Overview
An AI receptionist is a computer voice that answers your business phone, asks the caller what they need, and passes the details to you by text or email. Some also book into your calendar. The UK AI plans we could read start at £19.99, £49 and £99 a month, against £15 a month and up for a person answering on your behalf. All of these figures come from each firm's own pricing page, read on 2 November 2026.
Our advice, before any of that: start with the cheapest step. The cheapest paid one we found is an automatic text to anyone who rings and gets no answer, at £6.49 a month (the page does not say whether VAT is added). Free options exist, such as a voicemail greeting, but they do not follow up the caller. If that is not enough, move up to an AI receptionist, and then to a person. We take no commission from any of the firms below.
Calls
On a call, the AI does four jobs. It picks up at once, so there is no voicemail. It asks the questions you set, such as name, number, postcode and what the problem is. It sends you a summary by text or email. And, on some plans, it books the visit into your diary.
Two vendors describe it in their own words. AI Phone Calls lists "lead capture (name, number, job details)", "lead qualification" and instant notifications by SMS or email, and says calls are recorded and transcribed. Moneypenny's AI receptionist says it answers 24/7, books appointments in your calendar, "sticks to what you've approved and never improvises", and has real receptionists on hand if needed.
We have not tested any of these services, so what follows is what we would test, not a score. An AI receptionist works from what you have told it. It can go wrong in five ways.
- It mishears. A name, postcode or phone number on a poor line, or with a strong accent, can come out wrong. Ask for the text summary of ten test calls and read every one.
- It does not know an answer. If you never told it your call-out charge or your Saturday hours, it should say it will pass the question on. Check that it does and does not guess.
- A caller wants a person. Some people hang up when they hear a machine. Others are fine with it. Ring in as a customer and see how it reacts to "can I speak to someone?"
- An emergency looks routine. A burst pipe and a quote request can sound alike. Decide your rule for urgent calls, and test it.
- Nobody picks up the handover. Transferring a call to you only helps if you answer. Check what happens when you do not.
A person may cope better with some of these, and the person-answered prices below are mostly higher per call. That is the real choice.
Choices
You have three, and they suit different businesses.
| Choice | Good at | Weak at |
|---|---|---|
| AI | Low price, every hour | Unusual questions |
| Person | Judgement and tone | Cost per call |
| Hybrid | AI first, person backup | Moneypenny shows no price |
AI suits a business whose calls are mostly the same few questions: a booking, a quote request, "are you open". A person suits calls where tone matters, such as a solicitor's or a care provider's. A hybrid answers with AI and passes harder calls to a person. Moneypenny's homepage describes one, "real people and AI" together, but we found no published price for it or for its person-answered service, so it is not in the table below.
Prices
These are each firm's entry price, as its own page showed on 2 November 2026. "Not stated" means the page does not say whether VAT is added.
AI services
| Service | Price | VAT |
|---|---|---|
| Team-Connect | £19.99 a month, 30 minutes | Not stated |
| Moneypenny AI | From £49 a month | Not stated |
| AI Phone Calls | From £99 a month, 150 minutes | Not stated |
Person-answered services
| Service | Price | VAT |
|---|---|---|
| ReceptionHQ | From £15 a month plus calls | Excluded |
| Posh Virtual | £50 a month plus £1.50 a minute | Excluded |
| Pocket Receptionist | £75 a month, 30 calls | Not stated |
The headline price is rarely the whole bill. Team-Connect's £19.99 plan covers 30 AI-answered minutes, which the firm says is "roughly 15 to 20 answered calls a month", and a top-up of 150 minutes is £34.99. Its page says annual billing "takes 25 per cent off", which works out at about £14.99 a month. AI Phone Calls says its £99 covers 150 minutes and that more call time is priced by usage. Pocket Receptionist charges £2.99 for each call beyond the 30 included. Posh's entry plan includes no minutes, so every minute is £1.50; its next plan, at £74, includes 50 minutes and then charges £1.45 a minute, and its prices are effective from 1 April 2026. ReceptionHQ's "from" price is its simplest message-taking plan, with £19 for call transfers and £30 for lead capture or appointments. It offers per-call and per-minute options, but its pricing page gives no figures for them. ReceptionHQ and Pocket Receptionist offer a 7-day free trial, and Posh shows a free trial without saying how long it lasts.
If you get twenty calls a month, the cheap AI plan may be enough. At a hundred, work out the cost for your own calls before you choose a plan.
A free 30 minute call. We look at where your admin time goes.
Checks
Before you pay, check these six things. They are the ones that decide whether the service helps or just adds a bill.
- UK number. Can you keep your existing number? AI Phone Calls says yes and Team-Connect says you forward it or port it across. Customers should see the number they already know.
- Handover to a person. Can it put a call through to your mobile, and what does it do if you do not answer? Pocket Receptionist lists "call transfers to mobile and landline". Ask any AI vendor to show you this on a test call.
- Booking into your calendar. Moneypenny and AI Phone Calls both say they book into a calendar. Ask which calendar, and whether it checks for clashes.
- Contract and minutes. AI Phone Calls says "no contracts" and cancellation "with 30 days' notice" on its home page. Team-Connect says plans are monthly and rolling, with no free trial. Check what happens when you go over your minutes.
- A test call. Ring it yourself, as a customer, ten times. Try a bad line, a hard name and an urgent problem.
- Recordings and UK GDPR. See the paragraphs that follow this list.
Recordings and UK GDPR. This is general information, not legal advice. Some of these services record and transcribe calls. AI Phone Calls says so on its page, and Team-Connect says recordings and transcripts are "processed and stored under UK GDPR".
The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) says that if you record calls, "you must tell these people that you are recording the call and why", and that "a recorded message is good practice". We would play it at the start of the call. That page is the ICO's guidance on monitoring workers, it shows no date and it says it is under review, so check it before you rely on it.
Do you have to say the caller is speaking to an AI? We found no ICO page that says so. The ICO's guidance on transparency in AI says to be open about how you use people's personal data. The page shows no update date of its own, only a note that the chapter was added on 15 March 2023, and says it is under review because of the Data (Use and Access) Act. A short line at the start of the call costs nothing: "You are speaking to our automated assistant, and this call is recorded." Ask your vendor what it says by default, and add the recording to your privacy notice.
One more point. A caller's name, number and recorded voice will usually count as personal data, in our reading of the ICO's definition, which covers identifiers such as a name or an identification number. When a vendor handles it for you, the ICO says a written contract needs to be in place with it, so ask for the vendor's data processing agreement.
Text Back
An AI receptionist answers the call. A text back only follows up a call you missed, so it is cheaper and simpler. The caller gets a short message with your business name on it, asking what they need. They can reply by text, and you answer when you are free.
TextTheCaller costs £6.49 a month, with a 7-day free trial, 50 texts a month and no contract. It sends one text per caller every 7 days, skips landlines and withheld numbers because a text cannot reach them, and lets you set a skip list so your family and suppliers never receive one. If you hit 50, texting pauses rather than billing you more. It sends one fixed message, so it cannot book a job or answer a question.
Keep the message plain: "Sorry we missed your call, this is [business]. What do you need? We will ring you back by 5pm." The ICO says a service message is for administrative or customer-service purposes, and one that promotes a service is likely to count as direct marketing. In our reading, a reply to someone who has just rung you, with no offer in it, is the first kind. We found no ICO page that covers a missed-call text directly, so keep any promotion out of it.
Tunewell
Our Never Miss an Enquiry Menu item is built for this job: calls, forms and messages get an instant reply and a follow-up, day or night. A Check-Up tells you which of the options above fits your calls, and which tools to use or skip. We take no commission from any tool, so we will say so if a £6.49 text-back is enough. Setting it up is quoted at a fixed price in your report, and you own everything we build.
The free way above works without us: try the text back for a week, then try an AI receptionist's free test call. If you would like a second opinion, the Intro Call is free and takes 30 minutes.
You will be talking to Theo.