How the four options compare.
Most small businesses answer the phone in one of four ways. Each one charges differently, covers different hours and handles a different kind of call, which is why a simple price list rarely tells you which is cheapest.
1. Hiring a receptionist
You pay a salary whether the phone rings or not, plus employer costs on top. In return you get someone who knows your business and can also greet visitors, manage the diary and handle admin. The gaps are hours and capacity: one person covers around 40 hours a week and one call at a time, so evenings, weekends and busy moments still go to voicemail.
2. Live answering service
Shared agents answer in your business name, take messages and transfer urgent calls. You pay per minute or per call, often with a monthly minimum, and most services run 24/7. It suits businesses with modest volume that mostly need messages taken, but costs climb quickly as call volume and call length grow.
3. Virtual receptionist team
A smaller, dedicated group of remote receptionists who learn your services, book appointments in your calendar and qualify new enquiries. The per-minute rate is higher than a basic answering service because the work is more involved.
4. AI receptionist
Software that answers every call with a natural voice, answers common questions, books appointments and sends a summary or transfers the caller when a person is needed. Pricing is usually a monthly plan plus usage. It never misses a call for capacity reasons, but it needs a few hours of setup to learn your services and the right rules for when to hand over to a human.
How the calculator works.
For each option it works out two numbers and adds them together:
- What you pay. Salary plus overhead for an in-house receptionist; total call minutes times the per-minute rate for answering and virtual receptionist services; the plan fee plus usage for an AI receptionist.
- What you lose. Calls the option cannot answer, multiplied by the share that are new customer opportunities, your win rate and the value of a customer. An in-house receptionist is assumed to miss the calls that arrive outside business hours; the other options are assumed to answer around the clock.
The option with the lowest total is shown as the cheapest for your numbers. Every default can be changed, so replace them with real quotes when you have them.
A worked example.
Take a business that receives 300 calls a month averaging three minutes, with a quarter of them arriving after hours. That is 900 minutes of talk time. At the default rates, a live answering service comes to about $990 a month, a virtual receptionist team about $2,484, and an AI receptionist about $279. A receptionist on the median wage costs more than any of them and still misses the 75 after-hours calls. If 30% of those are real opportunities and you win 40% of opportunities worth $500 each, those missed calls are worth around $4,500 a month.
The answer changes with your numbers. Very high volume, long calls or work that needs a person in the office can favour hiring. Low volume with mostly simple calls tends to favour AI or a basic answering service.
What to check before you choose.
- Billing increments: some services round every call up to the next minute or 30 seconds, which adds up on short calls.
- Monthly minimums and overage rates once you pass your plan's minutes.
- Setup fees, extra phone numbers, call recording and calendar or CRM integrations.
- When and how a call is handed to a person, and how quickly you get the message.
- Industry rules, such as patient privacy for healthcare or client confidentiality for law firms.
If you want to look at AI on its own in more detail, use the AI receptionist cost calculator. Dental practices can start with the dental office version, which works from missed new-patient calls.