How much does an AI receptionist cost? (2026 UK)

How much does an AI receptionist cost?

There are two ways to buy one, and they're priced completely differently. Subscription tools are typically advertised from roughly £25 a month at the bottom end to several hundred a month once call volume and booking increase. You set them up and run them yourself. Done-for-you builds are a one-off, fixed-scope project (for us, priced after a free audit and agreed in writing before anything is built) that arrives connected to your calendar and systems, tuned to your business and working on day one.

Most published pricing you'll find is in US dollars; the shape is the same in the UK. A low-cost tier handles basic calls, and pricing rises as call volume, bookings and integrations grow.

What you're paying for

"AI receptionist" spans everything from a voicemail-with-transcripts tool to an agent that answers every call, books appointments into your live diary, reschedules, reminds and hands anything sensitive to a person. The price reflects that gap.

A done-for-you build includes the parts the subscription tools leave to you: scoping what callers ask, connecting your booking or practice system, writing and tuning the voice so it sounds like your front desk, testing on real calls and handing over a working system with a human path for sensitive decisions.

What moves the price

• Call volume: subscription tiers are usually metered by minutes or calls, so the price rises with activity.
• Booking and answering: a receptionist that books into your live diary (and reschedules and reminds) costs more than one that takes messages. It's also where the value is: an answered-and-booked call is revenue.
• Your systems: connecting a practice-management system, CRM or job software properly is the difference between a gadget and a receptionist.
• Out-of-hours cover: calls answered at 6pm and on Saturday can make the entire business case.

The number to compare it against

Compare an AI receptionist with the value of the enquiries and bookings it handles. For many clinics and service businesses, one recovered enquiry a month can cover the running cost. Busier lines create more opportunities for the higher tiers to pay back.

DIY vs done-for-you

DIY subscriptions make sense if your calls are simple, your volume is low, and someone in the business enjoys setting these things up. Include the setup and tuning time when comparing the total commitment.

Done-for-you makes sense the moment the receptionist has to do things: book into a live diary, follow your escalation rules and sound like you. That's a build rather than a subscription setting, and it's what our AI receptionist service delivers: fixed scope, agreed in writing after a free audit, connected to the tools you already run. See how our pricing works, or tell us about your phone line and we'll tell you which route fits, including "start with a low-cost tool" when that is the right answer.