How does the AI voice agency pricing calculator work?

Enter four things about a client: their vertical, whether the agent runs inbound, outbound, or both, the call minutes you expect per month, and the client's size. The calculator starts from a base retainer set by client size, then adjusts it two ways. A vertical multiplier reflects how much that industry can pay, since a law firm or mortgage broker monetizes a booked call far more than a home-services shop. A use-case multiplier bumps the price for outbound and for combined inbound-plus-outbound work, which carry more setup and more risk. The result is a recommended monthly retainer range, a setup fee, a per-minute overage rate to bill the client, your Hermes cost for the account, and your gross margin. Everything runs in your browser and the share link carries every input.

What should an AI voice agency charge per client?

Most healthy AI voice agencies charge between fifteen hundred and five thousand dollars a month per client, plus a one-time setup fee and per-minute overage past an included bucket. The right number is not a cost-plus markup on minutes. It is a value-based price anchored to what one booked call, one recovered no-show, or one captured after-hours lead is worth to that business. A dental practice that books a new patient worth eight hundred dollars in lifetime value will happily pay two thousand a month for an agent that books ten of them. The calculator gives you a defensible range so you can walk into the call with a number you can justify line by line, not a guess you discount the moment a prospect pushes back.

Should I charge a setup fee for AI voice agents?

Yes. A setup fee does three things: it covers the real hours you spend building the prompt, wiring the calendar and CRM, recording and testing the agent, and registering A2P; it filters out tire-kickers who will never convert; and it gives you cash up front to fund the build instead of carrying it. The calculator recommends a setup fee that scales with client size and use case, since a multi-location outbound deployment is a genuinely bigger build than a single inbound receptionist. A common range is five hundred dollars for a solo inbound agent up to several thousand for a multi-location inbound-plus-outbound rollout. Frame it as onboarding, not a fee, and bake it into the first invoice alongside the first month of retainer.

How should I price per-minute overage to my clients?

Charge your clients a per-minute overage that sits well above what you pay Hermes, because overage is where thin deals quietly become unprofitable. Hermes bills you twenty-four cents a minute past your plan's included minutes. A defensible client-facing overage is around three times that, roughly seventy-five cents a minute, which protects your margin when a client's volume spikes and still reads as fair against the value of a live conversation. The calculator surfaces this rate so you never forget to put it in the contract. Always pair an included-minutes bucket with a stated overage rate. Selling unlimited minutes transfers all the volume risk to you, and one heavy client can erase the margin on three light ones.

What is my real cost to run a client on Hermes?

Your marginal cost is mostly minutes. Hermes plans bundle included minutes into a flat monthly price, then bill twenty-four cents a minute beyond that. The calculator estimates your cost for a client at the twenty-four-cent overage rate, which is deliberately conservative, since minutes inside your plan's bucket are effectively cheaper because you already paid for them in the subscription. On top of minutes you carry the plan subscription itself, a flat one hundred forty-nine, three hundred ninety-nine, or six hundred ninety-nine dollars a month depending on tier, spread across every client in that workspace, plus pass-through costs like knowledge bases at twelve dollars each and A2P at thirty per submission. Knowing this floor lets you see, in one glance, the gross margin on any retainer you are about to quote.

Which Hermes plan should I be on for this pricing to work?

Match the plan to your pooled minute volume across all clients, not to a single account. Starter is one hundred forty-nine a month with three hundred included minutes and three workspaces, which fits a solo operator with one to three light clients. Business is three hundred ninety-nine with a thousand minutes and seven workspaces for a growing book of three to ten clients. Agency is six hundred ninety-nine with two thousand minutes and twenty workspaces for an established shop. Pro is custom for twenty-plus clients. The calculator suggests a plan based on the minutes you entered for one client, as a sanity check, but your real plan choice depends on your total monthly minutes. Book a walkthrough and we will size it against your whole client list, not one account.

free tool

AI Voice Agency Pricing Calculator

Stop guessing what to charge. Enter the client's vertical, the use case, and expected call volume to get a defensible monthly retainer, setup fee, and per-minute overage rate, with your gross margin on Hermes built in.

/ your client

VerticalSets the value multiplierUse caseOutbound and both price higherClient sizeSets the base retainerExpected minutes / monthDrives your cost and plan fit

/ recommended retainer

$1,850–$2,650

per month, target $2,200

/ one-time setup

$1,000

onboarding + build

/ gross margin

91%

at the target retainer

/ how the price is built

Base retainer (SMB / a few locations)$2,000

Vertical adjustment (Dental, ×1.10)×1.10

Use-case adjustment (Inbound only, ×1.00)×1.00

Target monthly retainer$2,200

Suggested client overage (~3× your Hermes rate)$0.75/min

Your Hermes cost for this client (worst case, 800 min × $0.24)$192.00/mo

/ plan fit 800 minutes fits inside the Business plan ($399/mo, 1,000 included minutes) for a single client. Your real plan choice depends on your pooled minutes across all clients.

Book a 20-min walkthrough to price your whole client list.

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how it works

How to price an AI voice client, step by step.

Pricing kills more AI voice agencies than churn does. Operators anchor to their own cost, mark it up a little, and leave most of the value on the table. This calculator flips the order. It starts from what the client can pay and works back to your margin, so you walk into the call with a number you can defend instead of a guess you discount the moment someone pushes.

The model has three inputs that move the price. Client size sets the base retainer, because a multi-location operation has more lines, more volume, and more budget than a solo shop. The vertical applies a value multiplier: a booked call is worth far more to a law firm, mortgage broker, or financial advisor than to a low-ticket home-services trade, so the price tracks the value of one good conversation, not the cost of one minute. The use case adds the final adjustment, since outbound and combined inbound-plus-outbound deployments carry more build time, more compliance, and more performance risk than a simple inbound receptionist.

From there the tool computes the numbers you actually negotiate with: a recommended monthly retainer range, a one-time setup fee that scales with the build, and a per-minute overage rate to bill the client, anchored at roughly three times the twenty-four cents a minute you pay Hermes. It then shows your cost to run the account and the gross margin that price leaves you. On Hermes the whole stack runs under your own brand from one hundred forty-nine dollars a month, with overage at twenty-four cents and compliance passed through at cost, so the margin you see here is the margin you keep.

frequently asked

Common questions.

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Price your next client in 20 minutes.

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AI Voice Agency Pricing Calculator

How to price an AI voice client, step by step.

Common questions.

Price your next client in 20 minutes.

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