Product
Beside Phone is three things in one app: a real business phone line, an AI receptionist that answers every call 24/7 in your cloned voice, and a memory that turns each call into transcripts and a daily recap. It's $16.67 a month billed annually, with a 7-day free trial.
By the Beside Team · July 10, 2026
If you found this page, you've probably heard the name and want the full picture before you put it on your phone. Fair. This page is that picture: what Beside is, everything the AI actually does, what setup takes, what it costs, and who it's for, and who it isn't. We answer about 2.6 million calls a quarter for small businesses, so we'll keep it concrete.
What Beside Phone is
Most products in this category are one thing. A phone system gives you a number and lets calls ring out. An answering service sits in front of your number and takes messages. A transcription app tells you what you missed. Beside is built as all three layers at once, because a call only turns into money when all three happen.
A missed-call notification is a to-do list with anxiety attached. Knowing a call happened was never the job. The job is that the caller got an answer, a booking, or a quote while they were still interested. That's the standard the rest of this page is measured against.
What the AI receptionist does when your phone rings
The reason this matters: 78% of consumers say they have abandoned a business after an unanswered call, and when a business doesn't answer, only 42% of callers bother to leave a voicemail, and 21% immediately call a competitor (Source: CallRail, 2025). Voicemail is a machine for losing customers politely.
So Beside doesn't take messages. On a live call it will:
| The moment | What Beside does |
|---|---|
| A new customer calls while you're with a client | Answers instantly in your cloned voice, asks what you would ask, qualifies and scores the lead |
| The caller wants an appointment | Checks availability and books it: consultation, showing, service window |
| The caller wants a price | Generates the quote, and the invoice when the job is done |
| A repeat customer calls | Greets them by name; it remembers every prior conversation |
| The call needs a human | Redirects to any number you choose, based on rules you set |
| Nothing needs you | You get the transcript, the summary, and the action item |
Speed is the quiet advantage here. Contacting an inbound lead inside 5 minutes produces conversion rates 8x greater than a reply that lands anywhere from five minutes to 24 hours later. Yet only 0.1% of leads actually get engaged that fast, and more than half of first call attempts happen over a week later (Source: InsideSales, 2021). An AI that picks up on the first ring puts you in a response bracket almost no business reaches.
It also does this in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, for both calls and texts (Source: beside.com, 2026). If your customers text in Spanish and call in English, the receptionist keeps up.
What happens after the call
This is the layer that separates a receptionist from an answering machine with a personality. Every conversation is transcribed and summarized. Leads are scored. New callers become contact profiles, enriched automatically. The AI drafts follow-up texts and messages for you to approve before they send: you review, you tap, it goes. At the end of the day you get one recap instead of eleven notifications (daily summaries and the cloned voice both show up in Beside's published customer stories).
And it doesn't live on an island. Beside connects directly with HubSpot, Attio, Follow Up Boss, Google Contacts, Google Sheets, and Microsoft Teams, and reaches 7,000+ other platforms through Zapier (Source: beside.com, 2026). Calls in, structured data out, into whatever you already run the business on.
What setup looks like
The trust question first, because it's the right one: you don't give up your number, and you can undo everything.
If you switch it off, calls ring your phone exactly like before. The exit is as short as the entrance, which is why trying it during one busy week tells you everything.
What Beside costs
Straight from the live pricing page (verified July 10, 2026):
| Plan | Price |
|---|---|
| Annual (what most owners pick) | $16.67/user/month, billed as $199.99/year · 7-day free trial |
| Monthly | $29.99/month |
| Additional lines | $4.99/month each |
| Beside for Teams | Custom price, same product |
Every feature is included at every tier: the AI receptionist, unlimited calls and texts in the US and Canada, transcripts, the daily recap, the integrations. There's no per-minute meter and no per-call charge. That's deliberate: we think per-minute pricing is a tax on good months. Your best month and your slowest month cost the same $16.67.
Who already runs their business on it
25,000+ owners, a 4.8-star rating across 8,856 App Store reviews (Source: Apple App Store, 2026), and 17 published customer stories with real names. Two of them show the range.
Tim Curts runs a TWFG insurance agency in Ventura, California, solo. With Beside answering and qualifying his inbound calls: "I went from writing about 40,000 in new written premium to about 120,000 overnight — just by myself." His follow-up line is the one every solo owner should read twice: "The only way I'm able to sustain that today is because of Beside. I would have totally burnt out."
Khareen Tomlin owns NuVel Esthetiques, a day spa where her hands are literally busy all day:
"I don't have to worry about a missed call when I'm with my client. I'm 100% with my client." — Khareen Tomlin, Owner, NuVel Esthetiques
That's the actual product. The transcripts and the AI are the mechanism. What you actually buy is the phone no longer being a thing you carry guilt about. Most businesses treat the phone as an interruption. It's the front door. Beside's whole premise is that the front door should answer itself.
The verdict: who Beside is for, and who it isn't
If you run a solo or small-team service business (trades, real estate, salons and spas, insurance, clinics), anyone whose phone rings while their hands are full. Get Beside. It was built for exactly this: your number, your voice, every call answered, booked, quoted, and remembered, whether you pick up or not. Start with the annual plan; the math is better.
If you have a staffed front desk that already answers every call live and logs it into your CRM, you've already solved this; Beside would be a backup layer, not a transformation. And if most of your business arrives by email rather than phone, start elsewhere.
FAQ
Is Beside a real phone line or an app on top of my number?
Both, your choice. Beside can be your business line outright (a new local or toll-free US number with unlimited calls and texts), or you can keep your existing number and forward it to Beside in minutes, on any carrier, with no porting and no downtime. Switch it off anytime and calls ring your phone exactly as before.
What can the AI receptionist actually do?
Answer every call 24/7 in a clone of your voice, qualify and score leads, book appointments against your availability, generate quotes and invoices, send follow-up texts you approve, greet repeat callers by name, transfer calls by your rules, and transcribe and summarize everything into a daily recap. It speaks English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.
How much does Beside cost?
$16.67 per user per month billed annually ($199.99/year) or $29.99 month-to-month, with additional lines at $4.99/month and a 7-day free trial, verified on the Beside pricing page, July 2026. Every feature is included; there are no per-minute or per-call charges.
Is Beside a legitimate company?
Yes. Beside is built by Hearthands Inc. in New York and has raised $32 million to build it (reported by Fortune in November 2025). 25,000+ paying business owners run their line on it, it holds a 4.8-star rating across 8,856 App Store ratings, and it answers about 2.6 million calls every quarter.
Will callers know it's an AI?
Callers hear your cloned voice and a natural conversation, and they get what they called for: a booked appointment or a price. Whether you disclose the assistant is your call.
Is my call data secure?
Yes. All data is encrypted in transit and stored on AWS servers in the United States.