Skip to content

AI / Tech

AI Receptionist Cost India 2026: No Monthly Fee

Dvaarik charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply, with no monthly fee. Your phone company and your speech and AI providers bill you directly, so count those bills in any month-one arithmetic.

Rohith Sriramula15 July 2026 15 min readRates checked 18 Aug 2026

Dvaarik charges ₹0.05 for each AI text reply on website chat, WhatsApp and Instagram; messages from customers and replies your team types are not charged, and Meta bills its own message charges to your account directly. That is the number, and the rest of this page is the honest arithmetic around it — because a per-minute rate on its own has never told anyone what their bill will be. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly. Below you will find the full rate card stated plainly, five worked monthly bills for real business types, what published rates the other Indian vendors charge, the line items that quietly appear on invoices across this market, and a five-minute method for estimating your own number before you talk to anyone. If at the end of it the sums do not work for your call volume, that is a legitimate outcome and we would rather you reached it here than after paying us.

What an AI receptionist costs in India: the numbers in one place

Dvaarik is self-serve SaaS today: there is no setup fee and no minimum commitment. You log in, add your services, staff, hours and knowledge, connect channels, and pay only for what your agents actually do.

WhatPriceWho bills you
Monthly fee₹0—
Call fee₹0.50 per minuteDvaarik, charged in 30-second steps
AI text reply — website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram₹0.05 per AI replyDvaarik, one charge per successful AI reply
Telephony and your phone numberTheir own ratesPlivo, Telnyx or Twilio, on the account you open
Speech recognition, AI brain, speech synthesisTheir own ratesGoogle, Sarvam, Azure or ElevenLabs, on the accounts you open
WhatsApp message charges₹0 markupMeta bills your own WhatsApp Business account directly

The comparison above states the published row-by-row differences; read each row with its source, date, and qualifying notes.

Only the first four rows are Dvaarik's; the rest are billed to you by companies you hold the account with, at their own published rates and with nothing added by us. Credits are prepaid and never expire; at zero balance agents pause gracefully, so there are no surprise bills. Agencies and developers can sell the same platform under their own brand through the white-label partner programme, and set their own client pricing.

Your first month, worked through rupee by rupee

Dvaarik is self-serve SaaS today: there is no setup fee and no minimum commitment. You log in, add your services, staff, hours and knowledge, connect channels, and pay only for what your agents actually do.

WhatPriceWho bills you
Monthly fee₹0—
Call fee₹0.50 per minuteDvaarik, charged in 30-second steps
AI text reply — website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram₹0.05 per AI replyDvaarik, one charge per successful AI reply
Telephony and your phone numberTheir own ratesPlivo, Telnyx or Twilio, on the account you open
Speech recognition, AI brain, speech synthesisTheir own ratesGoogle, Sarvam, Azure or ElevenLabs, on the accounts you open
WhatsApp message charges₹0 markupMeta bills your own WhatsApp Business account directly

The comparison above states the published row-by-row differences; read each row with its source, date, and qualifying notes.

Only the first four rows are Dvaarik's; the rest are billed to you by companies you hold the account with, at their own published rates and with nothing added by us. Credits are prepaid and never expire; at zero balance agents pause gracefully, so there are no surprise bills. Agencies and developers can sell the same platform under their own brand through the white-label partner programme, and set their own client pricing.

Five real monthly bills, by business type

Dvaarik is self-serve SaaS today: there is no setup fee and no minimum commitment. You log in, add your services, staff, hours and knowledge, connect channels, and pay only for what your agents actually do.

WhatPriceWho bills you
Monthly fee₹0—
Call fee₹0.50 per minuteDvaarik, charged in 30-second steps
AI text reply — website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram₹0.05 per AI replyDvaarik, one charge per successful AI reply
Telephony and your phone numberTheir own ratesPlivo, Telnyx or Twilio, on the account you open
Speech recognition, AI brain, speech synthesisTheir own ratesGoogle, Sarvam, Azure or ElevenLabs, on the accounts you open
WhatsApp message charges₹0 markupMeta bills your own WhatsApp Business account directly

The comparison above states the published row-by-row differences; read each row with its source, date, and qualifying notes.

Only the first four rows are Dvaarik's; the rest are billed to you by companies you hold the account with, at their own published rates and with nothing added by us. Credits are prepaid and never expire; at zero balance agents pause gracefully, so there are no surprise bills. Agencies and developers can sell the same platform under their own brand through the white-label partner programme, and set their own client pricing.

What the other Indian vendors charge, from their own published pages

We maintain a sourced index of every Indian voice-AI vendor's published rate — each figure read directly on that vendor's own page, with the source URL and the date it was pulled. These were last re-verified on 29 July 2026.

VendorPublished rateEffective ₹/min
Dvaarik AI₹0.50 per call minute, 30-second steps; ₹0.05 per AI replyNo monthly fee; your own phone, speech and AI providers bill you directly
Trikon₹5 / min flat₹5
MyOperator—₹5 (₹10,000/mo ÷ 2,000 min)
VaniAgent₹4.5–₹5.5 / min metered₹4,999/mo + metered, or ₹21,999/mo unlimited on 1 concurrency
Ringg AI₹6 / connected min₹6
Caller Digital₹9.4175 / min (PAYG DIY)₹10.147 Growth, 10k-min/mo minimum
AixclerateNot published₹20 at Starter (₹9,999 ÷ 500 min); ₹12.5 Business
Retell AI$0.07–$0.31 / min voice, LLM billed separatelyNo INR pricing published
SquadStackNot publishedQuote only
Gnani.aiNot publishedQuote only

The comparison above states the published row-by-row differences; read each row with its source, date, and qualifying notes.

Three observations that are more useful than the table itself.

Two of the ten publish no price at all, and a third has withdrawn the overage rate it used to publish. If a vendor will not tell you what a minute costs before a sales call, that is information about how the deal will be priced.

Plan-based pricing hides a high effective rate at low volume. A ₹9,999/month plan bundling 500 minutes is ₹20 per minute if you use the bundle, and worse if you do not. The headline monthly number looks modest; the per-minute reality is ten times ours.

Compare effective cost, never the headline. The full index, with source links and dates for every figure, is at the India AI voice agent pricing index, and it is downloadable as JSON and CSV if you want to check our arithmetic.

Why 30-second billing matters, and why we do not pretend otherwise

Dvaarik charges calls in 30-second steps, and we say so. A 40-second call bills as one minute. A 2 minute 20 second call bills as three. This is worth being blunt about because "per-second billing" gets used as a selling point, and on short calls it genuinely is cheaper.

Here is the honest size of the difference. Take a business with 200 calls a month averaging 1 minute 30 seconds of real talk time.

  • 30-second billing: 200 calls × 2 billed minutes = 400 minutes = ₹800
  • Hypothetical per-second billing at the same ₹0.50/min: 200 × 1.5 = 300 minutes = ₹600

So rounding costs that business ₹200 a month. We would rather show you that number than hide it. Dvaarik has no monthly fee and no setup fee: it charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply.

The rounding also has an effect worth planning around: it makes very short calls proportionally expensive. If your call mix is dominated by 20-second "are you open?" enquiries, a large share of your bill is rounding. Dvaarik has no monthly fee and no setup fee: it charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply.

The line items that quietly appear on quotes in this market

Whatever you end up buying, and from whomever, check the quote for these. Every one of them is standard somewhere in this market, and none of them tend to be in the headline number.

  • GST. Almost universally quoted ex-GST in India, including by us. 18%. On a ₹10,000 load that is ₹1,800.
  • Phone number rental. Separate from the software on essentially every platform. Dvaarik does not supply phone numbers: you connect your own Plivo, Telnyx or Twilio account, and that company bills you directly for numbers and call minutes.
  • Per-seat or per-user charges. Common on cloud telephony and IVR-derived products. A plan price for "1 user" is not the price for your team. We have none.
  • Setup or onboarding fees. Published add-ons at several Indian vendors. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly.
  • Call recording and transcripts. Frequently an add-on. Dvaarik has no monthly fee and no setup fee: it charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. The detail is here.
  • Minimum monthly commitments. Some vendors set a floor — a minimum spend or a minimum minute volume — which turns a per-minute rate into a subscription in practice. We have none; top-ups start at ₹100.
  • Contract minimums. At least one Indian vendor publishes a three-month minimum on plans. Ask.
  • Overage rates. If you buy bundled minutes, the price of minute 501 matters more than the price of the bundle. One vendor in our index has stopped publishing theirs entirely.
  • WhatsApp conversation charges. Billed by Meta, to your own account. We add no markup to it. Anyone bundling it into their own margin should be asked what the markup is.

None of this is exotic. It is just that the comparison usually happens on the headline rate, and the invoice happens on the whole list.

How to estimate your own bill in five minutes

You do not need a quote to get within a few hundred rupees of your real number. Do this instead.

  1. Open your call log for last month and count answered calls. Not attempts — answered.
  2. Add the missed ones. These are the calls an AI receptionist would actually be picking up, and they are usually the reason to buy. Count separately the ones outside your working hours.
  3. Estimate average talk time, then round up. Most enquiry calls in Indian small businesses run 1.5 to 4 minutes. Round each up to the next whole minute — that is what will be billed.
  4. Multiply: (calls × rounded minutes) × ₹2. That is your voice cost.
  5. Dvaarik does not supply phone numbers: you connect your own Plivo, Telnyx or Twilio account, and that company bills you directly for numbers and call minutes.
  6. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly.
  7. Add 18% GST on whatever you load.

Then do the other side of the sum, which matters more: take the missed calls from step two, apply the share you would realistically have converted, and multiply by what one customer is worth to you. If a booked appointment is worth ₹800 and you are missing 30 calls a month, converting even five of them is ₹4,000 — against a voice cost in the hundreds. If a customer is worth ₹40 and you miss three calls a month, the sums do not work and you should not buy this.

That second calculation is the one that should decide it. The rate card is almost never the deciding factor; the value of a recovered enquiry is.

AI receptionist cost versus hiring a receptionist

The subject described in this section: This comparison gets made constantly and usually badly, so here it is with the caveats attached.

A full-time receptionist in an Indian metro is a salary plus statutory costs plus the desk plus the phone plus training plus cover for leave. Whatever that number is in your city — and you know it better than we do — it is a fixed monthly commitment that covers roughly nine hours a day, six days a week, minus holidays, sick days and lunch.

Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly.

But the honest framing is not replacement. In almost every business we have worked with, the AI receptionist does not replace the person — it replaces the *voicemail*. Your staff keep doing the work they were doing; the agent catches the calls that were previously hitting a beep at 9pm, or ringing out while both chairs were occupied. Buying it as a headcount cut usually disappoints. Buying it as a leak fix usually does not.

We have written the full comparison, including where a human clearly wins, in AI receptionist vs a human answering service and AI receptionist vs call centre costs.

What makes the bill go up

In rough order of how much they move the invoice:

Call duration, more than call count. Dvaarik charges calls in 30-second steps, and we say so.

Language and voice grade. Dvaarik charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, with no monthly fee; the phone, speech and AI accounts you connect bill you directly, and language coverage follows the speech models you choose. Premium is ₹5/min, and Global and Ultra have their own published rates and language sets. Choose the grade that contains the required language instead of assuming the starting rate covers every language.

Outbound campaigns. Outbound volume is controlled by the size of the approved lead list, so plan it as a budget and follow consent and calling-hour rules.

Call recording. Recording is an optional ₹0.10/min addition.

Very short calls. Whole-minute rounding makes a mix dominated by very short calls proportionally more expensive.

Phone and social-channel products are separate from voice usage, and there is no per-seat charge on voice usage.

When an AI receptionist is not worth the money

We would rather lose the sale than have you unhappy in six weeks, so here are the cases where the arithmetic genuinely does not work.

You get very few calls and someone always answers. Four calls a week, all picked up, means you do not have a phone problem. Nothing on this page will help you.

Your average customer is worth very little. If a converted enquiry is worth ₹40, you need a lot of recovered calls to justify even a ₹2,800 month. The maths works on value per customer, not on volume alone.

Your calls are complex, emotional or high-stakes from the first second. Some conversations should start with a human. Legal distress, medical emergencies, serious complaints — an agent can take the details and route fast, but if that is most of your call volume, buy differently.

You need bit-for-bit identical wording every call for compliance. A recorded prompt is easier to audit than a generative system. Some compliance teams will simply require that.

You are not going to read the transcripts. The first month's value is largely in discovering what people actually ring to ask. If nobody on your side will look at that, you are buying half the product.

If two or more of those describe you, tell us and we will say so. We have talked people out of this before.

Work out what an AI voice agent costs in India: no monthly fee, ₹0.50 per call minute in 30-second steps, and the provider bills you pay directly.

Dvaarik is self-serve SaaS today: there is no setup fee and no minimum commitment. You log in, add your services, staff, hours and knowledge, connect channels, and pay only for what your agents actually do.

WhatPriceWho bills you
Monthly fee₹0—
Call fee₹0.50 per minuteDvaarik, charged in 30-second steps
AI text reply — website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram₹0.05 per AI replyDvaarik, one charge per successful AI reply
Telephony and your phone numberTheir own ratesPlivo, Telnyx or Twilio, on the account you open
Speech recognition, AI brain, speech synthesisTheir own ratesGoogle, Sarvam, Azure or ElevenLabs, on the accounts you open
WhatsApp message charges₹0 markupMeta bills your own WhatsApp Business account directly

The comparison above states the published row-by-row differences; read each row with its source, date, and qualifying notes.

Only the first four rows are Dvaarik's; the rest are billed to you by companies you hold the account with, at their own published rates and with nothing added by us. Credits are prepaid and never expire; at zero balance agents pause gracefully, so there are no surprise bills. Agencies and developers can sell the same platform under their own brand through the white-label partner programme, and set their own client pricing.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an AI receptionist cost in India in 2026?

Dvaarik charges ₹0.05 for each AI text reply on website chat, WhatsApp and Instagram; messages from customers and replies your team types are not charged, and Meta bills its own message charges to your account directly. For a typical single-location business the voice cost lands between about ₹800 and ₹2,500 a month. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly. That puts most first-month bills between roughly ₹7,800 and ₹9,500.

What is the per-minute rate for an AI virtual receptionist in India?

Dvaarik charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, with no monthly fee; the phone, speech and AI accounts you connect bill you directly, and language coverage follows the speech models you choose. Premium is ₹5/min; Global and Ultra have their own published rates and language sets. Compare vendors using the required language, telephony, plan fees and actual monthly volume rather than a headline rate alone.

Is there a monthly subscription for an AI receptionist?

Not for the software. You load credits and pay for the minutes you actually speak, and credits never expire. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly. There is no per-seat or per-user charge at any point.

Does GST apply to AI receptionist pricing in India?

Yes. This is worth checking on every quote you receive in this market, because most Indian vendors also quote ex-GST and the difference is material on comparison.

What is the minimum I have to spend to start?

There is no minimum credit load — start with any top-up and add more only when you need it. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly. Later top-ups start at ₹100.

How is call time billed — per second or per minute?

Whole minutes. A 40-second call bills as one minute; a 2 minute 20 second call bills as three. On a business taking 200 calls a month averaging 90 seconds, that rounding costs about ₹200 a month against hypothetical per-second billing at the same rate. Dvaarik has no monthly fee and no setup fee: it charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. If your call mix is dominated by very short enquiries, chat at ₹0.05 per AI reply is usually the cheaper route for that traffic.

Does it cost more for Telugu, Tamil, Hindi or other Indian languages?

No. Dvaarik charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, with no monthly fee; the phone, speech and AI accounts you connect bill you directly, and language coverage follows the speech models you choose. There is no per-language charge and no setup fee for adding one. Higher-priced tiers exist for languages outside India, but no Indian language sits on them.

Is there a setup fee or minimum commitment?

Dvaarik is self-serve SaaS today: there is no setup fee and no minimum commitment. You log in, add your services, staff, hours and knowledge, connect channels, and pay only for what your agents actually do.

WhatPriceWho bills you
Monthly fee₹0—
Call fee₹0.50 per minuteDvaarik, charged in 30-second steps
AI text reply — website chat, WhatsApp, Instagram₹0.05 per AI replyDvaarik, one charge per successful AI reply
Telephony and your phone numberTheir own ratesPlivo, Telnyx or Twilio, on the account you open
Speech recognition, AI brain, speech synthesisTheir own ratesGoogle, Sarvam, Azure or ElevenLabs, on the accounts you open
WhatsApp message charges₹0 markupMeta bills your own WhatsApp Business account directly

The comparison above states the published row-by-row differences; read each row with its source, date, and qualifying notes.

Only the first four rows are Dvaarik's; the rest are billed to you by companies you hold the account with, at their own published rates and with nothing added by us. Credits are prepaid and never expire; at zero balance agents pause gracefully, so there are no surprise bills. Agencies and developers can sell the same platform under their own brand through the white-label partner programme, and set their own client pricing.

Is there a setup fee or minimum commitment?

Monitoring, agent tuning as you learn what callers actually ask, help setting up campaigns and pricing, a monthly report, priority founder WhatsApp support, and unlimited Instagram automations and campaign boards. It is debited from your credits. Managed support is optional and can be adjusted after launch. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly.

Do I have to pay for a phone number?

Dvaarik does not supply phone numbers: you connect your own Plivo, Telnyx or Twilio account, and that company bills you directly for numbers and call minutes. Most businesses keep their existing number, in which case this line is ₹0. Keeping your number is usually the better option anyway — it is on your signage, your cards and your Google listing, and there are three standard ways to route it to the agent without changing it.

How does an AI receptionist's cost compare to hiring a receptionist?

Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly. A full-time receptionist is a salary plus statutory costs plus desk and phone plus leave cover, for about nine hours a day, six days a week. But the honest framing is that in most businesses the agent replaces the voicemail rather than the person — buying it as a headcount cut usually disappoints, and buying it as a fix for missed calls usually does not.

What are the hidden costs in AI receptionist quotes?

Across this market, the items that appear on the invoice but not in the headline are GST at 18%, phone number rental, per-seat or per-user charges, setup and onboarding fees, call recording add-ons, minimum monthly commitments, contract minimums, overage rates on bundled minutes, and WhatsApp conversation charges. Dvaarik has no monthly fee and no setup fee: it charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply.

How do I work out what my own bill will be?

Count last month's answered calls, add the missed ones, estimate average talk time and round each call up to the next whole minute, then multiply calls by rounded minutes by ₹2. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly. Then do the sum that actually decides it: take the missed calls, apply the share you would realistically have converted, and multiply by what one customer is worth to you.

When is an AI receptionist not worth the cost?

When you get very few calls and someone always answers them; when a converted customer is worth so little that recovering several calls a month still does not cover a few thousand rupees; when most of your calls are complex or high-stakes from the first second and should start with a human; when compliance requires provably identical wording on every call; and when nobody on your side is going to read the transcripts, since discovering what callers actually ask is a large part of the first month's value.

Dvaarik charges ₹0.05 for each AI text reply on website chat, WhatsApp and Instagram; messages from customers and replies your team types are not charged, and Meta bills its own message charges to your account directly. Today Dvaarik is self-serve with no setup fee and no monthly fee: you pay ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, and ₹0.05 for each AI text reply. Telephony, speech and the AI brain run on provider accounts you own and pay directly. There is no software subscription, no per-seat charge, no charge for any of the 22 scheduled Indian languages, and credits do not expire. Against that, do the only sum that actually matters: count the calls you missed last month, apply the share you would have converted, and multiply by what one customer is worth to you. If that number is comfortably larger than the bill above, buy something — from us or from anyone in the index. If it is not, do not.

Log in to Dvaarik on WhatsApp at +91 79956 76588 with your rough monthly call volume, and we will send back the actual number for your business rather than a range. If your call volume does not justify it, we will tell you that instead.

Login

Tagged

AI receptionistpricingIndia2026cost breakdownGSTcredits
Rohith Sriramula, Founder & CEO of Dvaarik AI

Written by

Rohith Sriramula

Founder & CEO, Dvaarik AI

A laid-off engineer who went all in on Dvaarik AI. He builds the platform and product workflows from hands-on work with Indian businesses, not theory.

Read next

AI / Tech

AI Receptionist India: No Monthly Fee

Dvaarik charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, with no monthly fee; the phone, speech and AI accounts you connect bill you directly. This guide compares that exact workload with four current India-facing receptionist offers, using first-party pages read on 15 Aug 2026.

growth

AI Receptionist vs Call Center Cost India

There is no honest universal India price for a call-center seat or telecaller. Compare your actual loaded human cost with AI call fees, provider bills, implementation and concurrency. This guide gives the formula, Dvaarik's current call fee and the work where a person remains the better choice.

AI / Tech

AI Voice Agent vs IVR India: 12 Key Differences

An IVR routes a caller. An AI voice agent answers them. This is the head-to-head on twelve points that actually decide the purchase — languages, after-hours, bookings, integration, control, and the cost per minute — including the cases where an IVR is still the better buy.

growth

Keep Your Number with an AI Receptionist

You can often keep the Indian business number customers already know by using carrier call forwarding, but keeping the number does not make AI phone answering free. Number ownership, the carrier's forwarded call leg, the destination number in the phone company account you connect and Dvaarik's call fee are separate cost and capacity lines. This guide shows what to verify before routing any live call.

growth

Is an AI Receptionist Worth It? A 14-Day Test

An AI receptionist is worth it only when the incremental value of qualified enquiries and staff time saved exceeds its complete cost, including failures and rework. This page gives Indian businesses a 14-day baseline, a 14-day pilot and a break-even formula that uses contribution margin rather than invented revenue.

growth

Speed to Lead India: 60-Second AI Callback

Dvaarik charges ₹0.50 for each call minute, in 30-second steps, with no monthly fee; the phone, speech and AI accounts you connect bill you directly. Calling the same lead back tomorrow morning usually costs the whole enquiry.