a different job.

Toolbench’s published plan is on the pricing page: $49 a month after a 7-day trial, 500 credits, then $0.10 a credit. A credit is one agent action. A text-back is one action. It is not a receptionist-minute, and it is not a Smith call. Do not divide $49 by 80 and call it a cost per call. The units do not match. If you need a person on the line, this is the wrong product. If you need the missed call texted back and the Google profile kept current, the minute plans above are the expensive way to buy a message.

Good to know

• Ruby’s 24/7 claim is real coverage only if your plan’s included minutes survive the month. Nights do not get a separate card on the page we read. The cap is the minutes, not the clock.
• Confirm the overage rate in writing. It is not on the four cards.
• If you already pay Smith or Rosie, read those compare pages before you add a third bill. Stacking a live service and a text-back is a choice. It is not required.

FAQ

See the plan on the pricing page. Also see missed-call text-back, Smith.ai, and the missed-call text-back playbook.