Ruby Receptionists has been the go-to live answering service for small businesses since 2003. They are excellent at what they do: friendly, professional humans answer your phone and take messages. For dental practices, the question is whether taking messages is enough — or whether you need your phone service to actually manage your schedule.
Where Ruby Wins
- Human warmth and empathy — some patients genuinely prefer speaking with a real person
- Two decades of reputation and trust — Ruby is a known quantity
- Handles emotionally complex calls with nuance
- Good for general call answering across any industry
Where Hazel Wins
- Books appointments directly into your PMS — Ruby takes a message, you do the booking
- Fills cancelled slots from your ML-ranked waitlist — Ruby has no scheduling capability
- Unlimited calls at a flat rate — Ruby charges per minute with escalating overage fees
- Integrated with 31 PMS systems across dental, medical, and specialty practices — Ruby has zero PMS integration
- Bilingual English and Spanish included — Ruby charges extra for bilingual
The Pricing Reality
Ruby's most popular dental plan runs $330-$665/month for 100-200 minutes. If your practice uses 250 minutes in a busy month, overage charges add $100-$170. Hazel costs $499/month for unlimited calls — no overages, no surprises, no per-minute tracking. For practices with moderate to high call volume, Hazel is both cheaper and more capable.
For the full side-by-side feature comparison, see our Hazel vs Ruby Receptionists comparison page.
Hazel does everything Ruby does — plus schedule management, waitlist automation, and PMS integration. For less money.
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