A 24/7 answering service picks up your business line when you cannot, day, evening and weekend. There are two ways to do it: a person in a call centre, billed by the minute or by the call, or an AI receptionist on a flat monthly plan, like Gala from $129 CAD a month. Here is what each one costs and actually does.
Answering services are an established trade: call centres have long answered the phone in other companies' names. AI receptionists now do the same job, in a different way.
Gavion sells Gala, an AI receptionist. So the human services are named here with their own published prices, read on their own sites on the date shown.
The right one depends on three things: how many calls you get, at what hours, and in which language.
The human-staffed services we read all bill by usage. The table gives what each one publishes on its own site, read on 2026-09-06, with Gala's row first for scale.
| Service | Who answers | Billing | Entry price | Hours | French |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gala | AI receptionist (Gala), which transfers real emergencies to your team | Flat monthly plan with included minutes | $129 CAD/month for 250 minutes, 3 users and 1 voice agent | 24/7, several calls at once | Québécois French and English detected automatically on every plan; 44 languages in total |
| Smith.ai | Both: AI-first or human-first, chosen per plan | Per call. AI plans are sized by monthly call volume; human plans are sold as call bundles | AI receptionist: a free tier of 25 calls a month, then $150 USD/month for about 2 to 3 calls a day. Human receptionists from $300 USD/month for 30 calls | 24/7 | English and Spanish. French is not mentioned |
| Ruby | Human receptionists, with AI-powered transcripts and sentiment analysis | Monthly plans sized by receptionist minutes | $250 USD/month for 50 receptionist minutes | 24/7, including after hours, weekends and holidays | Spanish and bilingual English-Spanish call handling. French is not mentioned |
| Abby Connect | Both. You choose how each call is handled and can change the mix | Monthly plans sized in Abby Minutes, with usage-based overage | $165 USD/month for 50 Abby Minutes (one Abby Minute is 1 human minute or 2 AI minutes) | 24/7, no weekend upcharge | English and Spanish. French is not mentioned |
| Posh | Human receptionists | Monthly base fee plus a per-minute rate | $65 CAD/month base with no included minutes, plus $2.30 CAD per receptionist minute | Available whenever you choose, including after hours | Not stated |
Run one example. At $2.30 a minute, 100 minutes at Posh come to $295 CAD a month ($65 base plus the minutes). Gala's entry plan is $129 with 250 minutes included.
Check the currency, too. Three of these four services publish their prices in US dollars, before any conversion.
With a human service, 24/7 means a person is on shift, and calls that arrive together can wait in a queue. Always ask whether evenings, weekends or holidays cost more.
With Gala, 24/7 means the same quality at 3 a.m. as at 3 p.m., and several calls taken at the same time with no busy signal. Non-urgent calls are booked for the next business day, and real emergencies are routed under your rules.
For a Québec business, the language of the answer matters as much as the hour. Of the four human-staffed services we read, none names French as a language of service.
Gala answers in Québécois French and English on the same number, detected on the caller's first sentence, on every plan and at no extra charge.
A person can calm a genuinely upset customer, negotiate, or make a call your rules do not cover. If most of your calls need that judgment, a human or mixed service is still the better buy.
Gala is built for the opposite case: the routine calls, in volume, at any hour. Whatever falls outside its scope, it transfers or logs for a priority callback, instead of inventing an answer.
A service that answers a business's phone in its name, day and night. Traditionally that means people in a call centre, billed by the minute or by the call. An AI receptionist like Gala does the same job on a flat monthly plan, from $129 CAD a month, in Québécois French and English.
It depends on your volume, so price both at last month's minutes. One published example: 100 minutes at Posh come to $295 CAD, against $129 for Gala's entry plan with 250 minutes included. For a handful of calls a month, a usage-billed service can cost less.
Yes. You define what counts as an emergency, and Gala routes those calls to your on-call line and notifies your team by text, so urgent calls reach a human without delay.
That depends on the provider, and it is worth checking with a call. Gala answers in Québécois French and English on every plan, detected automatically.
Yes. Gala works with your existing number through simple call forwarding, so customers keep calling the number they already know.
Call the demo line at 10 p.m. on a Sunday: it is the best test of a 24/7 service. Hear Gala answer · See pricing
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