AI receptionists are cheap and quick to set up, and they can still take a garbled message from your best customer. Here is what they cost, how they compare with the alternatives, and how to test one properly.
The short answer
An AI receptionist answers your phone, gives callers basic information, takes their details and sends you a summary, and some can book appointments or transfer calls. Among Australian providers that publish prices, small plans start at roughly $20 to $50 a month, and costs are charged per call, per minute or as part of a phone plan. Before you sign, make about 20 test calls covering the awkward cases, make sure callers are told they are speaking with an AI, and decide exactly when it should hand over to a person.
Missed calls are a real cost for a business that sells by phone, especially trades and clinics where the person who could answer is on a job or with a patient. AI receptionists have become cheap and easy to set up, and the marketing makes them sound like a solved problem. They can be useful. They can also take a garbled message from your best customer at 7pm on a Friday. The difference is mostly in how you set them up and test them.
What an AI receptionist actually does
Most services work the same way. You forward your calls (all of them, after hours only, or when nobody answers) to a number the service provides. An AI voice answers, using information you give it about your business: hours, services, service area and common questions. It then:
- answers simple questions from that information
- takes the caller’s name, number and reason for calling
- sends you a summary or transcript by email, text or app
- in some setups, books into your calendar, transfers the call to a person, or sends the caller a text.
What it does not do well is judgement. It cannot tell whether a leaking pipe is an emergency unless you have told it how to decide, and it cannot calm an upset customer the way a person who knows them can. Plan for those calls rather than hoping they will not happen.
What AI receptionists cost in Australia
These are prices published on each provider’s own website when we checked them on 29 October 2026. They are examples to show how pricing works, not recommendations, and they change often. Check GST, the included calls or minutes, and what happens when you go over.
| Provider | Published price | What it includes | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| OfficeHQ MyAI Receptionist | From $20 a month (10 calls) to $600 a month (500 calls), plus GST | 50 calls for $75 a month on its most popular plan | Extra calls $1.50 each |
| AI Answering Service | $48 a month including GST | 200 calls, 24/7 answering, a Sydney number, call summaries | No setup fee; 14-day free trial |
| ServiceM8 Phone, Connect Plus | $49 a month | 500 call minutes and an AI phone agent | An add-on to ServiceM8 job management; 8c a minute overage |
| SIPTalk AI Receptionist | 27.5c a minute | Pay per minute, no setup fee stated | Suits low or unpredictable call volumes |
| Click2Call | Included with its phone numbers, which start at $10 a month plus GST | AI receptionist built into the phone system | You would move your number to that phone provider |
For comparison, human answering services that publish prices charge more per call. OfficeHQ’s human receptionist plans are $85 a month for 20 calls or $190 a month for 50 calls, plus GST, and Virtual HQ lists $80 a month for 20 calls plus GST, with extra calls at $3.99. At 50 calls a month, OfficeHQ’s AI plan is $75 and its human plan is $190, both plus GST.
Work out a first-year cost
The monthly fee is only part of it. Fill this in for each option you are considering, using the same GST basis for all of them.
| Item | How to estimate it |
|---|---|
| Monthly plan × 12 | Choose the plan that covers a busy month, not an average one |
| Overage | Your busiest month’s calls or minutes, minus what the plan includes, times the overage rate |
| Setup | Any setup fee, plus a few hours of your time to write the business information and test it |
| Phone number changes | Call forwarding costs from your current provider, or the cost of moving your number |
| Calendar or job system connection | Often only on higher plans, or needs a separate integration |
| Ongoing checking | Time each week to read summaries, fix wrong answers and update the information |
Then compare it with the realistic value of the calls you are currently missing. If you do not know how many that is, check your phone system’s missed call report for a few weeks first. Some, including ServiceM8 Phone, have one built in.
AI receptionist, answering service, text-back or a hire?
| Option | Suits | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| AI receptionist | Many short, routine calls; after-hours cover; callers who mostly want to leave details or book | Callers who need judgement or reassurance; wrong answers if your information is out of date |
| Human answering service | Fewer calls where tone matters, such as clinics, legal and high-value jobs | Higher cost per call; the answerer still only knows what you tell them |
| Missed-call text-back | Low call volumes where a quick “sorry we missed you” text is enough | Only reaches mobiles; the customer may have already called the next business |
| Hiring a receptionist | Steady high volume, plus other front-desk work like payments, check-ins and follow-up | The largest cost; still needs cover for breaks, leave and after hours |
The options combine well. One practical setup is a person during business hours, with an AI receptionist taking overflow and after-hours calls. If you are weighing up a hire, our guide to automating, fixing the process or hiring walks through the real costs.
Test it with 20 calls before you sign
Most providers offer a trial. Use it. Ask two or three people, ideally including someone who does not know the business well, to make about 20 calls across these situations. Record what happened in a spreadsheet.
| Test call | What good looks like |
|---|---|
| A simple question during business hours (“Do you service Penrith?”) | Correct answer from your information, then offers to take details |
| An urgent after-hours job (a burst pipe, no power, severe pain) | Follows your emergency rule: transfers, gives the right number or flags it as urgent |
| An existing customer checking on their job or appointment | Takes details and passes them on; does not invent a status |
| A price shopper (“How much for a hot water system?”) | Gives only the pricing you approved, or explains that a quote is needed |
| “Am I talking to a robot?” | Answers honestly and offers a person or a callback |
| An annoyed caller with a complaint | Stays calm, does not argue or promise a refund, hands over quickly |
| A caller in a noisy car or on speakerphone | Asks them to repeat; the name and number in the summary are correct |
| A caller with an unusual name or suburb | Spells it back or confirms it; summary is accurate |
| A question it has no information about | Says it does not know and takes a message, rather than guessing |
| “Can I speak to a person?” | Transfers or arranges a callback straight away |
| A caller who hangs up halfway | You still get a summary with their number |
| A spam or sales call | Ends politely without creating a fake job |
For each call, note whether the details were right, whether it said anything untrue, how long the summary took to arrive and where it went. If it invents answers or gets phone numbers wrong more than occasionally, fix the setup or try another provider before customers hear it.
Tell callers it is an AI, and set handover rules
The OAIC’s guidance on businesses using AI products says businesses should update their privacy policies and notifications about their use of AI, “including ensuring that any public facing AI tools (such as chatbots) are clearly identified as such”. An AI that answers your phone is a public-facing tool, so callers should be told.
If the service records or transcribes calls, say so at the start. Those recordings and transcripts can contain personal information, which your privacy obligations cover, and laws on recording conversations differ between states and territories. If you are unsure what applies to you, get advice before you switch it on.
A greeting along these lines covers the basics:
“Hi, you’ve reached [business name]. I’m an AI assistant for the team. This call is recorded and transcribed so we can follow up. I can take your details or answer a few questions, and you can ask for a person at any time.”
Then write down when it must hand over to a person, or flag the call as urgent:
- anything involving safety, injury or an emergency
- complaints, refunds or disputes
- a caller who asks for a person, or asks twice
- existing customers with a problem on a current job
- quotes or bookings outside the rules you gave it
- anything it cannot answer from its information.
If callers will receive texts from the system afterwards, the same care applies as for any follow-up message. Our guide on asking for Google reviews includes the basic messaging rules.
Answering calls is not the same as making them
Some providers also offer AI that makes outbound calls. That is a different situation. The ACMA’s telemarketing rules set calling hours (9am to 8pm on weekdays and 9am to 5pm on Saturdays, with no telemarketing on Sundays or national public holidays) and cover the Do Not Call Register. Answering your own incoming calls is not telemarketing, but if a tool starts calling people to sell or promote something, check those rules first.
Keep checking after it goes live
For the first month, read every summary. Look for wrong answers, questions it could not handle and callers who hung up. Update the business information each time something changes: prices, hours, service areas, staff on leave. Information that was right at setup can be wrong three months later, and the AI will keep repeating it until someone updates it.
It also helps to check that the summaries reach the right place and somebody acts on them. An AI that takes a perfect message which then sits in an unread inbox has not solved anything. Our enquiry delivery test works for phone summaries too.
Where AppliedAgents fits
AppliedAgents builds AI reception and booking setups, so we have an interest in this topic. The test script and handover rules above apply to any provider, including us. For many small businesses an off-the-shelf service from the table is the right start. A custom setup is worth considering when calls need to flow into your own job system, calendar or CRM with rules specific to your business.
Sources
- Provider pricing pages linked in the tables above, each checked on 29 October 2026
- OAIC, Guidance on privacy and the use of commercially available AI products
- ACMA, Say no to telemarketers
- ServiceM8 Help, Managing call response rates with ServiceM8 Phone reports
This article is general information, not legal advice. Prices were read on providers’ websites on 29 October 2026 and change often; inclusion is not an endorsement.
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