Smith.ai vs. Moneypenny: Live Answering Service Comparison

Are you having trouble selecting a live answering service for your business? The virtual receptionist service you choose has a huge impact on your customer so it’s important to carefully pick your provider. Here we compare Smith.ai virtual receptionists to Moneypenny.

Setup Fees & Contracts

Smith.ai

• No setup or cancellation fee
• No contract
• Free consultation
• 14-day money-back guarantee

Moneypenny

• No setup fee
• Month-to-month after a three-month contract
• One week free trial

Discussion: Both Smith.ai and Moneypenny offer free setup and month-to-month services. Moneypenny only offers one week from their free trial. Smith.ai allows you to try our services risk-free for two weeks (up to $1,000) with our money-back guarantee. It can be difficult to understand the quality of the services you receive in just one week, and if that week happens to have very low call volume, you really can't make adjustments to get your receptionist service up to the quality you are looking for. Smith.ai's 14-day money-back guarantee allows you to spend two full weeks working with our company risk-free and watching the response from your callers. If we're not a fit, we'll refund the price of your plan. Additionally, you can start and stop service at any time, whereas Moneypenny requires a minimum of a three-month contract, plus a month's notice if you choose not to renew. Why be stuck with fees for another month if you've already decided the service isn't paying off?

Monthly Plans

Smith.ai and Moneypenny offer monthly plans depending on your call volume.

Smith.ai

• $285 for 30 live receptionist calls and 1 live transfer number
• $765 for 90 live receptionist calls and 2 live transfer numbers
• $1,950 for 300 live receptionist calls and 10 live transfer numbers
• Custom plans available
• 10% annual discount when paid up front
  

Moneypenny‍

• $140 plan for 30 calls
• $260 plan for 90 calls
• $395 plan for 150 calls
• Custom plans available
  

Smith.ai allows for flexibility with pricing depending on your call volume and your business’ needs. And Smith.ai is transparent — our pricing is prominently displayed on our site. Moneypenny does not advertise its pricing online. In general, the more costly the service, the harder it is to find pricing!

Discussion: The price-per-call with Moneypenny is lower, but keep in mind that Moneypenny charges for sales calls (including robocalls), while Smith.ai does not. What they offer on each call is also much less. While Moneypenny's receptionists only take messages or transfer calls, Smith.ai's receptionists can do a lot on one call. They can answer questions about your business, qualify leads, book appointments, take payments, gather basic intake information and log it in your systems, request transfers through Slack and Microsoft Teams, send messages via text and email, and much more. Is it worth it to have your calls answered by a virtual receptionist when you have to follow-up on every call eventually anyway? Please note that some of these features are add-ons and will incur an added cost.

Overage Costs

Smith.ai

• $10.50/call on the $285/month plan
• $9.50/call on the $765/month plan
• $7.50/call on the $1,950/month plan
  

Moneypenny

• $2.50 per call for the $140 plan
• Call to ask for other plans.
  

Inquire with Moneypenny to learn more about their overage fees for their other plans; overage costs are not available online.

Discussion: Smith.ai and Moneypenny both charge per call. However, Moneypenny requires you to contact them for the monthly fees or overage costs based on your estimated call volume. With Smith.ai, we feel strongly about transparent pricing and list everything on our website. Overage costs may differ from business to business with Moneypenny.

Features

Smith.ai and Moneypenny both offer the following features:

• 24/7 live call and web chat answering
• Live call transfers
• Daily call reports
• After-hours voicemail
  

Smith.ai offers the following additional features:

• Integration with all major calendaring and scheduling software programs
• Integration with all major CRMs, like Clio, Clio Grow, Hubspot, Lexicata, Capsule CRM, and more
• One free CRM integration
• Integration with helpdesk ticketing software programs
• Ability to map client history to the incoming number so clients receive personalized attention
• Messages texted to you
• Recommended business referral
• Overflow answering
• Facebook and SMS answering
• Custom greetings
• Lead qualification and lead intake form completion
• Payment collection
• No charge for spam calls or wrong numbers
• Call recording and transcription

Moneypenny offers the following additional features:

• Phone app to update status and look at call data
• Status set by GPS location
  

Discussion: Both companies offer similar features when it comes to live call answering. However, Smith.ai offers more customization for lead capture and qualification. Also, Smith.ai rotates its calls among many receptionists rather than assigning four dedicated receptionists to your business as Moneypenny does. Smith.ai builds out all call handling instructions for each business so that anyone on our team can handle your calls professionally and thoroughly. Having our full team available and not just a few receptionists means we're never short-handed for your calls, and can quickly grow as your business starts receiving more calls. 

Moreover, Smith.ai offers outbound calls where our receptionists reach out to your potential and existing clients to share or gather information. We can call with appointment reminders, service availability or rate changes, work status updates, and much more.

Summary

With Moneypenny is a more affordable option for businesses looking to get an extra hand. And while their per-call prices are lower than Smith.ai's, it comes at a steep cost: they offer hardly any features. A virtual receptionist is only the equivalent of an in-house receptionist if they can take on all the receptionist duties during office hours. At Smith.ai, we'll make your outbound calls, appointment reminders, relay messages to existing clients and business partners, complete new client intake forms that pass directly into your CRM, schedule appointments directly on your preferred calendaring software, and much more. We can even answer basic questions about your business, freeing you and your team for more critical tasks. Sure, the per-call pricing is higher with Smith.ai, but that's because with us, the virtual receptionists can handle a much wider range of duties on each call.

Smith.ai Client Testimonial

Smith.ai virtual receptionists are a great fit for any small- to medium-size business or independent professional, but don't just take our word for it. Here's what one of our long-time clients had to say:

“I started using Smith when my paralegal/receptionist suffered a disabling injury. They are very, very helpful folks who do their job well. They have a really good method for handling legal clients without me having to provide training and are great at getting me good basic information before I return a phone call. They are also very polite, and my clients compliment how warm they are to them. At this time, I won't have to replace my paralegal/receptionist, and I have better phone coverage than before.”

- Devon Slovensky, Virginia Nonprofit Law Center, P.C.

Learn More About Smith.ai

Smith.ai virtual receptionists are trained to learn your business and build a relationship with your customers. Discuss your options with us by signing up for a free consultation with our team or get started risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee!