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Right On Call
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Comparison · AI plus human receptionists

Right On Call vs Smith.ai.

Smith.ai is an established US receptionist company with both AI and live human agents, strongest with law firms and professional offices. It bills per call rather than per minute, and sells a long list of add-ons. Right On Call is AI only, built for home-service shops, and billed per minute with no add-ons for the basics.

Their details checked September 26, 2026. Sources are listed below.

Where Smith.ai wins

  • Real people can take over the call. We do not offer that.
  • Live transfer and warm handoff.
  • Deep experience with legal intake and a wide CRM integration list.
  • Per-call billing means a long call costs the same as a short one.

Where Right On Call wins

  • One flat monthly price with the trade basics included, not a menu of add-ons.
  • Triage, lead times, and follow-up questions written for your trade.
  • Canadian postal-code coverage, Ontario carrier forwarding, and CAD billing.
  • Jobber job creation and live calendar booking in the base plan.
  • Photo intake and a recovery text after a hang-up, built for service calls.

The 9 PM call that rings out

The same call, followed through both products. Nobody at the shop could get to it.

Smith.ai

  1. 1An AI agent answers, with live people behind it on hybrid plans
  2. 2Runs the intake script you agreed during onboarding
  3. 3Transfers, schedules, or takes a message
  4. 4Summary to you or your CRM. Per-call fees and any add-ons apply

Right On Call

  1. 1You had your rings to pick up and could not
  2. 2The receptionist answers as your shop, in English or French
  3. 3Triage: a no-heat call is urgent, a tune-up is not. Postal code checked
  4. 4A real open time is booked, or your on-call phone gets the job by text
  5. 5On a booking, the caller gets a confirmation text and a request for a photo

Side by side

Smith.ai compared with Right On Call
TopicSmith.aiRight On Call
PricePer call. AI roughly US$1 to $3 a call; human plans from about US$300 for 30 calls$150 CAD a month for 200 answered minutes, then $0.75 a minute
Add-onsA list of per-call and monthly add-onsSMS confirmation, photo intake, reminders, and Jobber connect are in the plan
Humans in the loopLive agents available on hybrid and human plansAI only. Escalations text your own team
Built forLaw firms, professional services, and general small businessOntario home-service and property shops
Emergency triageScripted intake questionsEmergency vs routine rules written for your trade. Gas, smoke, or spark reports get a bounded safety script and a human callback
Service areaScreening questions you defineCanadian postal-code check with a readback. Out-of-area bookings refused in code
Field-service toolStrong CRM list; check field-service coverageJobber connect in the plan: the call creates the client and the job. Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan on request
After the callCall summary and CRM noteSMS confirmation, photo intake, job-summary text to the shop, day-before reminder
CurrencyUS dollarsCanadian dollars

Per call vs per minute on a short service call

Per-call billing is simple to explain and fair when calls run long. Legal intake can run ten minutes, and paying the same for a ten-minute call as a two-minute one is a good deal there.

Service calls are short. A name, an address, what is wrong, a time. Most of the calls a trade shop misses are two to four minutes. On calls that short, per-minute billing to the second tends to come out lower, and there is no add-on list to read before you know the real number.

Smith.ai is also built to be your front desk, with humans on the heavier plans. Right On Call is not trying to replace a front desk. It sits behind the one you have, including when that front desk is you, and catches the calls that ring out.

Cost of one 3-minute service call

  • Smith.ai AI, lower tierabout US$1.67
  • Smith.ai AI, higher tierabout US$3.00
  • Smith.ai human, past bundleUS$8.50 to $11.50
  • Right On Call Essential$2.25
  • Right On Call Managed$2.10
Smith.ai figures are US dollars, from independent reviews of its published plans. Ours are Canadian dollars. Our per-minute rate is the same inside the plan and past it.

What Smith.ai costs

Published in US dollars and billed per call. Independent reviews put the AI receptionist at roughly $1 to $3 a call depending on tier, and human receptionist plans from about $300 a month for 30 calls, with $8.50 to $11.50 per call past the bundle. Several features are priced as per-call or monthly add-ons.

Right On Call is on the pricing page, in Canadian dollars, with what each tier does not include.

Where both sit in the market

Message → job in your tools

You build it → built for you

Our read of the market, not a measurement. Across: who builds the call flow. Up: whether the call ends as a message or as a job in your own tools. Smith.ai is highlighted.

Choose Smith.ai if

  • You want a human fallback on every call.
  • You run a law firm or professional office with a CRM they already support.
  • Your calls are long and per-call billing works in your favour.

Choose Right On Call if

  • Your calls are short service requests where per-call fees add up in a cold snap.
  • You want the call to end with a triaged job on your board, not a note.
  • You want one Canadian-dollar number on the invoice.

Built for the calls you miss, not to replace the people who answer

Right On Call can answer every call if you want it to. That is not what it is built for. It is built so that a call you would have missed, on a roof, in a crawlspace, at lunch, after 5, on a Saturday, gets picked up and ends as a booked job instead of a voicemail nobody returns.

Why Right On Call →

Right On Call vs Smith.ai: questions

Is per-call or per-minute pricing better for a trade shop?

It depends on call length. Service calls are usually short: a name, an address, a problem, a time. Short calls favour per-minute billing. At three minutes a call, 200 included minutes covers about 66 calls, and each extra minute is $0.75 billed to the second. Long intake calls, like legal consultations, favour per-call billing.

Does Right On Call have human receptionists like Smith.ai?

No. Right On Call is an AI receptionist. When a call needs judgment, it texts your own team with the caller details so a person from your shop calls back. If you need a staffed human line, Smith.ai or a traditional answering service is the better fit.

Get a Free Missed-Call AuditTalk to Maya, our demo line(226) 559-5680

Sources

Smith.ai details come from its published pages and independent reviews as of September 26, 2026. Plans change; check theirs before you decide. If something here is out of date, email hello@rightoncall.com and we will correct it. Product names are trademarks of their owners. Right On Call is not affiliated with or endorsed by Smith.ai.

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