Smith.ai UK alternative
Hey Jodie answers your calls 24/7 from a flat £49/month, with no per-call fees.
Calls answered
Plan includes 30 calls for £231
Any number of calls
Two services that both answer your phone. The difference is what you pay per call when volume spikes.
| Hey Jodie | Smith.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per call (50 calls/mo) | £0.98 per call | £7.72 per call (Virtual Receptionist Starter) |
| Starting monthly price | From £49/month (Basic) | From £77/month (AI plan) or £232/month (human Starter) |
| Pricing model | Flat monthly, unlimited minutes | Per-call plans with per-call overage charges |
| Per-call overage | No per-call charge | £7.72 per extra call on Starter; £1.90 on the AI plan |
| Free trial | 7 days free, no card needed | No risk-free trial, demo call only |
| Setup time | Minutes - forward your phone | Onboarding call and intake-script briefing |
| Who answers | Trained AI receptionist | Hybrid: AI plan, US-based humans on Receptionist plans |
| Practice management integration | Clio, LEAP, Actionstep via Zapier (Premium) | Native Clio; LEAP and Actionstep not supported |
| 24/7 coverage | Included on every plan | Included on Virtual Receptionist plans |
| Trustpilot rating | 4.82 out of 5 (56 reviews) | 4.7 out of 5 |
Pricing reflects Smith.ai's published rates at smith.ai/pricing at the time of writing. Smith.ai bills in USD (no GBP price card); sterling figures convert at a 0.79 dollar-to-pound reference rate. Smith.ai operates three product tiers; figures reference the AI plan and the Virtual Receptionist Starter. Hey Jodie pricing is published in full in pounds sterling on the pricing page.
Slide the calls you'd take - the calculator picks Smith.ai's cheapest plan plus overage and compares to Hey Jodie's flat plan.
Cost calculator
Hey Jodie Basic
£49/mo
Flat. Unlimited.
Competitor: AI Receptionist Starter
$146/mo
roughly £115/mo
$98 base + $48 overage
You'd save
£66/month (£791/year)
Smith.ai tiers and per-call overage rates are from smith.ai/pricing at the time of writing and billed in USD. Calculator picks the cheaper of the AI Receptionist ($97.50 / 30 calls + $2.40 per extra call) and Virtual Receptionist Starter ($293 / 30 calls + $9.78 per extra call). Hey Jodie Basic is flat monthly with unlimited calls at your locale rate.
FX rates as of 2026-05-13. Hey Jodie price is the published locale rate, not converted.
Verifiable differences, not marketing claims. Each comes from public information on Smith.ai's site and ours.
Smith.ai's Virtual Receptionist Starter is £232/month for 30 calls, then £7.72 per extra call. Hey Jodie's Basic plan is £49 flat with unlimited calls - the price doesn't move when your phone rings more.
£0.98 per call on Hey Jodie vs £7.72 per call on Smith.ai Starter at 50 calls a month.
Smith.ai sits at 4.7 on Trustpilot with the recurring critical theme being pricing surprise - the per-call meter auto-bumps you into the next tier when calls spike. Hey Jodie holds 4.82 on Trustpilot with a flat monthly bill.
Smith.ai 4.7 on Trustpilot, Hey Jodie 4.82 - and no per-call meter on our side.
Smith.ai's native Clio integration suits multi-partner firms with a dedicated intake desk. Hey Jodie is built for the high-street solicitor whose phone rings during a court appearance, with LEAP and Actionstep handoff via Zapier on Premium.
Smith.ai if you need a US intake team; Hey Jodie if you are the team.
Smith.ai leans hard on native legal-practice-management integrations. Here's where that matters and where it does not.
| Integration | Hey Jodie | Smith.ai |
|---|---|---|
Clio Legal practice management Smith.ai pushes intake into Clio directly. Hey Jodie routes via Zapier on Professional and Premium plans. | Zapier | Native |
MyCase Legal practice management | Zapier | Native |
PracticePanther Legal practice management | Zapier | Native |
HubSpot CRM Both route via integration partners rather than first-party. | Zapier | Partner |
Salesforce CRM | Zapier | Partner |
Slack Team notifications | Zapier | Partner |
Email / SMS notifications Lead capture | Native | Native |
Zapier (6000+ apps) Universal automation Zapier-only on Hey Jodie Premium covers tools Smith.ai has no path to. | Native | Not supported |
Smith.ai's integration list is from smith.ai/integrations at the time of writing. Hey Jodie integration coverage reflects the Professional ($99) and Premium ($199) plan tiers - Basic is voice + email/SMS only. 'Native' means first-party, 'Partner' means via an official integration provider, 'Zapier' means routed through Zapier's connector library.
Smith.ai publishes most figures up front - the question is what the bill looks like once per-call overage and tier auto-bumps kick in.
| Hey Jodie | Smith.ai | |
|---|---|---|
Base monthly price | ||
Per-call overage rate Hey Jodie has no per-call charge. Smith.ai publishes $2.40/extra call on the AI plan and $9.78/extra call on Virtual Receptionist Starter. | ||
Setup fee Both are $0 setup. | ||
Free trial (no card) Hey Jodie offers 7 days free with no card. Smith.ai's site offers a demo call only. | ||
Auto tier-upgrade rules Hey Jodie's flat plan doesn't auto-upgrade. Smith.ai's tier behaviour at the overage ceiling is in the terms of service, not the pricing page. | ||
Total first-year cost calculable from public info Hey Jodie: 12 x flat plan. Smith.ai: depends on your call volume because the per-call rate compounds. |
Smith.ai's £232 Starter floor is priced for multi-partner firms. If your phone rings while you are in court or with a patient, these are the UK businesses Hey Jodie was built for.
LEAP and Actionstep - the practice systems most UK firms run - are not on Smith.ai's native list. £49 flat with Zapier-routed LEAP or Actionstep handoff on Premium beats £232 for 30 calls plus £7.72 per overage.
See Hey Jodie for solicitors & law firmsFor a single-handed clinic with 40 inbound calls a week, Smith.ai's per-call cap doesn't survive a flu surge. Hey Jodie answers in seconds and notifies the front desk at a flat price.
See Hey Jodie for gp surgeries & medical practicesA buyer on Rightmove at 8pm calls the next agent if you don't pick up. 24/7 cover comes standard on Hey Jodie Basic at £49 - not gated behind a £232 Receptionist plan.
See Hey Jodie for estate agentsSelf-assessment season volumes spike fast every January. A flat plan with unlimited calls beats £7.72 a call when every client is calling about an HMRC letter at once.
See Hey Jodie for accountantsSmith.ai's AI Receptionist is around £77/month for 30 calls plus £1.90 per extra call. The Virtual Receptionist Starter is around £232/month for 30 calls plus £7.72 per extra call. Hey Jodie publishes £49 Basic, £99 Professional, £199 Premium - all with unlimited calls.
Smith.ai is a US-incorporated company in Palo Alto with no UK office, no smith.ai/uk site and no UK phone number. UK firms sign up by forwarding a landline; agents work to US time zones and the invoice is in USD. Hey Jodie is UK-built, supports UK numbers natively and bills in sterling.
Yes. Smith.ai is a US-incorporated company founded in 2015 and based in Palo Alto, with a 4.7 Trustpilot rating and thousands of US law-firm customers. The questions worth asking are about price predictability and contract terms, not legitimacy.
The pattern is consistent: praise for receptionist quality and the Clio integration. The recurring critical theme is pricing surprise - calls run past the cap and the next tier auto-bumps.
Both are receptionist services with different pricing shapes. Moneypenny is UK-based and quote-led, starting around £145/month. Smith.ai is US-based and bills per call. Hey Jodie sidesteps both with flat sterling pricing and unlimited calls.
For sole practitioners and small high-street firms, yes. UK firms more often run LEAP or Actionstep alongside Clio - and Hey Jodie's Premium plan routes into all three via Zapier at £199/month flat.
Hey Jodie setup is minutes - forward your UK number and Jodie starts answering. Smith.ai's site states month-to-month, but check yours. Most businesses run both for 5-7 days during cutover, then cancel.
Move from a per-call meter to a flat plan without losing coverage. Most switchers run both for a week, then cancel Smith.ai.
Total time: Under 1 hour active time, 5-7 days for safe parallel running
Sign up at the register page. No card needed. You get your Hey Jodie phone number on the spot.
Set conditional forwarding (busy / no answer / always) from your phone provider to the Hey Jodie number.
Hey Jodie picks up via the forward; if it does not work for you, you cancel Hey Jodie and your Smith.ai line is unaffected. Listen to a few call recordings.
Smith.ai's site states month-to-month - cancel from your account dashboard or via your sales contact. Watch for any pro-rated per-call overage on the final invoice.
Once Smith.ai is cancelled, leave the forward to Hey Jodie in place. Confirm a test call lands on Hey Jodie and a summary arrives in your inbox.
Buyer's guides
This comparison is part of our independent buyer's guides ranking the whole field.
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First 7 days free, then pricing from £49/month
