What Does Front Desk, Our AI Receptionist Add-On, Cost?

Website covers up to five pages in English and French, a mobile-first design, an enquiry form, hosting, maintenance and security updates, a monthly activity summary, a human point of contact and up to 30 minutes of small content updates each month. It is $0 down and $179/month on a 12-month term, or $1,500 to build and $99/month for care. Extra pages are $150 each and further languages are quoted separately.

That is the short answer. Below is what actually drives the price, how the billing models differ, and how AI stacks up against hiring a person or paying a traditional answering service — with real 2024–2026 numbers.

What is an AI receptionist?

An AI receptionist (also called an AI phone answering service or virtual receptionist) is software that answers your business phone in a natural voice, talks to the caller, and handles the routine work a front-desk person would: answering common questions, booking or rescheduling appointments, taking messages, and sending a text follow-up.

Unlike old-school voicemail or a phone tree, it holds a real conversation and works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — including the nights, weekends and lunch rushes when most calls slip through.

AI receptionist pricing: the three models

Almost every provider bills one of three ways. Knowing which one you are looking at is the single most important thing when comparing quotes.

• Flat monthly subscription: roughly $29 to $300+/month for a set bucket of minutes or calls, often with an unlimited tier. Predictable and easy to budget.
• Per-minute: about $1.50 to $2.50+ per minute of talk time. Cheap if you get almost no calls, but the bill swings with your call volume.
• Per-call: roughly $2 to $5 per call handled, regardless of length. Sits between the other two for predictability.

The trap with per-minute and per-call plans is the overage. Legacy systems advertise a low base rate, then charge $1.50 to $2.50 a minute once you pass your included minutes. A single busy month — a promotion, a holiday rush, one viral post — can turn a $100 plan into a $500 bill. For most businesses with more than about 50 calls a month, a flat-rate plan is both more predictable and cheaper, because per-minute costs rise with every call while a flat fee does not.

What drives the cost up or down?

Two businesses can pay very different prices for "an AI receptionist." Here is what moves the number:

• Call volume. More minutes or more calls means a higher tier. This is the biggest single factor.
• Booking integration. A system that writes appointments into calendar software (Calendly, Square, your salon or clinic software) costs more than one that only takes a message. This describes AI receptionists on the market in general, not Front Desk. Front Desk takes a booking request on the call and you confirm it; it does not write into your calendar on its own.
• After-hours and 24/7 coverage. Round-the-clock answering, including nights and weekends, sits at the higher end.
• Languages. Bilingual support (for example English and French, useful across Canada) can add cost but captures callers a one-language line would lose.
• Numbers and locations. Covering multiple phone lines or several locations raises the price.
• DIY vs. done-for-you. A self-serve tool you set up and maintain yourself is cheaper on paper; a managed service that builds, tunes and runs it for you costs more but saves you the work.

DIY vs. done-for-you

DIY tools start as low as $25 to $65/month, but you write the scripts, connect your calendar, test it, and fix it when a caller confuses it. That is real time, and a clumsy setup can cost you bookings. Done-for-you services cost more — typically $300 to $500/month — because a team handles setup, integrations, the voice, the follow-up texts and ongoing tweaks. For a non-technical owner, done-for-you usually wins on total cost once you count your own hours. If you want to see how a managed phone line fits with reviews, booking and reminders, our guide on how to automate your small business walks through the full stack.

AI receptionist vs. hiring a person vs. an answering service

The clearest way to judge the price is to compare it to the alternatives you are actually weighing. Here is a 2026 snapshot.

Compared to hiring a receptionist

The U.S. median receptionist wage was $17.90 an hour in May 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — roughly $37,000 a year before you add anything. Once you load in payroll taxes, benefits, paid time off and overhead, a full-time front-desk hire runs $40,000 to $58,000 a year. And that person covers about 40 hours a week, not nights, weekends or the times they are on break, on lunch, or already on another call.

An AI receptionist at $150 to $500 a month is roughly $1,800 to $6,000 a year — a fraction of one salary — and it answers every call, around the clock, in parallel.

Compared to a live answering service

Traditional answering services bill by the minute, and it adds up fast. Ruby, one of the best-known, starts at $245/month for just 50 minutes — an effective rate near $4.90 per minute — and climbs to about $1,695/month at the top tier, with overage rates that can exceed $5 a minute. An AI line gives you far more call volume for a flat $150 to $500, with no hold music and instant pickup. We break this matchup down in detail in AI receptionist vs. answering service.

ROI: when does it pay for itself?

For most local businesses, an AI receptionist pays for itself after one or two saved bookings a month. The math is simple because the cost of not answering is large.

Research from a 2024 study found that 62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered, and separate data shows 85% of callers who reach voicemail never call back — they simply dial a competitor. Industry estimates put the lost revenue from missed calls at around $126,000 a year for the average small business. (See the real cost of missed calls for the full breakdown.)

Your proposal sets out the selected features, costs and next steps for your business.

So, what should you budget?

For our own add-on the budget is known in advance: +$149/month with 150 minutes included, $0.45/min after that and a $10/month business number, on top of the website tier it requires — Website is $0 down and $179/month on a 12-month term, or $1,500 to build and $99/month for care. The market ranges above are there to place that offer in context, not to replace it; the plans to treat carefully are the cheap per-minute ones once your call volume climbs.