Smith.ai vs Thoughtly (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Smith.ai if

• Fits if you get fewer than 25 calls a month and want them answered
• Works for law firms and service businesses that use Clio or Calendly

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if calls grow, as 75 calls is $150 a month on AI Pro
• Tight if you want a free try with no card, since the Free plan needs one
• Pricey if you want people, because live-agent plans start at $300 a month for 30 calls
• Watch out: the 30-day money-back on human plans excludes overage calls and is capped at $1,000

Pick Thoughtly if

• Fits if you want inbound leads answered by voice, text and email
• Works for teams on HubSpot or Salesforce that want two-way sync

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want a price list, as Flex and Scale are quoted
• Tight if you need volume, since Flex is 10 concurrent calls and 100+ starts at Scale
• Watch out: HIPAA with a BAA, SSO, SCIM and data residency are Enterprise only
• Watch out: usage above a plan's allowance is billed in arrears each cycle

Smith.ai

• The Free plan stops at 25 answered calls a month; extra calls cost $3.00 each.
• Human-first plans are pay-per-call at $7 or more per call; overage runs $8.50 to $11.50 per call.
• Human escalation on the Free plan is an opt-in add-on rather than included.
• The 30-day money-back guarantee on the human-first plans excludes overage calls and is capped at $1,000.

Thoughtly

• No prices are shown: Flex is sold through sales, Scale by quote and Enterprise for 1M+ minutes a month or regulated verticals.
• Flex allows 10 concurrent calls; 100+ concurrent calls, Auto-QA and a 99.9% uptime SLA start at Scale.
• HIPAA with a BAA, PCI scope review, SSO and SCIM and data residency are Enterprise only.
• Usage above a plan's monthly allowances is billed in arrears at the end of each cycle.

Smith.ai

AI call answering

An AI receptionist picks up calls around the clock, screens spam, qualifies callers against criteria the business sets, and routes or transfers them.

Live agents when needed

Hybrid and human-first tiers bring in live North American agents, either for new-client calls or for every call, at higher per-call rates.

Appointment scheduling

The free plan lists AI scheduling with Calendly and similar tools. On the human-first plans, booking an appointment is a per-call add-on at $1.50.

Quality Studio

Lets a business test how the AI handles calls before going live. It is included on the free plan.

CRM and intake integrations

Call details go to a CRM or Zapier, with Clio, Filevine and Lawmatics named. Human-first plans include the first CRM; each extra one costs $0.50 per call.

Add-ons billed per call

Human-first plans price extras per call, such as a dedicated Spanish line at $1.00, call recording at $0.25 and conflict checks at $0.50.

Thoughtly

Voice, SMS and email together

Inbound and outbound voice agents, SMS or iMessage and email follow-up are part of every plan, with multi-step workflows.

Two-way CRM sync

The plan table lists write-back to CRMs including HubSpot, Salesforce and Zoho, plus a REST API, webhooks and 200+ native integrations.

Voices and languages

34+ languages, stock Cartesia and ElevenLabs voices, and custom voice cloning from a 20-second sample are listed on every plan.

Knowledge base

Genius ingests text, PDF, audio, CSV and URL sources into an agent's context, and agents can use GPT, Claude or Gemini models.

Auto-QA and evals

Automated quality checks and evaluations on every conversation are listed from the Scale plan up.

Smith.ai

• Free$0

  AI-first. 25 calls a month, then $3.00 per call. Call screening, lead qualification, scheduling and Quality Studio testing.

• AI Pro$150

  per month for 75 calls, AI-first

  $2.00 per call. Adds dedicated onboarding, live phone, email and chat support, and custom SMS branding. Larger blocks cost less per call.

• AI Enterprise$500

  per month for 300 calls, AI-first

  $1.67 per call. Smith.ai builds and runs a custom setup, with a success manager and multi-location support.

• Human-first Starter$300

  per month for 30 calls, live agents

  Live receptionists, 1 free transfer destination. $11.50 per call over 30.

• Human-first Basic$810

  per month for 90 calls, live agents

  2 free transfer destinations. $10.50 per call over 90.

• Human-first Pro$2,100

  per month for 300 calls, live agents

  10 free transfer destinations. $8.50 per call over 300.

Thoughtly

Pricing could not be confirmed. See thoughtly.com.