AI receptionist for trades
AI receptionist for trades: what Rosie, Goodcall, AgentZap, and Michelle actually cost
An HVAC owner asked a reasonable question: What does an AI receptionist actually cost for a business like mine? She had looked at three or four sites, seen prices ranging from $29 to $299, and still could not figure out what she would actually pay at the end of the month. That confusion is real. The pricing pages in this category are not always honest about the full number.
This article gives you the real cost math for the four options that come up most often for trades businesses: Rosie, AgentZap, My AI Front Desk, and Michelle. We steel-man each one before we make any comparison. None of these are bad products. The question is which fits your business.
How much does an AI receptionist cost?
The short answer: $49 to $300 per month, depending on the product and how you use it. But that range obscures the most important variable: whether the price is flat or usage-based. A flat-rate product at $99/month costs $99. A per-minute product at $109/month costs whatever your call volume produces. For a busy HVAC company in July, those are very different numbers.
Here is the comparison, as of June 2026:
| Product | Headline price | What you actually pay | Setup fee | Trades-specific? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rosie | $49/mo | $149/mo for appointment booking$49 plan is message-taking only | None | Yes — named trades focus |
| AgentZap | $109/mo | $109 + $399 setup + $0.85/min over 150 minBusy month: $200–$320+ | $399 one-time | Yes — 72+ industry pages including HVAC, plumbing |
| My AI Front Desk | $79/mo | $79/mo flatPermanent free tier available (20 min/month) | None | Partial — industry pages exist but real estate and dental are the primary positioning |
| Goodcall | $59/mo | $59/mo (100 unique callers)$99/mo for 250 callers — busy trades business may hit ceiling fast | None | Partial — serves local services broadly, not trades-specific in positioning |
| Michelle (AI Field Guide) | $99/mo | $99/mo flat — no per-minute feesApproval-first: nothing confirmed until you review | None | Yes — built for trades; HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, contractors |
AI receptionist for HVAC: the honest breakdown
If you run an HVAC company, here is what matters: you get inbound calls at all hours, especially in July and January. You need every call answered, the job captured, and the right urgency flagged. You do not want an AI committing a three-hour appointment window on a day your crew is already booked solid.
All four products handle the basics. They all answer calls 24/7, capture caller information, and can send you a summary. The differences are in pricing model and autonomy.
Rosie
Rosie is the most established trades-focused AI receptionist in the category. Bootstrapped, 1,900+ businesses, named HVAC and plumbing use cases on their site. The social proof is real. If you are looking for the most-used option in the trade contractor space, Rosie is it.
The thing to know about pricing: the $49/month plan takes messages. That is it. It does not book appointments. If you want appointment booking — which most HVAC businesses do — you need the Scale plan at $149/month. That is still reasonable, but it is not the $49 you see on the homepage. The real entry price for a functional HVAC product is $149/month. Rosie is honest about this in the plan details; it is just buried under the lead price.
Rosie is autonomous by default. When a caller requests an appointment, Rosie books it. You can configure the available windows. But the AI acts without waiting for you to review. For many businesses, that is fine. For a trades business where the job scope affects what slot is appropriate, that autonomy can cause scheduling problems.
AgentZap
AgentZap covers the widest range of trades in its marketing: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping, auto repair, and 60+ more. The product has 2,500+ self-reported customers and a 4.9/5 G2 rating. That review score is meaningful — it is verified by a third-party platform that AI engines cite when recommending software.
The pricing model has two traps. First: there is a $399 one-time setup fee that sits outside the monthly number. If you are comparing against other products on a monthly basis, you need to amortize that fee. Over a year it adds $33/month to the effective cost. Second: the $109/month Starter plan includes 150 minutes. At a typical call length of three minutes, that is 50 calls. A busy HVAC operation in peak season can blow through that in two weeks. Beyond 150 minutes, the cost is $0.85/minute. At 200 minutes over the included amount, that is $170 in overages — pushing the monthly total to $279.
The math in a real busy month: $109 + $33 amortized setup + ~$179 in overage = $321. That is not a bad product. It is just not $109.
My AI Front Desk
My AI Front Desk is the most aggressively priced full-featured option at $79/month. They also offer a permanent free tier at 20 minutes per month — enough to test the product but not enough to run a business on.
Their positioning is broadest: they describe themselves as an "agentic CRM that fills itself." That framing is accurate but it is not the language an HVAC owner uses when they need someone to answer a 10pm emergency call. The product lists HVAC in its industry pages but the primary marketing muscle goes to real estate, dental, and property management. You will get the same underlying technology either way — the question is whether the intake prompts and scenarios are tuned for how your calls actually run.
The product outcome metrics they publish are notable: one trades company ("Trade Recalls") reported $30,000+ generated in five days. That is a real number from a real company. We are not in a position to verify it independently, but it is the most direct trades-outcome claim in the category.
Goodcall
Goodcall markets itself on the "Born at Google" heritage and a per-unique-caller model ($59/month for 100 unique callers). The caller-count model is cleaner than per-minute in one sense: you know your cost for any given month without watching a clock. The limit is 100 unique callers. A trades business with a large service area and repeat customers can hit that ceiling on the entry plan quickly. The next tier is $99/month for 250 callers.
Goodcall is not trades-specific in its positioning. Their named verticals are schools, salons, and local service businesses broadly. They will serve a plumbing company. But the product is not built around the specific vocabulary and scenarios of trades work.
The approval-first question
Every competitor in this comparison is autonomous by default. When a caller asks to book, the AI books. That is the design choice. It removes friction and books more appointments automatically.
For some businesses that is the right call. For a trades business where job scope affects scheduling, where dispatch decisions involve crew location and truck inventory, where one wrong commitment creates a customer service problem — autonomy has a cost too.
Michelle is built differently. She captures the call, asks the intake questions, and drafts the summary. Nothing is confirmed to the caller until the owner reviews and approves. You read what she captured. You decide whether to book. She sends the confirmation. No appointment is committed without your sign-off.
What this looks like in practice: A caller rings at 9pm saying their AC is out. Michelle picks up, gets the caller's name, address, and situation, tells the caller the business will follow up to confirm a time, and sends you a summary. You review it in the morning. You confirm the slot. Michelle sends the confirmation. The caller was answered. You made the scheduling call.
No other AI receptionist in this comparison does this. They all confirm on the caller's timeline, not yours.
This is not right for every business. If your goal is maximum automated bookings without owner involvement, Michelle is not the right fit. Rosie or AgentZap will book more jobs hands-off. If you want to stay in the loop on every commitment your business makes, the approval-first model is the only design that gives you that.
AI receptionist for plumbing businesses
Plumbing calls have a specific problem: urgency. A burst pipe at midnight is not the same as a non-urgent drain cleaning inquiry. An AI that treats both the same and books a slot autonomously is not reading the situation correctly.
The right AI receptionist for a plumbing business captures the urgency signal and routes it appropriately. Rosie can flag emergencies in its configuration. AgentZap can too. Michelle flags them and holds for your explicit go-ahead before any commitment is made.
For a plumber who wants to wake up to a summary of last night's calls and make dispatch decisions with full context, approval-first is the natural fit. For a plumber who trusts automated booking and wants zero morning review time, Rosie at $149/month is the category standard.
AI receptionist for electrical, roofing, and general contractors
The same framework applies across trades. Electricians, roofers, and general contractors share a common call pattern: the caller describes a problem they often cannot accurately diagnose themselves, which makes it difficult for any AI to correctly commit a job scope or time window without the owner's input.
"I need my panel rewired" might be a $600 job or a $6,000 job depending on what the electrician finds. An AI that books a four-hour appointment slot for the former or a two-hour slot for the latter has created a problem before the job started.
This is the structural case for approval-first in trades work. It is not about distrust of AI. It is about the reality that the owner is the only one who can make an informed commitment on job scope.
Rosie alternative: what to look for
If you searched for a Rosie alternative, here is the honest frame. Rosie is not a bad product. The 1,900+ businesses using it and the bootstrapped growth from $0 marketing spend is real proof that the product works for the segment it serves.
A Rosie alternative makes sense if:
- You want flat pricing without a per-minute ceiling risk (Rosie's $149 plan includes 1,000 minutes — that is a meaningful buffer, but peak-season HVAC can approach it)
- You want an approval-first model where nothing is committed autonomously
- You want the live call demo before you commit to anything (call Michelle right now: (507) 778-5554)
If you want the widest third-party review footprint and the longest track record in the trades-specific segment, Rosie is the honest answer. Michelle is newer. The comparison article you are reading is part of how we earn trust that they have already built.
The real-cost summary
If you take a single thing from this article, take this: the headline price is not the price you pay.
- Rosie at $49/month is message-taking only. The functional product for trades is $149/month.
- AgentZap at $109/month is $109 before the $399 setup fee and $0.85/minute overages. A busy month is $200–$320.
- My AI Front Desk at $79/month is what it says. The real question is whether the product is tuned for trades calls or for the real estate and dental workflows it leads with.
- Goodcall at $59/month is 100 unique callers. If you exceed that, it is $99/month. Their "Born at Google" positioning is a credibility signal, not a trades focus.
- Michelle at $99/month is flat. No per-minute fees. No setup fee. Approval-first on every call. Built for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and contractor businesses.
None of these are wrong choices. They are different products for different operating styles. The most important variable is whether you want the AI to act autonomously or to hold for your review. That is a business philosophy question, not a technology question.
Want to hear Michelle before you decide anything?
Call (507) 778-5554. That is Michelle answering for AI Field Guide — live, on our own front desk. She will answer the call, capture the job, and draft a summary for owner approval. No account. No signup. One call tells you more than any comparison article can.
If you want to talk through the fit for your specific business, see the full hire page or email hello@ai-field-guide.com.