What a legal answering service costs in 2026
Three pricing models, every published price checked and dated, and a missed-call sum you do yourself before you look at any of them.
Competitor prices from their own sites, dated. No prices from memory. Della's price is at the end, after the sum.
Last updated
Neck and back pain, ER visit the same night. Other driver at fault, police report filed. Other driver’s insurer named. Callback number captured.
What does a legal answering service cost?
As of October 25, 2026, published prices for legal answering services ran from $65 a month at Posh to $2,100 a month at Smith.ai, with per-minute or per-call charges on top of most plans. Some services, including Answering Legal, publish no price at all. The right comparison is cost per qualified call, not the monthly fee.
Where does the money go now?
- You pay per minute for a service that takes a name and a number, then pay staff to make the callback.
- The overage line on the invoice is bigger than the plan.
- You pay for ads that make the phone ring at 9pm, and nobody answers it.
What does a missed call cost against any of these prices?
Before comparing fees, put a number on the other side of the ledger. In Clio's 2024 secret-shopper study only 40% of law firms answered a prospective client's call (Oklahoma Bar Journal, 2025), and an American Bar Association Law Practice Division study found 32% of calls to law firms went straight to voicemail. (Lawyers Mutual NC, 2019) One signed matter usually pays for a year of any service on this page.
Do the sum for your own firm
The cost of a missed call is the fee from the case that caller would have signed. Work it out for your own firm: missed calls a month × share that are new matters × your sign rate × your average fee. The sliders start on example figures. Move them to your own numbers.
For the method and what to count as a missed call, see the full missed-call cost calculator on calldella.com.
What would it be worth to pay one predictable fee for qualified calls?
- If the monthly bill were the same every month, what would you stop checking?
- If every after-hours caller arrived qualified at 7am, how many would you sign, and what is one of those worth?
How Della meets it
| If this is happening | What Della does |
|---|---|
| Per-minute bills for messages | One monthly fee with the dashboard, email alerts and the morning brief included |
| Overage surprises | Extra minutes at $0.50 each, stated up front |
| Ad spend rings a phone nobody answers at night | Answers in your firm's name every night, weekend and holiday, and takes the intake |
How do legal answering services charge? The three pricing models
| Model | How it works | What to watch |
|---|---|---|
| Per minute | A monthly plan with a minute allowance, then a per-minute rate | A real intake runs several minutes, so the allowance goes fast. Check the overage rate and whether hold time counts |
| Per call | A monthly plan with a call allowance, then a per-call rate | Short calls cost the same as long ones. Check what counts as a call: wrong numbers, hang-ups, existing clients |
| Flat monthly | One fee with minutes included and the features stated | Check what is included and what each extra minute costs. Della is priced this way |
Attorney answering service rates, as published on October 25, 2026
Each fact below is from the company's own pricing page, linked, read on October 25, 2026. "Not published" means the page does not state it. Re-check before you sign, because prices change.
| Service | Published price | Overage | Contract terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smith.ai | Human-first: $300, $810 or $2,100/month, Enterprise custom. AI-first: free, $150 or $500/month. Hybrid presets from $2.50 per call (source) | Human-first: $11.50, $10.50 or $8.50 per call over plan. AI-first free tier: $3.00 per call after 25 (source) | Month-to-month. 30-day money-back guarantee for new clients, up to $1,000, overage excluded (source) |
| Answering Legal | Not published. Prices are shown after you submit a contact form (source) | Not published (source) | No long-term contracts, no setup fees (source) |
| Posh | Live plans from $65/month to $1,900/month (prices effective 1 January 2026) (source) | $1.90 to $2.30 per additional live minute; AI-enabled plans charge about half that for AI minutes ($1.10 on Vogue AI) (source) | Month-to-month. Free trial of 7 days or 250 minutes, whichever comes first (source) |
| Ruby | $250, $395, $720 or $1,725/month; larger plans through sales (source) | Not published on the pricing page (source) | Contract length not published; no activation, onboarding or setup fees (source) |
The full comparison scores the same services on ten criteria, including who answers and how deep the intake goes.
What drives the cost of an attorney answering service up?
- Call length. Intake calls are longer than message calls, and per-minute plans charge for every one of them.
- Add-ons. Smith.ai publishes a Spanish line at $1.00 per call and $0.50 per call for each CRM after the first; check each service's own page for its extras.
- Overage. The rate past the allowance is where a cheap plan stops being cheap.
- Daytime minutes. A 24/7 plan charges for calls your own staff could have taken.
Legal intake service pricing: what should be included?
| Should be included | Della's answer |
|---|---|
| An intake built for your practice area, not a message script | Yes, for personal injury, criminal defense and immigration |
| Every call delivered as a file you can act on | A dossier per call: summary, urgency score, recording and transcript |
| Urgent-call alerts to the attorney on call | Yes, by email |
| A recording disclosure set for your state | Yes |
| A stated overage rate | $0.50 per extra minute |
| No setup fee, no long contract | Month-to-month, no setup fee |
Hear Della take a call
Price what you would get, not what you would pay. Book a demo and we run a live call for your practice area while you listen, then walk you through the dossier. Below is a sample, with a test caller.
Neck and back pain, ER visit the same night. Other driver at fault, police report filed. Other driver’s insurer named. Callback number captured.
Questions about price
Is a cheap per-minute plan better for a small firm?
Only if your calls are short and few. A proper intake runs several minutes, so a low monthly fee with a per-minute rate can cost more than a flat plan once the calls are real. Count last month's after-hours calls, multiply by a realistic call length, and price each plan on that, not on the entry figure.
Is there a setup fee or a contract?
Not with Della. Every plan is month-to-month with no setup fee, and extra minutes are $0.50 each. Of the services compared here, Answering Legal publishes no setup fees and no long-term contracts, Posh and Smith.ai publish month-to-month terms, and Ruby does not publish its contract length. Each fact is linked above.
What does 24 hour legal answering service cost compared with after-hours only?
A 24/7 service covers your office hours too, so you pay for daytime minutes your own staff could take. Della covers nights, weekends and holidays only, which is why $329 buys 300 minutes of the calls you are actually missing. If you need daytime cover as well, price a 24/7 service on your full call count.
What does Della cost?
Solo is $329 a month with 300 minutes, built for solo lawyers. Practice is $598 a month with 600 minutes. Both include the Call Della dashboard, urgent-call email alerts and a morning brief by 7am. Group is priced to your volume. Extra minutes are $0.50 each. Month-to-month, no setup fee.
Will callers mind speaking to an AI?
Della introduces herself by name, speaks calmly and asks one question at a time. If a caller asks whether she's an AI, she tells them. Every call is recorded, so you can hear exactly how each caller was treated. Book a demo and judge the conversation for yourself.
Does it work with our case management software?
Every call reaches you as a dossier in the Call Della dashboard, so Della works alongside any case management system. There is no direct Clio, MyCase or Filevine integration today. The Group plan includes a CRM webhook that can pass each dossier to your own system, and the demo is a good place to ask which fields you need.
What does Della cost?
Solo is $329 a month with 300 minutes, built for solo lawyers. Practice is $598 a month with 600 minutes. Both include the Call Della dashboard, urgent-call email alerts and a morning brief by 7am. Group is priced to your volume. Extra minutes are $0.50 each. Month-to-month, no setup fee.
| Solo | Practice | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $329 a month | $598 a month |
| Minutes included | 300 | 600 |
| Built for | Solo lawyers | Small and growing firms |
| Della answering in your firm's name, nights, weekends and holidays | Yes | Yes |
| The Call Della dashboard: every call as a dossier with summary, urgency score, recording and transcript | Yes | Yes |
| Urgent-call email alerts to the attorney on call | Yes | Yes |
| A morning brief by 7am in your time zone | Yes | Yes |
| Recording disclosure set for your state | Yes | Yes |
| Your own Della number, with forwarding and a test call before you go live | Yes | Yes |
| Extra minutes | $0.50 each | $0.50 each |
Group: custom minutes, priced to your volume, more than one practice area, crm webhook. Every plan is month-to-month with no setup fee.
For the sum behind the price, calldella.com has a cost per signed case calculator and a comparison of after-hours intake options, including voicemail and in-house night staff.