An AI receptionist that costs less than the calls you are missing
Answers every call, books the appointment, takes the message, and passes a real person through when it matters. Published build prices, and an honest comparison against what a human receptionist actually costs.
- Build price fixed before we start
- Run costs billed by your providers, never marked up
- It hands off to a human rather than trapping a caller
Why this is worth building, and why us.
Most small businesses do not have a receptionist problem, they have a maths problem. A full-time front desk is a salary plus cover for holidays, sickness, and lunch, and even then the phone rings while they are on another call. So calls go to voicemail, and a meaningful share of those callers simply ring the next business on the list.
An AI receptionist is worth having when it closes that specific gap: the calls nobody was ever going to answer. It is not worth having if it traps callers in a loop and annoys the ones who would have converted. The difference is entirely in the build, which is what this page is about.
What it actually does
- 01Answers every call on the first ring, including at 9pm and during your busiest hour
- 02Books appointments straight into the calendar you already use
- 03Answers the questions your team repeats all day: hours, location, pricing, parking, availability
- 04Takes a proper message with the caller details written to your CRM, not a voicemail nobody plays
- 05Transfers to a human mid-call when the caller needs one, carrying the context across
- 06Sends you a transcript and a summary, so you can see exactly what was said
Two numbers, both published
A one-time build, fixed and listed below, plus a per-minute run cost billed by your providers at raw rates. We estimate the second from your call volume before you commit to the first, because at low volume the build dominates and at high volume it does not.
One day and you find out whether this is worth doing at all. We look at your call volume, when the missed ones cluster, and what a booked appointment is worth to you, then give you a payback estimate, a per-minute run-cost number, and a fixed build quote. Credited back in full against any build you start within 30 days.
- Starter$1,9971 week
Covering after-hours and overflow, so no call reaches voicemail.
- Answers calls, takes messages, answers your standard questions
- Message and caller details emailed or written to your inbox
- Your own number or a divert from the existing one
- Transcripts of every call
- Live in a week, on a platform so the build stays cheap
- Most chosenBusiness$4,9973 weeks
The receptionist role, genuinely handled, including booking.
- Everything in Starter, plus live calendar booking and rescheduling
- CRM integration, so callers arrive in your pipeline rather than a notes app
- Warm transfer to a human mid-call, with context carried across
- Trained on your real pricing, services, and policies
- A voice tuned to sound like your business, not a call centre
- A dashboard of calls handled, booked, transferred, and missed
- Managed$797/moMonthly
Keeping it accurate as your prices, hours, and staff change.
- Script, pricing, and availability updates whenever things change
- Monitoring and alerting, so a broken agent does not run all weekend
- Monthly transcript review and tuning against real calls
- A report on calls answered, booked, and escalated
- Cancel any month, no notice period
- Build price fixed before we start
- Run costs billed by your providers, never marked up
- It hands off to a human rather than trapping a caller
- Cancel the managed plan any month
The per-minute run cost is real and separate: speech-to-text, the model, text-to-speech, and telephony stack up for every minute a call is live. For most small businesses it lands well under a part-time wage, but we would rather you saw the number during the audit than discovered it on an invoice. Our cost calculator gives you a rough figure before you talk to us at all.
The honest comparison with hiring someone
A human receptionist is better at the hard calls. They read tone, handle an upset customer, improvise when something unusual happens, and make people feel looked after. Nothing we build replaces that, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling.
What a human cannot do is answer three calls at once, work at 11pm, or stay on the phone during lunch. That is the actual comparison: not human versus AI, but "the calls a human answers" versus "the calls that currently reach nobody". Most businesses need the second problem solved and keep the first as it is.
Where it goes wrong
The bad version is familiar. It cannot understand an accent, it talks over the caller, it repeats the menu, and the path to a human is hidden because the vendor optimised for containment. Callers hang up and think less of the business than if the phone had simply rung out.
We build against those specific failures: interruption handling so a caller can talk over it, a latency budget so replies do not feel robotic, real tool calls so it can genuinely check a calendar rather than promising to, and an easy route to a person. A receptionist that transfers well beats one that contains everything.
Regulated and sensitive calls
For clinics, law firms, and financial services, the constraints matter more than the features. Call recording consent, what gets stored and for how long, whether transcripts can sit on a third-party platform, and which questions the agent must refuse rather than answer. Those are configuration decisions, and getting them wrong is a compliance problem, not a UX one.
We scope those up front and will tell you plainly when a use case should not be automated at all. Some calls need a person by law, and some need one because the first thirty seconds decide whether a distressed caller trusts you.
Not claims. Shipped work.
- 01AI Calling AgentA production voice platform we built and run, on real telephony with real callers.See the work
- 02AI receptionist cost calculatorWork out the payback against a human front desk before you speak to anyone.See the work
- 03What an AI voice agent really costsThe full breakdown of build cost versus per-minute run cost.See the work
Common questions.
01How much does an AI receptionist cost?
Ours is published: $1,997 for a starter build in a week, $4,997 for a full receptionist with booking and CRM in three weeks, and $797 a month if you want us keeping it current. On top of the build there is a per-minute run cost billed by your providers, which for most small businesses lands well under a part-time wage. The $297 audit gives you both numbers for your actual call volume.
02Is it cheaper than hiring a receptionist?
Usually yes on pure cost, but that is the wrong comparison. A human handles difficult calls better. The real question is what the calls you currently miss are worth, because those are the ones this recovers. Our cost calculator lets you run that maths before you contact us, and if the payback is not there we would rather you found out for free.
03Will callers know it is not a person?
Most will, and we recommend not pretending otherwise. Latency tuning and interruption handling make it pleasant to talk to rather than convincingly human, and being upfront avoids the worse outcome where someone realises halfway through and feels tricked. What people actually want is a fast answer and a real booking, not a Turing test.
04Can it book into our calendar and CRM?
Yes, on the Business tier. It checks live availability, books the slot, and writes the caller details where your team already works. Without that it is a fancier voicemail, which is why the Starter tier is priced as the smaller thing it is rather than sold as a full receptionist.
05What happens when it cannot help?
It says so and transfers, carrying the context so the caller does not repeat themselves. We keep that path deliberately easy to reach. Vendors who hide it get a better deflection number and a worse business, because the caller still had the problem and now has an opinion about you.
06Do you work with law firms and clinics?
Yes, with the caveats scoped first: recording consent, retention, what the agent must refuse to discuss, and where transcripts are stored. Those constraints shape the build more than the features do. We will also tell you when a particular call type should always reach a human.
Find out what your missed calls are worth
Tell us roughly how many calls you get and how many go unanswered. We will come back with what an agent would recover, what it costs to build, and what it costs per minute to run.
- A real person replies, usually same day
- No sales sequence, no automated nurture
- Call Audit is credited back if you go ahead