Almost nobody publishes a straight answer to this, which is exactly why you are reading a page about it. Here is what an AI receptionist actually costs in Australia in 2026, including the parts that tend to appear on the second invoice rather than the first.
The short answer
Most Australian AI receptionist services sit between $99 and $699 a month, with a setup fee somewhere between nothing and about $1,000. Phone number and call usage are extra almost everywhere.
Budget $99 to $300 a month for a small service business, plus a one-off setup fee. Anything above that should come with a clear explanation of what the extra buys.
What the market actually charges
Published pricing across Australian providers in 2026 falls into three fairly clear tiers.
For reference points on the managed end: Valory AI publishes a range of $149 to $1,299 a month with setup from $990. Sophiie, an Australian-built option aimed at trades and clinics, is reported around $300 a month with a setup fee near $800, though it does not publish pricing on its own site, so you need a demo to get a real number.
Our own AI receptionist is $499 setup and $99 a month, with the phone number and call usage billed separately on top. We publish it because we would rather you compare us properly than sit through a call to find out.
The four costs nobody quotes you
The monthly fee is the number in the ad. These are the ones that decide what you actually pay.
The phone number. A dedicated Australian number is a few dollars a month. Small, but it should be on the quote.
Per-minute call charges. Every minute the AI spends on the phone costs money. Some providers bundle a minute allowance and charge overage, often at $1.25 to $2.50 a minute once you exceed it. Others pass the telco cost through. The difference at 300 calls a month is significant.
Per-message SMS. If it texts callers a booking confirmation, and it should, each message has a cost.
Change fees. You will want the script changed. You added a service, you changed your hours, a question keeps coming up. Ask whether that is included or billed.
The one that catches people out is per-minute overage. A plan advertised at $149 a month with 300 included minutes looks cheap until a busy month puts you 200 minutes over at $2 a minute, and the bill is $549.
Our rates, in the open
Since the whole point of this article is that nobody publishes this, here is exactly what we charge for the phone side. It is billed separately from the subscription.
- Dedicated mobile number: about $10 a month
- Calls it answers: about 40 cents a minute
The platform bills us in US dollars, so those Australian figures move a little with the exchange rate. The number is roughly US$6.50 a month.
We sell this as a receptionist, so it answers your incoming calls and that is what you pay for. It is not an outbound dialler and we do not price it as one.
Work out your own number
Drag these to match your call volume and you will get a realistic monthly figure rather than a headline price.
Charged at $0.40 per minute
Phone number and call charges are billed separately from the subscription. The platform bills us in US dollars, so the Australian figures move with the exchange rate. Treat this as a close estimate rather than a quote. Prices exclude GST.
Do the same exercise with every provider you talk to. Count your calls for a week and multiply by four, assume a minute or two for a typical enquiry, then ask each of them what you would pay at that volume all in, including the number and the messages.
If a provider cannot give you those eight numbers, you do not have a quote, you have a brochure.
How it compares to the alternatives
Cost is not the only reason to choose one of these, but it is usually the reason people start looking.
A part-time receptionist in Australia is not a $30,000 decision, it is closer to $35,000 once you add the 12% super guarantee, annual leave, sick leave and the time you spend training and covering. SEEK puts the average receptionist salary between $60,000 and $70,000 full time, so a genuine part-time role is roughly half that plus on-costs.
That is not an argument that AI is better. A good receptionist does things no AI does. It is an argument that they are not competing for the same budget line.
What actually drives the price up
If you are quoted at the top of the range, it is usually one of these, and they are all legitimate reasons to pay more.
Call volume. Hundreds of calls a month costs more to run than dozens. That is just minutes.
Integration depth. Reading live calendar availability and writing back into a CRM is real work. Reading a static FAQ is not.
Multiple locations or teams. Routing a caller to the right branch or the right tradie adds logic, and logic needs building and testing.
Complex qualification. If the AI needs to work out whether a job is in your service area, whether you take that kind of work, and how urgent it is, that is a longer build than "book them in".
Managed versus self-serve. Someone else writing the script, testing it against awkward calls and tuning it monthly is a service, and services cost more than software.
The honest test
The thing worth spending money on is not features, it is whether the call sounds acceptable to your customers.
Ring the provider's own number before you pay anything. If they will not give you a live number to ring, that tells you something. If the demo is a polished video rather than a phone call you can make yourself, that tells you something too.
Our AI receptionist answers our real business line. Ring 0483 963 433 and give it a hard time. Ask it something off-script. If it holds up, it will hold up for your customers.
So what should you pay?
If you are a tradie, a clinic or a small service business with normal call volume, there is no good reason to spend more than about $300 a month, and plenty of options under $150. Setup should be a few hundred dollars, not a few thousand, unless you genuinely need complex routing.
Pay more when you have real complexity: multiple locations, hundreds of calls a week, or a booking process with a lot of rules. Pay less, or self-serve, when your call flow is genuinely simple and you are comfortable configuring it yourself.
What you should not do is buy on the headline monthly fee without asking the eight questions above. That is how a $149 plan becomes a $550 invoice.
We build AI receptionists for Australian businesses at $499 setup and $99 a month, with call costs billed separately. If you want to talk through what your call volume would actually cost, book a 20-minute call or ring the number above and talk to ours first.
Builds CRM, automation and AI systems for Australian service businesses at Basic Solutions. Gold Coast-based, allergic to messy spreadsheets.
