Both answer your phone when your team can't. Smith.ai is human led with AI assist. Hank is AI built for the trades. This page is the honest side by side. Comparison is based on publicly available information about Smith.ai and our own product.
You run a legal, professional services, or consultative business where calls require nuanced human judgment more than speed and CRM workflow.
Your call volume is low enough that per minute pricing is cheap and AI cost savings do not matter.
You need a human voice on every call for brand reasons and you can absorb the slower answer times and pricing variability.
You run a trades shop with real call volume and you cannot afford a busy signal during a heatwave or storm event.
You want flat predictable pricing that does not balloon when call volume spikes.
You want jobs landing on your dispatch board with trade specific intake captured, not a typed summary in your inbox to re enter.
Yes. Both answer your phone when your team can't. The model is different. Smith.ai is a human virtual receptionist service with AI assist features. Hank is a fully AI sales rep purpose built for the trades. The right fit depends on your call volume, after hours coverage needs, and CRM workflow.
Human receptionists handle ambiguous, emotional, or non standard conversations more naturally than any AI today. If your call mix is heavy on legal, professional services, or complex consultative inbound where human judgment matters more than speed and CRM sync, Smith.ai is built for that.
Speed (under 1 second answer time vs human pickup latency), unlimited concurrent calls (no busy signal during a heatwave or storm), flat pricing (no per minute charges that explode during call spikes), and native two way CRM sync with ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceFusion, Go High Level, Salesforce, and HubSpot. For HVAC, plumbing, roofing, and remodeling shops with real call volume, the math usually favors Hank.
Smith.ai's human receptionist pricing typically uses a per minute or per call structure that scales with usage. Hank uses flat monthly tiers by truck count (Solo $249, Crew $549, Fleet $1,249). For shops over a few hundred calls a month, flat pricing is usually significantly cheaper.
Some shops run AI for after hours and storm spikes (Hank) and human for daytime concierge calls (Smith.ai). The handoff is doable. Most shops eventually consolidate to one because the workflow gets confusing across two systems.
Smith.ai supports a number of CRM integrations. The depth of trade specific data flow into ServiceTitan and the other home services CRMs varies. Worth checking current capabilities directly before committing.
Try a live demo or talk to the team about a side by side trial.