Pricing
Medical Answering Service Pricing: $299/Provider, No Minutes, No Surprises
Medical answering service pricing starts at $299/provider/month for Standard and $449/provider/month for Pro. Both include a 14-day free trial, no credit card, $0 setup fee, and no published volume discount.
Plans
Medical answering service pricing by tier.
Standard
For English-only practices
$0 setup. 14-day free trial, no credit card. 15% annual discount.
- Unlimited calls (fair-use)
- Per-provider auto-detection + inbox redaction
- Structured intake from plain-English instructions
- Emergency flagging by SMS + email
- HIPAA compliant + signed BAA
- English-only answering
- 365-day recording retention
- Email support, 48-hour SLA
Pro
For specialty and multi-provider practices
$0 setup. 14-day free trial, no credit card. 15% annual discount.
- Everything in Standard
- Conditional intake instructions for common call types
- Business-hours and after-hours greeting/tone
- Practice vocabulary hints
- 1,825-day (5-year) recording retention
- 20+ languages with English translation
- Custom escalation rules
- Advanced analytics
- Priority support, 24-hour SLA
5+ providers? We offer custom plans — contact sales. No published volume discount applies to Standard or Pro.
Comparison
DeskMD vs live human answering services.
Competitor prices below are from public pricing pages.
| Option | Published price | Model | Medical-office note |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeskMD Standard | $299/provider/month | AI per provider | Structured intake, provider detection, inbox, transcript, recording, notifications. |
| DeskMD Pro | $449/provider/month | AI per provider | Standard plus multilingual answering, translation, SMS/email dispatch controls, vocabulary hints, longer retention. |
| Ruby | $395/month for 100 receptionist minutes; $720 for 200 minutes | Human minute bundle | Ruby says HIPAA-compliant services and bilingual answering are available. Source. |
| Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists | $300/month for 30 calls; $2,100/month for 300 calls | Human call bundle | Smith.ai says this service is not HIPAA-compliant for PHI. Source. |
| Posh | $215/month for 100 minutes; $700/month for 350 minutes | Human minute bundle | Posh prices by receptionist minutes. Source. |
How licenses work
One provider license means one provider’s calls are visible in your inbox.
DeskMD listens for the doctor’s name, assigns the call when it can, and keeps provider-specific visibility bounded by the license.
Calculator
Estimate your monthly total.
5+ providers should contact sales for a custom plan.
Pricing models
Per-provider vs. per-call vs. per-minute — how the pricing models compare.
Most medical answering service quotes are designed to be hard to compare across vendors. Here’s the cleaner way to think about it.
Per-provider (DeskMD)
Flat monthly fee per licensed provider. $299 Standard, $449 Pro. Doesn’t scale with volume; predictable. Wins on practices with steady or growing call volumes (above ~50 calls/provider/month).
Per-call (Smith.ai, AnswerConnect)
Bundles of receptionist calls per month, plus per-call overage rates. Predictable until you blow past the bundle. Common in human services.
Per-minute (Ruby, Posh, Specialty)
Bundles of receptionist minutes plus per-minute overage. Cheapest entry tier; most volatile. A 4-minute symptom call costs the same as a 30-second appointment confirmation.
For a deeper comparison, see the medical answering service cost breakdown (publishes 2026-05-15) and the best medical answering services in 2026.
Hidden fees
What you should ask the others (and what DeskMD doesn’t charge for).
Hidden line items account for a meaningful share of medical answering service cost overruns. Ask any vendor about all of these before signing.
Bilingual surcharge
Many human services charge 25-50% extra for non-English calls. DeskMD: $0 surcharge. 20+ languages at native quality on Pro, included.
Holiday + weekend rates
1.5x to 2x base rates on holidays. Some services charge a flat “holiday premium” per month. DeskMD: $0 surcharge. Same flat per-provider rate, every day of the year.
Setup fees
$200-$500 one-time, sometimes labeled as a “script-build” or “configuration” charge. DeskMD: $0 setup. You write your intake instructions in plain English.
BAA fee
Some general-business services charge $50-$100/month extra to bring HIPAA into scope. DeskMD: $0. Signed BAA on every account.
SMS dispatch fees
$0.50-$2.00 per outbound SMS (separate from the call). DeskMD: $0. SMS + email dispatch included.
Warm transfer fees
Some services charge per-transfer when warm-transferring callers. DeskMD: not applicable. Calls are captured and routed; we don’t do warm-transfer (an answering service handoff).
Cost vs. competitors
Real medical answering service cost ranges in 2026.
Published prices from human and AI vendors, pulled 2026-05-03. Verify against each vendor’s page before quoting; pricing changes.
| Vendor | Entry | Mid-tier | Top-tier | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeskMD Standard | $299/provider | $299/provider | $299/provider | Per-provider, flat |
| DeskMD Pro | $449/provider | $449/provider | $449/provider | Per-provider, flat |
| Smith.ai Virtual | $292/mo (30 calls) | $675/mo (90 calls) | $1,170/mo (175 calls) | Per-call (live human) |
| Ruby | $250/mo (50 min) | $720/mo (200 min) | $1,725/mo (500 min) | Per-minute (live human) |
| Posh | $65/mo (entry) | $700/mo (350 min) | $1,900/mo (1,000 min) | Per-minute (live human) |
| AnswerConnect | $179/mo (100 calls) | $329/mo (250 calls) | $649/mo (500 calls) | Per-call (live human) |
| Specialty Answering Service | $44/mo | $2,000/mo (1,500 min) | $10,599/mo (10K min) | Per-minute (live human) |
Bottom line for an automated medical answering service. Once your call volume crosses ~150 calls/provider/month, per-provider DeskMD usually costs roughly half of the equivalent human service. Below that, per-call may win. More cost analysis.
Pricing FAQ
No minute math hidden below the fold.
Is DeskMD priced by minute?
No. DeskMD Standard and Pro are priced per licensed provider per month. Platform and fair-use limits still apply.
How much does Standard cost?
Standard is $299 per provider per month, with a 14-day trial, no credit card, $0 setup fee, and a 15% annual discount.
How much does Pro cost?
Pro is $449 per provider per month and adds multilingual answering, English translation, advanced analytics, and longer recording retention.
Do 5+ providers get a discount?
There is no published volume discount on Standard or Pro. Practices with 5+ providers can contact sales for a custom plan.
Compare further
Related comparisons + alternatives.
AI medical scribe vs. answering service · DeskMD vs. Smith.ai · DeskMD vs. Ruby Receptionists · DeskMD vs. AnswerConnect · Virtual medical receptionist
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