What is an AI receptionist? (And when it loses you calls)
An AI receptionist picks up your business phone line and talks to the caller. It answers questions it has been given answers to, books appointments straight into your calendar, takes a message, or passes the call to a person. Most run day and night, and most cost between $25 and $500 a month.
What it does on a call
An AI receptionist answers every call, greets the caller with your business name, and works from what you upload: hours, prices, services, and the questions you get asked most. From there it can book or move an appointment in your calendar, take a message and text it to you, send a form or directions by text, or pass the call to a real person with a short summary of the request.
Where it breaks
The handoff to a person is the whole thing, and where most setups fail. A caller with a strong accent, an unusual street name, or a question your notes do not cover gets stuck in a loop. In South Yorkshire, patients at GP surgeries running an AI receptionist called Emma hung up and travelled in person instead, because it could not understand them. On a Hacker News thread about an AI receptionist for a mechanic shop, a commenter described dropping a contractor on a five-figure job after the system kept asking him to repeat his address.
What it costs
Cheap plans start around $25 to $65 a month, capped at 30 to 50 calls. Flat plans with unlimited inbound calls sit near $199 a month. Clinic setups that book into practice software run $299 to $1,500 a month, plus a $500 to $1,500 setup fee. Human answering services are not far off: Ruby charges $250 a month for 50 minutes, PATLive $199 for 75.
Get one if you are losing calls while you work or after hours, and set it to hand off to a person after two failed tries. Skip it if most of your calls are quotes or complicated jobs, because a wrong price on a recorded call costs more than a missed one.
Last updated: Sep 5, 2026