LimeCall vs Ruby
Ruby staffs live receptionists and bills you by the minute. LimeCall answers with AI on a flat plan and also works on your website. The question is not which is better — it is whether you are buying human time or call coverage.
LimeCall
$59/mo
Flat. AI answers every call, no queue, no minute anxiety.
Ruby
$395/mo
100 minutes of live receptionists. $250 for 50.
No credit card · Answering calls in about 5 minutes · Cancel anytime
The short version
Ruby sells minutes of human attention. It is the best-known name in live answering and deserves to be. But 100 minutes is under two minutes a day, and there is no cheaper AI-only tier to drop down to when the bill stops making sense.
LimeCall sells coverage. The AI answers every call at once, at a flat price, and the same system turns website visitors into live conversations in about 28 seconds. You trade some warmth for volume, cost and reach.
Which one is for you
The short answer, before the detail. If the right-hand column describes you, buy Ruby — we would rather say so than waste your afternoon.
Choose LimeCall if…
- →You want 24/7 cover, not business-hours cover
- →Chatty callers should not be the thing that blows the budget
- →You want an AI-only tier to trade a little polish for a lot of cost
- →Booking and qualification matter more than a human voice
- →Your website leads need calling back too
Choose Ruby if…
- →A human voice is the product — you are a firm where callers expect a person
- →Your call volume is low but each caller is worth a great deal
- →You want the most established name and will pay a premium for it
LimeCall AI Receptionist vs Ruby
Feature by feature
The incumbent live answering service — US-based receptionists answering in your company name. Compared against LimeCall AI Receptionist, from $59/mo for 200 AI talk minutes.
| Capability | LimeCall | Ruby |
|---|---|---|
| Who answers | AI, every call, 24/7 | Live US-based receptionists |
| Sold in | AI talk minutes — 200 / 700 / 2,000 | Receptionist minutes — 50 / 100 / 200 / 500 |
| Lead qualification | Included on every plan | Receptionists qualify to your script |
| Appointment booking & scheduler | Included on every plan | Appointment booking available |
| Knowledge base & FAQs | Included | Custom call handling instructions |
| Recording, transcript & summary | Every call | Call summaries and messages |
| Voices / languages | 40+ voices · 30+ languages | Live bilingual receptionists |
| Outbound calling | Every plan; campaigns on Growth, power dialer on Scale | Outbound available on request |
| Connect your own SIP trunk | Included | Not published |
| International call forwarding | Included | Call forwarding included |
| Website AI voice widget | Included | Live chat, not voice |
| Missed-call recovery | Included | Not published |
| Concurrent AI calls | 2 / 5 / 10 by plan | Staffed capacity |
| CRM sync, lead scoring & analytics | Growth and up | CRM integrations available |
What Ruby does better
The best live receptionists in the category. An AI does not sound like them, and for some callers that is the whole product.
How the table falls
LimeCall takes 4 of 14 rows and Ruby takes 4, with 6 a draw. Prices verified 15 August 2026.
What you'd actually pay, side by side
Published prices, your volume, no spin. Move the volume and watch both bills move.
| Total cost | LimeCall | Ruby |
|---|---|---|
| Plan | — | — |
| What that includes | — | — |
| Monthly | — | — |
| Per year | — | — |
—
Read this before you quote the number. Ruby sells live receptionist minutes, converted here at three minutes a call. Its receptionists are the benchmark of the category and an AI does not sound like them. What the table shows is what metered human time costs once volume rises — which is the trade, not a criticism.
Ruby prices read from their own pricing page on 15 August 2026. LimeCall prices are the ones on our pricing page. Vendors change prices often — check both before you decide.
What Each One Actually Costs
Published prices, with what you get for them. The entitlements differ — minutes, calls and unique callers are not the same unit — so compare the second column, not just the first.
LimeCall
- Starter Talk-time bundle · unlimited free web calls$59/mo
- Growth Most popular · larger bundle · lead routing$149/mo
- Scale High volume · multi-rep teams$399/mo
Calls taken in the browser on your own website are unlimited and free on every plan, and do not draw down your bundle.
Ruby
- Starter 50 minutes$250/mo
- Standard 100 minutes$395/mo
- Professional 200 minutes$720/mo
- Enterprise 500 minutes$1,725/mo
No published free trial.
Prices read from Ruby’s own pricing page on 15 August 2026. Vendors change pricing often — check Ruby for current figures before deciding.
Where Ruby Is Strong, and Where It Stops
If you are comparing these two you have probably already tried one of them. Here is the honest split.
What Ruby does well
- Genuinely excellent live receptionists — the benchmark the category is measured against
- No setup, onboarding or customisation fees
- Bilingual coverage and live chat available alongside the phone service
Where LimeCall covers what it doesn’t
- Sold by the minute, and 100 minutes is under two minutes a day — chatty callers get expensive fast
- No AI-only tier, so you cannot trade a little polish for a lot of cost
- No outbound callback to your website leads
- Nothing runs on your own site: no widget, no free browser calls
What a Minute Allowance Really Buys
Minutes sound generous until you divide them by working days.
Starter · $250
50 min
≈ 2.5 min/working day
Standard · $395
100 min
≈ 5 min/working day
Professional · $720
200 min
≈ 10 min/working day
Across roughly 20 working days. A four-minute enquiry call is a meaningful slice of a $395 plan — which is exactly why Ruby suits low-volume, high-value practices and struggles for anyone fielding steady inbound.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does Ruby cost compared to LimeCall? ▾
Ruby publishes $250/mo for 50 minutes, $395/mo for 100 minutes, $720/mo for 200 and $1,725/mo for 500. LimeCall starts at $59/mo flat with a talk-time bundle, and calls taken in the browser on your own website are unlimited and free. The important number is the minute allowance: 100 minutes is under two minutes per working day, so a handful of real conversations can exhaust a $395 plan. Ruby is not overpriced for what it is — live trained receptionists are expensive to staff — but you are buying human time, and human time is metered. Prices verified 15 August 2026.
Is an AI receptionist as good as Ruby’s human receptionists? ▾
For a warm, judgement-heavy conversation, no — and anyone telling you otherwise is selling. Ruby is the benchmark in live answering for good reason. What AI does better is everything around volume and cost: it answers every call at once, never queues, does not run out of minutes at 4pm on a Thursday, and costs the same whether you take ten calls or a thousand. Most businesses find the honest test is what their calls actually are. Routine enquiries, bookings and qualification are handled well by AI. Sensitive, complex or high-stakes conversations still favour a person.
Does Ruby have an AI-only plan? ▾
Not as a discounted tier. Ruby includes AI enhancements at no extra cost across its plans, but those assist their human receptionists rather than replacing them, so you still pay live-receptionist rates. Competitors like Smith.ai and Abby Connect do offer cheaper AI-first tiers. If your reason for looking at Ruby is cost rather than the human touch, that absence is the crux of the decision.
What does LimeCall do that Ruby does not? ▾
The website half. Ruby answers your phone; it does nothing on your site. LimeCall adds a callback widget that turns a browsing visitor into a live conversation in about 28 seconds, unlimited free calls taken directly in the browser, virtual numbers in 50+ countries, and AI-drafted post-call follow-ups. If your leads mostly arrive through a website rather than by dialling a number, that is where the gap shows.
When should I stay with Ruby? ▾
When the human voice is the product. If you run a practice where callers expect a person, where a warm and well-judged greeting is part of your brand, or where call volume is low enough that per-minute pricing never bites, Ruby is a genuinely excellent service and switching to save money would be a false economy. LimeCall makes more sense when volume is higher, calls are more routine, or website lead capture matters as much as answering the phone.
Run Both for a Fortnight
Free for 14 days, no credit card. Point a number at LimeCall, keep Ruby on the main line, and compare what actually happens to your calls.