When missed calls start costing you customers, the two obvious fixes are hiring a part-time receptionist or switching to an AI voice receptionist. They solve the same problem in very different ways, and at very different prices. Here's an honest breakdown.
What a part-time receptionist actually costs
The hourly wage is only the starting number. On top of it, an employer typically covers payroll taxes and insurance, spends real hours on hiring and training, and absorbs the cost of turnover when someone leaves. And even a great hire only covers the shifts they're scheduled for, nights, weekends, lunch breaks, and sick days are still gaps unless you pay for overlapping coverage.
What an AI voice receptionist costs
Our AI Voice Receptionist is $0 to set up and $129/month, which includes 600 talk-minutes (about 10 hours of calls), with additional minutes at $0.20 each. That single number covers every hour of the day, every day of the week, with no scheduling, no payroll taxes, and no training ramp-up. Based on typical part-time receptionist wages, that puts it at roughly a tenth of the cost of a part-time hire, for coverage that doesn't stop at 5pm.
What you're actually comparing
- Coverage. A part-time hire covers scheduled hours. An AI receptionist answers every call, including the 9pm and Sunday-morning ones most local businesses lose today.
- Ramp-up. Hiring means posting a job, interviewing, and training, often weeks. The AI receptionist activates the same day you sign up.
- Consistency. A person has good days and bad days. The AI receptionist gives the same greeting, the same accurate answers, and the same booking flow on every call.
- Judgment and presence. A human can greet walk-in customers, handle sensitive or unusual situations with real discretion, and do other in-office tasks between calls. The AI receptionist is built to hand off anything that needs a person, with full context, not to pretend it can do everything a person can.
Where a human still wins
If your business needs someone physically present, greeting visitors, handling mail, managing the front desk, a phone-answering tool alone won't replace that role, and it isn't trying to. Plenty of businesses run both: a person for what only a person can do, and an AI receptionist so no call ever goes unanswered in between.
How to decide
If your real problem is calls going unanswered outside business hours, during busy periods, or while your team is already stretched thin, that's a coverage gap, and it's the specific gap an AI receptionist is built to close, at a fraction of the cost of adding headcount. If your gap is about in-person tasks a phone can't do, a hire is still the right call.
Try it before you decide
The AI Voice Receptionist runs on a 7-day free trial with $0 setup, configure your greeting, hours, and FAQs, and hear it handle real calls before you commit to anything. Cancel anytime during the trial for $0.