The answering service price index
As of October 12, 2026, the index holds 164 published plans from 29 answering services, each read from the vendor's own pricing page and dated. Download it, reuse it and cite it under CC BY 4.0.
Download
- price-index.csv: one row per published plan, one row per quote-only vendor.
- price-index.json: plans, billing terms with the vendor's own words, URLs and read dates, and the change log.
Columns
- provider_id
- Our id for the vendor; stable across editions
- provider
- The vendor as it spells itself
- category
- live, ai or hybrid, as the vendor describes the service
- price_published
- no when the vendor shows prices only after a form or a sales call (quote only)
- plan
- The plan's name on the vendor's page
- price_usd
- Published plan price in US dollars
- price_basis
- monthly plan or prepaid credit package
- minimum_first_purchase_usd
- Minimum initial purchase for prepaid credits, when stated
- price_is_from
- yes when the vendor says "starting at"
- included_unit, included_qty
- What the plan price covers: minutes, calls, or unlimited
- overage_unit, overage_rate_usd, overage_rate_max_usd
- The published rate past the allowance (a range when it varies)
- annual_monthly_usd
- Effective monthly price on annual billing, when published
- read_on
- The date we read the pricing page
- source_url
- The vendor's pricing page
How to cite
AnsweringPrices.com, answering service price index, prices checked October 12, 2026, https://www.answeringprices.com/data/
How the numbers are made
Monthly plan costs use the cheapest published plan plus overage at 3-minute calls. AnswerAmerica shows the least upfront purchase of prepaid credits covering the calls, with unused credits rolling over. The method, what we leave out and how often we re-read each page are on how we price. Every change is on the change log. You can also query the index from ChatGPT or any MCP client: the AnsweringPrices app.