AI receptionist vs answering service: costs compared

Human answering services and AI receptionists solve the same problem — at very different prices and very different capability levels. Here's the honest cost breakdown.

What answering services actually cost

UK telephone answering services typically price one of three ways:

• Per minute: ~£1–£2/minute. A 3-minute call costs £3–£6. 50 calls/month ≈ £150–£300.
• Per call: ~£1–£2.50/call as bundles, plus setup. 100 calls ≈ £150–£250/month.
• Monthly bundles: £80–£300/month for a block of calls/minutes, overage extra.

For a trade business getting 100+ calls a month, realistic costs run £150–£400/month — before evenings/weekends premiums some charge. Annual: £1,800–£4,800.

What AI reception costs

Flat subscription — Agentric runs £29–£99/month regardless of volume. Annual: £350–£1,200. Call volume 10x doesn't change the price.

What you get for the money — the real comparison

	Answering service	AI receptionist
Monthly cost	£150–£400+	£29–£99
Coverage	Business hours (often)	24/7/365
Can book into your diary	Rarely	Yes, live
Knows your prices/services	Script-level	Full knowledge base
Answers questions	Limited script	Real answers
Caller experience	Human (variable)	AI (natural, disclosed)
Consistency	Operator-dependent	Identical every call

Where the answering service still wins

• Human warmth — real humans for sensitive calls.
• Truly complex calls — a skilled operator improvises.
• The psychology — some callers strongly prefer humans (though they escalate to you anyway).

The honest maths for most small businesses

For a business taking 50–200 calls/month: answering service £150–£400 vs AI £29–£99 — a 60–90% saving, for a service that books rather than just messages. The trade-off is human warmth on every call — which for transactional enquiries most callers don't need.

For genuinely human-critical businesses, the hybrid is real: AI as front line, answering service (or you) as the human escalation path.