Updated September 29, 2026 with both companies’ current published prices.
Abby Connect and Conversational both sell virtual receptionist plans by the minute, and the plan sizes line up: 100, 200 and 500 minutes. That is where the similarity ends. Conversational’s receptionists answer live on weekdays from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern and its after-hours coverage is an automated menu; Abby answers around the clock with human receptionists, an AI Receptionist, or both on one plan. Conversational’s minutes cost less; Abby’s cover every hour and include scheduling, bilingual answering and the AI. We sell one of the two, so read this as an informed comparison rather than a neutral review. Every Conversational price and feature below comes from conversational.com (its pricing, FAQ, Auto Reception, careers and comparison pages) and every Abby price from abby.com/pricing, as published on September 29, 2026.
Abby vs Conversational at a Glance
| Abby Connect | Conversational | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per Abby Minute; a minute with the AI Receptionist counts as half | Per receptionist minute, billed by the second with no minimum call time |
| Entry plan | $165/mo for 50 Abby Minutes | $209/mo for 100 minutes (Talk 100 Bundle) |
| Other published plans | $329/100, $599/200, $1,380/500 Abby Minutes; Enterprise on request | $399/mo for 200 minutes, $799/mo for 500 minutes; custom plans up to 5,000 minutes |
| Effective price per human minute | $2.76 to $3.30 ($1.38 to $1.65 with the AI Receptionist) | $1.60 to $2.09 |
| Overage | Billed at your plan’s Abby Minute rate | $2.10 per minute, invoiced the following month |
| Live answering hours | 24/7, including weekends and holidays, no upcharge | Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern; after hours “through automated services” |
| AI receptionist | Yes: built and trained in-house, part of every plan; hands complex calls to a human receptionist | None listed. Auto Reception is a recorded menu that routes callers by keypad to voicemail, a number or a message ($59 a month on its own; included in every Virtual Reception plan) |
| Human receptionists | Yes: 100 percent of receptionists work in the office in Las Vegas, none from home; a dedicated team per client | Yes: located in the United States and Canada; its careers page lists work-from-home hardware requirements and a quiet home office during business hours |
| Bilingual (English/Spanish) | Included, human and AI | Not listed on its pricing or FAQ pages |
| Scheduling | Included: Calendly for human receptionists, hundreds of platforms for the AI Receptionist | Premier add-on: $79 a month for any two of scheduling and calendar management, lead entry, order taking, CRM completion, payment processing and others |
| Intake and lead capture | Included | Custom message forms included; lead entry and custom intake forms are Premier add-ons |
| Phone numbers | Abby hosts your business number; forward your existing number and keep it | One free local number per plan; additional local number $10 a month, toll-free number $25 a month, extra voicemail box $4 a month |
| Setup fee | None | None (“Free”) |
| Free trial | Yes, on every plan: 14 days or 500 Abby Minutes | 30 days |
| Contract | Month-to-month | Plans can be changed before the monthly renewal date; contract length not stated on its pricing page |
| App and integrations | AbbyGO app and portal: summaries, transcripts, sentiment, usage; 1,000+ integrations, including Clio, Lawmatics, HubSpot, Salesforce and Calendly | Online client dashboard with call logs; CRM, calendar and industry software connections described on its integrations page, with CRM entry as a Premier add-on |
Conversational’s prices, hours and features are taken from conversational.com/pricing and its FAQ, Auto Reception, careers and comparison pages as read on September 29, 2026. Abby prices are from abby.com/pricing the same day. Check both providers for current terms before you buy.
Pricing: Conversational’s Minutes Cost Less, Abby’s Cover More
Both sell 100, 200 and 500-minute plans, so the comparison is direct:
| Minutes per month | Conversational | Abby, human receptionists (Abby Minutes) | Abby, AI Receptionist |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 | $209 ($2.09 per minute) | $329 ($3.29 per minute) | $165 (Starter: 100 AI minutes use 50 Abby Minutes) |
| 200 | $399 ($2.00 per minute) | $599 ($3.00 per minute) | $329 (Essential: 200 AI minutes use 100 Abby Minutes) |
| 500 | $799 ($1.60 per minute) | $1,380 ($2.76 per minute) | $599 Professional (200 Abby Minutes) covers 400 AI minutes; 500 AI minutes use 250, so Professional plus 50 Abby Minutes of overage at the plan rate is about $749, or Growth at $1,380 covers up to 1,000 |
On human minutes Conversational is $120 to $581 a month less at each tier, and it bills by the second where Abby rounds each call up to the next 30 seconds. Three things change the picture in practice.
- Hours. Conversational’s minutes are weekday minutes: live answering runs Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, and a call at 8:30 p.m. or on a Saturday reaches its automated menu, not a receptionist. Abby’s plans answer every hour of every day with no after-hours or weekend upcharge, by a human receptionist, the AI Receptionist or both.
- Add-ons. Scheduling, lead entry, order taking, CRM entry and payment processing are Premier add-ons at Conversational, $79 a month for any two, so a 100-minute plan with scheduling is $288. At Abby scheduling, intake and CRM integrations are included in the plan price.
- The AI Receptionist. A minute of Abby’s AI Receptionist uses half an Abby Minute, so AI-handled calls cost $1.38 to $1.65 a minute, in the same range as Conversational’s human minutes, at any hour, with a human receptionist still on the same plan for the calls that need one. Conversational lists no AI receptionist; its Auto Reception product is a recorded menu.
For a business that only needs weekday, business-hours answering and takes no bookings, Conversational’s published price is the lower one. For a business that needs evenings and weekends answered by a person or a conversational AI, Conversational’s plans do not cover them at any price. For one that needs scheduling, the gap narrows to $41 a month at 100 minutes ($288 against $329), with 24/7 coverage, bilingual answering and the AI Receptionist on Abby’s side of that line. And a business that can route routine calls to the AI Receptionist pays $1.38 to $1.65 a minute for those calls, in the same range as Conversational’s $1.60 to $2.09 weekday minutes and available at any hour. Plans are $165 a month for 50 Abby Minutes (Starter), $329 for 100 (Essential), $599 for 200 (Professional) and $1,380 for 500 (Growth), with Enterprise plans on request. Every plan is month-to-month with a free trial and no setup fee, 24/7 coverage carries no after-hours or weekend upcharge, and bilingual English and Spanish answering is included for both human and AI.
Hours: Weekday Live Answering vs 24/7
Conversational’s FAQ page states that it is open and available for live answering Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, and that after-hours coverage is available through automated services. Its Auto Reception product is that service: callers hear your recorded message, press a key, and are sent to voicemail, an external number or an automated message; it answers simultaneous calls, has no overage and is included with every Virtual Reception plan. That covers lunch breaks and vacations; it does not put a person or a conversation on the line at 9 p.m. Abby’s human receptionists and AI Receptionist answer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and nights, weekends and holidays carry no upcharge. You decide which hours go to people, to the AI, or to both.
Human, AI, or Both
Abby is one subscription used three ways: just human receptionists, just the AI Receptionist, or a mix you can change at any time. Usage is measured in Abby Minutes: a minute with a human receptionist uses one Abby Minute, a minute with the AI Receptionist uses half, so AI-handled calls make the same plan go twice as far.
Conversational lists no AI receptionist. Its automated option is Auto Reception, a keypad menu, sold on its own for $59 a month and included in its receptionist plans. Abby’s AI Receptionist holds a conversation: it greets callers in your business name, answers questions, screens and transfers calls, takes messages, books appointments into hundreds of scheduling platforms and hands complex or sensitive calls to a human receptionist on the same call. Under the hood it runs on Deepgram Flux for speech recognition, the latest OpenAI models with automatic failover to Anthropic, and ElevenLabs for voice, trained in-house on more than 20 years of receptionist calls.
Receptionist Teams and Where They Work
Conversational’s receptionists are located in the United States and Canada, in its words, and work from home: its careers page lists work-from-home hardware and workspace requirements, a quiet home office during business hours, and hiring within the U.S. and Canada only. Every Abby receptionist works in the office in Las Vegas, none from home, so calls are supervised and coached in real time, client information stays on office systems, and the team that answers for you trains together on your account. Each client is assigned a dedicated team and a Client Success Manager who sets up call handling instructions and reviews results. Abby has answered calls for small businesses for more than 20 years, and the same experience trains its AI Receptionist.
Features and Add-Ons Side by Side
Both include custom greetings and scripts, message taking by email or text, warm and cold transfers, call screening and blocked-caller lists, outbound calls, voicemail boxes and a client dashboard or app. The lists diverge on what costs extra.
- Included with Conversational: billing by the second with no minimum call time, a free local number in every plan (extra numbers $10 a month, toll-free $25), and the Auto Reception menu for switchboard-style routing. Scheduling, lead entry, order taking, CRM completion, payment processing, advanced web forms and detailed call handling are Premier add-ons at $79 a month for any two.
- Included with Abby: 24/7 answering by people or AI, an AI Receptionist on the same plan at half-rate minutes (Conversational’s published pages list no AI receptionist), a receptionist team that works 100 percent in the office, a dedicated team and Client Success Manager, bilingual English and Spanish answering (not listed on Conversational’s pricing or FAQ pages), scheduling and intake included, call summaries, transcripts and sentiment in the AbbyGO app, and 1,000+ integrations including Clio, Lawmatics, HubSpot, Salesforce and Calendly. Abby hosts your business number too.
Free Trials, Setup and Contracts
Conversational offers a 30-day free trial to new clients and calls itself one of the only remote receptionist providers in North America to do so; it lists no setup fee. Abby’s free trial runs 14 days or 500 Abby Minutes, whichever comes first, with human and AI receptionists on your real calls, no setup fee and nothing charged until the trial ends; new clients are also covered by a 22-day money-back guarantee on their initial purchase. Both let you change plans; Abby is month-to-month, and Conversational’s pricing page does not state a contract length.
- You need calls answered by a person or a conversational AI outside weekday business hours: evenings, weekends, holidays.
- You want scheduling, intake, bilingual answering and CRM integrations included rather than bought as add-ons.
- You want human receptionists and an AI Receptionist on one plan with the mix under your control, a dedicated team that works in the office (not from home), a Client Success Manager, 1,000+ integrations, and a free trial before you pay.
Conversational’s own distinctions are a lower published price per weekday minute, billing by the second, a 30-day free trial and a free local number in every plan. Those are the facts to set against the hours and add-ons above.
Switching from Conversational to Abby
Switching means forwarding your number to Abby (you keep your number), spending a few minutes on how you want calls greeted, transferred, messaged and scheduled, and letting your dedicated team and the AI Receptionist take calls during the free trial. Abby is month-to-month, so there is no penalty on our side for moving; check your Conversational terms for any notice period, and if callers reach you on a number Conversational issued, take it with you (its FAQ says you can) or forward it before you cancel.
Abby vs Conversational: Frequently Asked Questions
Is Conversational cheaper than Abby?
Per weekday minute, yes: Conversational’s published plans on September 29, 2026 are $209 for 100 minutes, $399 for 200 and $799 for 500, against Abby’s $329, $599 and $1,380 for the same human minutes. Conversational’s live answering runs Monday to Friday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, scheduling is a $79 add-on and its published pages list no AI receptionist; Abby answers 24/7, includes scheduling and bilingual answering, starts at $165 for 50 Abby Minutes, and its AI Receptionist minutes cost $1.38 to $1.65.
What hours does Conversational answer calls?
Its FAQ page states live answering Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, with after-hours coverage through automated services (its Auto Reception menu). Abby’s human receptionists and AI Receptionist answer 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with no after-hours or weekend upcharge.
Does Conversational have an AI receptionist?
No AI receptionist is listed. Conversational’s automated product, Auto Reception, is a recorded menu that routes callers by keypad to voicemail, a number or a message; it costs $59 a month on its own and is included in every Virtual Reception plan. Abby’s AI Receptionist answers, books and transfers calls in conversation and is part of every plan at half-rate minutes.
Does Conversational offer a free trial?
Yes, a 30-day free trial for new clients, as published on September 29, 2026. Abby’s free trial is 14 days or 500 Abby Minutes on every plan, with human and AI receptionists answering your real calls and no setup fee; new clients also have a 22-day money-back guarantee on their initial purchase.
Where are Conversational’s and Abby’s receptionists located?
Conversational’s receptionists are in the United States and Canada and work from home; its careers page lists work-from-home hardware requirements and a quiet home office during business hours. Abby’s receptionists all work in the office in Las Vegas, Nevada, in dedicated teams; none work from home.
Does Abby charge a setup fee?
No. Abby has no setup fee on any plan, as published on abby.com/pricing on September 29, 2026. Conversational’s comparison page listed a $95 one-time setup fee for Abby the same day; that figure is not on Abby’s pricing page, and no Abby plan carries one.
Does Abby offer appointment scheduling?
Yes, and it is included. Human receptionists book appointments for you through Calendly, and the AI Receptionist books directly into hundreds of scheduling platforms; scheduling comes with every plan at no extra charge. Conversational’s comparison page states that Abby offers no scheduling or calendar management and describes Abby’s trial as AI-only; as published on September 29, 2026, scheduling comes with every Abby plan and the 14-day free trial includes human receptionists as well as the AI Receptionist.
See Abby’s plans and pricing, or start the free trial: 14 days with human and AI receptionists answering your real calls, no setup fee. Or keep comparing: Abby vs Ruby, Abby vs Smith.ai, Abby vs AnswerConnect, the best virtual receptionist services of 2026 and what a virtual receptionist costs.
