What an AI Receptionist Costs in Australia

Nobody rings up asking what an AI receptionist costs because they are curious. They ring because they missed three calls last Tuesday and one of them was a hot water job worth eleven hundred dollars.

So here is the pricing landscape in Australia as it actually stands, what the numbers hide, and what we charge, without making you fill in a form to find out.

The three ways these things are priced

I have been around commercial deals for thirty years and the pattern is always the same. When a price is complicated, it is complicated on purpose.

• Per minute. You pay for talk time, usually with a bundle of minutes up front and an overage rate after that. Looks cheap on the brochure. Gets ugly in a busy week.
• Per call. A flat rate every time the phone is answered, including the bloke selling you solar and the wrong number.
• Flat monthly. One number, every month, whatever happens. Harder to sell, easier to live with.

Across the Australian market you will find plans from roughly ninety dollars a month at the bottom to six hundred and fifty at the top, and most of the spread has nothing to do with quality. It is about how much of the risk the provider is willing to carry instead of you.

Cheap plans are cheap because the meter is running

A ninety dollar plan with a hundred included minutes sounds fine until you look at how tradies actually use a phone. A customer describing a leak takes two to three minutes. A quote enquiry with an address and a bit of back and forth takes four. Real estate agents ring back twice.

Forty calls a month at three minutes is a hundred and twenty minutes, and you are already over. Then the overage rate lands, and the overage rate is where the margin lives. I have watched people budget for ninety dollars and pay two hundred and forty in a busy month, which is exactly the month they could least be bothered arguing about it.

Per call pricing has the same problem wearing a different shirt. You get charged for every telemarketer that dials your number, and if you are on any lead list at all, that is not a small number.

What we charge and why it is one number

Workbench is one hundred and fifty dollars a month plus a four hundred dollar once off setup, and there is no contract. Xero invoicing is included, not an add on. If Joe catches no jobs for you in the first thirty days, you do not pay.

The setup fee is not a fashion accessory. It pays for the part that decides whether this works: writing your actual business into the system. Your trade, your service area, the jobs you take and the ones you knock back, your after hours rules, your pricing habits, what Joe is never allowed to promise on your behalf. A generic bot that answers with your business name and knows nothing else will do more damage than voicemail.

Flat pricing also means I am not quietly hoping you get busier. Plenty of models make more money the more your phone rings, which is a strange thing to sit on the other side of the table from.

Work out what a missed call is worth to you

Forget the software price for a second. Do this on the back of a docket.

• What is your average job worth? Call it eight hundred for a plumber, four hundred for a sparky on a small callout, more if you do installs.
• How many calls do you not answer in a week? Be truthful. Check your call log, not your memory. Most solo operators are missing five to ten.
• How many of those would have turned into work? Even one in five is conservative when the caller is ringing about a job right now.

One recovered job a month at eight hundred dollars covers a hundred and fifty dollar service five times over and pays back the setup in the first month. If the sums do not work at those numbers, the product is not for you, and I would rather say that than dress it up.

The costs nobody puts on the pricing page

There are three of them and they matter more than the monthly.

Your time setting it up

If the provider hands you a blank prompt box and wishes you luck, the real price includes your Sunday. Ask who does the configuration and how long it takes before it is answering live.

Number porting and call forwarding

Ask whether you keep your existing number. You should. Diverting your mobile to the service costs nothing with any Australian carrier and takes about a minute, and if anyone tells you that you need a new number, ask why.

The lock-in

Twelve month contracts exist because churn is high, and churn is high because the product often does not work. A month to month deal means the provider has to earn it again every thirty days. That is the arrangement you want.

The four questions to ask any provider

Whoever you are talking to, us included, get these answered in writing before you pay anything.

• What happens in a heavy month? Get the overage rate as a number, not as a shrug.
• Where does the job go after the call? An email with a name and number is a message, not a booked job. Ask whether it reaches your calendar, your quote and your invoice.
• What does it do when it does not know? The right answer is take the detail and flag it for a human. The wrong answer is guess confidently.
• Can I ring it right now and hear it? If the answer is no, that tells you plenty.

Ring it yourself

You would not buy a ute off a photo. Our demo line is live, it is the same system a customer gets, and nobody takes your details for it. Ring +61 485 067 607 and give it a hard time. Describe a job the way a real customer would, mumble a bit, change your mind halfway through, ask for a price. That five minutes will tell you more than any pricing page, this one included.

If it holds up, we can have you answering calls this week. If it does not, at least you will know exactly what you are comparing against.