Upfirst
Upfirst is an AI phone receptionist that answers calls 24/7, books appointments into your calendar, and texts you the details.
Upfirst is the rare phone tool priced so a two-person shop can justify it: $24.95/month for 30 calls, or $20/month billed annually, versus the $400–$2,500/month human answering services its own case studies describe. Its closest comparisons in this price band are other AI receptionists rather than human services, and Upfirst competes there on breadth — scheduling into Google, Outlook, Clio, Acuity, Calendly and Square, warm transfers, 35+ languages, spam blocking you are never billed for. The catch is volume: published tiers stop at 600 calls, and past that you move to per-call overage. If you miss calls after 6pm and lose the lead to whoever answered first, this is an easy trial.
Verified 6d ago · liveness 75/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/upfirst
- Solo professionals losing calls while doing the work
- Real estate agents and property managers taking leads and maintenance requests after hours
- Small clinics, salons, and service shops without a front desk
- Nonprofits and tight-budget teams replacing a $400+/month human answering service
- High-volume call centers — published tiers top out at 600 calls per month, then per-call fees apply
- Enterprises needing complex multi-level IVR phone menus
- Buyers who want a live human on genuinely nuanced or emotionally charged calls
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Skip Upfirst if you routinely take more than 600 calls a month and want a flat bill — the published tiers stop at Scale, and everything past 600 calls moves to per-call overage.
Every call past your plan's cap is billed per call — $1.50 on Starter, $1.00 on Premium, $0.75 on Pro, $0.70 on Scale — so a spike month costs noticeably more than the headline rate.
Starter at $24.95/month ($20/month billed annually) undercuts most AI receptionists and sits far below the $400+/month human answering services Upfirst's own case studies cite. Premium at $59.95/month ($48 billed annually) is the realistic entry point for anyone who needs warm transfers. Pro at $159.95/month ($128 billed annually) and Scale at $299/month ($240 billed annually) are priced for practices taking 300–600 calls a month, where per-call overage on a lower tier would cost more than the
In short
Upfirst — Upfirst is an AI phone receptionist that answers calls 24/7, books appointments into your calendar, and texts you the details. Best for Solo professionals losing calls while doing the work, Real estate agents and property managers taking leads and maintenance requests after hours, Small clinics, salons, and service shops without a front desk. Plans from $24.95/mo.
What's new in Upfirst
Checked 6 days agoAcross the latest 5 updates: 4 feature updates and 1 news mention.
Run multiple agents under one account
Add a second agent for another location, another line, or another business, with training either shared across agents or scoped to one, and a single call log filterable by agent.
Square Scheduling integration for automated booking
Upfirst now reads Square Scheduling availability and books callers into the right service on your Square calendar, alongside Google, Outlook, Clio, Acuity, and Calendly.
Connect Upfirst to Claude with the new MCP server
The Upfirst MCP server connects your account to Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and Codex so you can query call history and transcripts or change settings from chat. No install and no API key.
5 best Avoca AI alternatives for home service businesses (2026)
Upfirst compares five Avoca AI alternatives aimed at home service businesses, positioning itself among the options.
Import contacts via CSV and control receptionist response pace
Upload your full customer list via CSV so the receptionist skips questions it already has answers to, plus a response-pace setting with Auto, Low, Medium, and High.
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is Upfirst? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →Key Features
- AI receptionist answers calls 24/7 in full, overflow, or after-hours mode
- Custom intake questions and message collection configured per business
- Knowledge-base answering for common customer questions
- Appointment scheduling into Google, Outlook, Clio, Acuity, Calendly, and Square Scheduling
- Warm call transfers that announce the caller's name and reason before you accept
- AI spam detection and blocking, with no charge for blocked calls
- Instant call summaries delivered by SMS or email after every call
- Call recordings with full transcription
- In-call texting for scheduling links, pricing, and directions
- 35+ voice languages with automatic language switching and transcript translation
- Caller memory recognizes returning callers and recalls past conversations
- CSV contact import to bulk-load a customer list for caller recognition
- Multi-user login with role-based permissions for team call review
- Multiple agents under one account for separate locations, lines, or businesses
- MCP server connecting Upfirst to Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, and Codex
About Upfirst
Upfirst is an AI answering service for small businesses that lose money on missed calls. It picks up 24/7 in one of three modes — every call, overflow only, or after hours — collects information using your own intake questions, answers common questions from a knowledge base, and books appointments directly into Google Calendar, Outlook, Clio, Acuity, Calendly or Square Scheduling. When a call needs you, it transfers with context: the agent tells you who is calling and what they need before you accept. It also texts links mid-call, blocks robocalls so you are not billed for them, transcribes and records every call, and emails or texts you a summary the moment the call ends. It is built for solo professionals and lean teams — law firms, real estate agents, property managers, vets, contractors, salons, clinics, restaurants — where the person who used to answer the phone is also the person doing the work. Forty or so industries have dedicated pages, and the receptionist switches between 35+ languages automatically, translating the transcript back into yours. An MCP server (added August 2026) connects your account to Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and Codex so you can query call history or change transfer rules from a chat window, and a Square Scheduling integration (September 2026) added another booking destination. A September 2026 update lets one account run multiple agents — separate locations, lines or businesses — sharing training where you want it and keeping everything in one call log.
Behind the Verdict
Where Upfirst fits. The product is built around four jobs that cover most small-business phone pain: take a message with your own intake questions, answer FAQs from a knowledge base, book straight into a calendar, and hand a live caller to a human with context. Each of those has a real implementation detail attached. Scheduling checks your calendar while the caller is on the line rather than promising a callback. Warm transfers read out the caller's name and reason before you accept, so you can decide whether to take it. Spam calls are caught and you are explicitly not charged for them, which matters when you are paying per call. Training can be imported from your website, which cuts the "teach it everything" tax down to an edit pass rather than a from-scratch build. What has changed recently. The MCP server shipped 2026-08-28 and is the most interesting addition: point Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code or Codex at mcp.upfirst.ai, sign in once, and you can ask "how many calls did we get this week?" or tell it to stop sending weekend transfers. There is no API key and nothing to install. It is scoped to the organization you signed in as, and the docs are clear that the connection carries the same authority as being logged into the dashboard. Square Scheduling landed 2026-09-10 as a sixth booking destination. On 2026-09-25, multi-agent support arrived: a second agent for another location, another line, or another business, with training either shared or scoped per agent and one call log filterable by agent. CSV contact import (2026-07-20) means your existing customer list is recognized on the first ring instead of the fiftieth call. Where it is weaker. Volume is the binding constraint. Starter includes 30 calls, Premium 90, Pro 300, Scale 600; past that you pay $1.50, $1.00, $0.75 or $0.70 per extra call depending on tier. A busy practice that gets 400 calls a month on Premium is paying roughly $370 that month, which is a very different number from the headline. Configuration is web-based, and there is no public API yet — the docs say so plainly, offering MCP and custom actions as the two paths instead. Teams needing native two-way CRM sync will route through Zapier or Make. And the honest caveat that applies to every AI receptionist: emotionally charged or genuinely nuanced calls are still better handled by a person, which is exactly what the warm-transfer feature exists for. How to decide. Start on Starter if you only need after-hours coverage and get fewer than 30 calls a month. Step to Premium the moment you want warm transfers and in-call texting — those are the two features that make the product feel like a receptionist rather than a voicemail box. Pro is where white-glove onboarding and custom integration help start, so pick it if you would rather have someone configure it with you than do it yourself.
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Upfirst actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
Calls roll to Upfirst after 6pm. The receptionist asks the intake questions you configured, records the details, and texts you a summary. A retaliation claim that sounds urgent gets warm-transferred live.
Outcome: You wake up to a transcribed intake summary instead of a voicemail you have to chase, and the urgent call reached you the same night.
Tenants call the maintenance line around the clock. Upfirst recognizes returning callers from your imported CSV, takes the unit number and issue, and books the non-urgent ones into your Square Scheduling calendar.
Outcome: Emergency requests reach a human; routine ones land on the calendar without a phone tag loop.
You add a second agent for the new location's phone number, share the hours and pricing training across both, and keep location-specific instructions scoped to the new agent.
Outcome: One call log filterable by agent covers both shops, and you only maintain the shared details once.
Use Cases
- Capture real estate leads after hours and book the showing before the caller dials the next agent.
- Screen and qualify law firm intake calls, then warm-transfer the ones worth taking.
- Handle after-hours maintenance requests for property management tenants around the clock.
- Take restaurant reservation and order calls with menu answers so nobody is put on hold.
- Cover overflow calls for a busy dental or medical practice without adding front-desk headcount.
- Book contractor and home-service jobs straight into Calendly, Google Calendar, or Square.
- Answer e-commerce FAQs and order questions 24/7 without a support hire.
- Recognize repeat callers from an imported CSV and skip questions you already have answers to.
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-10-08
Limitations
- Call volume is capped per plan — Starter includes 30 calls, Premium 90, Pro 300, Scale 600 — and every call past the cap is billed per call, so a spike month costs more than the headline rate.
- The scale ceiling is real: there is no published tier above 600 calls.
- Configuration and management are web-based, and there is no public API yet; the docs point to the MCP server and custom actions as the two ways to connect your stack today.
- Native CRM sync is not built in — caller details reach your CRM through Zapier or Make.
- Multi-level IVR phone trees are not the focus.
- And the AI is only as good as the training you give it, so budget an hour or two up front to teach it your hours, services, and prices (or import them from your website).
as of 2026-10-02
Verification history
We have re-verified Upfirst 7 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
Showing the 6 most recent of 7 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published Upfirst tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Starter
$24.95/mo
Ideal for
Solo professional or two-person shop taking fewer than 30 calls a month who mainly needs after-hours coverage.
What this tier adds
Starting tier: 30 included calls, 24/7 answering, summaries, recordings, spam blocking, and calendar booking, but no warm transfers or in-call texting.
Premium
$59.95/mo
Ideal for
Small practice or agency taking roughly 30–90 calls a month that needs a live handoff when a call is worth taking.
What this tier adds
Adds warm call transfers, in-call texting for links and directions, and caller memory on top of everything in Starter.
Pro (Most popular)
$159.95/mo
Ideal for
Busy clinic, law firm, or multi-crew service business handling 90–300 calls a month that would rather have help configuring the receptionist.
What this tier adds
Adds white-glove onboarding and custom integration help, plus a cheaper $0.75 per-call overage rate.
Scale
$299/mo
Ideal for
Established practice or multi-location business taking 300–600 calls a month.
What this tier adds
Doubles Pro's included calls to 600 and drops overage to $0.70 per call — the top of the published ladder.
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Upfirst's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
Starter at $24.95/month ($20/month billed annually) undercuts most AI receptionists and sits far below the $400+/month human answering services Upfirst's own case studies cite. Premium at $59.95/month ($48 billed annually) is the realistic entry point for anyone who needs warm transfers. Pro at $159.95/month ($128 billed annually) and Scale at $299/month ($240 billed annually) are priced for practices taking 300–600 calls a month, where per-call overage on a lower tier would cost more than the
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Upfirst — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Starter and Premium: budget one to two hours to add your hours, services, and prices, or import them from your website, before your first real call. Pro and Scale include white-glove onboarding, so plan a guided session with the Upfirst team plus configuration time on your side — typically same-day for the basics. The Square, Calendly, and calendar connections take a few minutes each, but
Switching to or from Upfirst
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From a human answering service: forward your existing business number to Upfirst and train it on the same intake questions your service used.
- →From voicemail or an answering machine: port your number, set after-hours mode, and let callers get answers instead of a beep.
- →From Avoca AI or another AI receptionist: export your caller list, import it via CSV under Contacts, and rebuild intake questions from the same script.
- →From a Google Voice or 1-800 forwarding setup: point the number at Upfirst and connect Google Calendar for booking in the same session.
- ↗To a human answering service: keep your number and forward it out; export caller records first, since there is no public API to pull history programmatically.
- ↗To a call-center platform with IVR trees: export your caller CSV, then rebuild intake flows in the new system's menu builder.
- ↗To a native-CRM receptionist: pull call summaries from the dashboard and re-enter contacts, since CRM sync on Upfirst runs through Zapier or Make rather than natively.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “Upfirst”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “Upfirst” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about Upfirst.
Official links
Tools that pair well with Upfirst
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside Upfirst, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
SkipCalls
SkipCalls is a 24/7 AI receptionist that answers your existing business line, books jobs, blocks spam, and texts you every call summary for $19.99/mo.
NextPhone
NextPhone answers every call 24/7 with an AI receptionist that qualifies leads and books appointments for a flat monthly rate.
Synthflow AI
Synthflow AI runs enterprise voice AI agents on its own telephony network for automated phone calls at scale.
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Upfirst vs Presto Voice
Choose Upfirst if you're a small business needing affordable, remote call handling with appointment booking — it's simple and priced at $20/month. Choose Presto Voice if you run a multi-location QSR chain and need drive-thru automation with proven upsell lift and high non-intervention rates; it's enterprise-grade but requires contacting sales.
Upfirst vs B Rokratt
Upfirst and Bürokratt serve entirely different problems and markets. If you run a small business and need affordable 24/7 call answering with booking, Upfirst is the obvious choice. If you are an Estonian citizen or e-resident needing to interact with government services, Bürokratt is a free, powerful tool. No overlap; choose based on your location and need.
Upfirst vs Truleo
Truleo and Upfirst serve completely different markets with zero overlap. Truleo is a highly specialized intelligence platform for law enforcement, requiring deep integration with police systems and CJIS compliance. Upfirst is a simple AI receptionist for small businesses. Choose Truleo if you run a police department; choose Upfirst if you need affordable 24/7 call coverage.
Alternatives to Upfirst
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SkipCalls
SkipCalls is a 24/7 AI receptionist that answers your existing business line, books jobs, blocks spam, and texts you every call summary for $19.99/mo.
NextPhone
NextPhone answers every call 24/7 with an AI receptionist that qualifies leads and books appointments for a flat monthly rate.
Synthflow AI
Synthflow AI runs enterprise voice AI agents on its own telephony network for automated phone calls at scale.
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