Choose an AI receptionist by what must happen after the caller hangs up. A complete enquiry, a confirmed appointment and a live transfer are different jobs. A service that does one well is not automatically the best choice for the others.
Start with two options that can perform your essential task. Compare their full price, give them the same business information and check the same calls. A good voice is part of the decision; an accurate result is the part your team has to work with.
The human, AI or hybrid worksheet helps you decide where a callback is acceptable and where a person must take over during the call, before you choose a provider.
Shortlist by the job
| Your requirement | Options to investigate | What should decide it |
|---|---|---|
| Enquiries and a predictable bill | Sayora, Jodie | Accuracy of the final message and the tier containing your required features |
| Published call allowances | IONOS | Cost at your volume; calendar booking needs the £69 or £99 plan |
| A quiet line, paid per call or minute | Answer.co.uk, Voco | The bill at your real call count and length; booking starts on Answer.co.uk's £120 plan but comes with every Voco plan |
| A person when AI reaches its limit | Moneypenny, Answer.co.uk | Human availability, transfer conditions and the full combined quote |
| Provider-led configuration | ARROW | Agreed call flow, acceptance tests and higher-usage price |
| An existing RingCentral phone system | RingCentral AI Receptionist | UK add-on cost alongside your existing phone contract |
| Healthcare practice workflows | BookedSolid | Compatibility with the actual practice system and practitioner count |
The UK options and their trade-offs
Sayora: a flat plan for enquiry handling
Sayora's AI receptionist answers inbound calls, works from your business information and sends the enquiry to your team by text or email. Sayora is £49 a month with unlimited minutes. Booking needs a supported calendar connected and configured.
The boundary matters: Sayora has no live call transfer or staffed fallback. Sayora can capture a request for your team, but someone must act on it. Shortlist Sayora when that is the workflow you want; choose another model when the caller must reach a person during the call.
Jodie: self-serve plans with different feature tiers
Jodie publishes £49, £99 and £199 monthly tiers with unlimited minutes, excluding applicable taxes. It offers a seven-day trial without a card and month-to-month terms. Its feature table includes bookings and transfers from Professional at £99, and Zapier integrations on Premium at £199.
Choose the tier that includes the action you need. Unlimited minutes on the entry plan do not make every higher-tier feature part of it.
IONOS: call allowances from an established supplier
IONOS lists £39 for 30 calls, £69 for 100 calls and £99 for unlimited calls, excluding VAT. The lower tiers add £0.49 or £0.39 per extra call. Calendar booking appears on the £69 and £99 plans.
This gives you a calculable shortlist option, especially if you already use IONOS. Price the required tier at your peak call count, rather than choosing on its entry price.
Answer.co.uk: per-call AI from an answering service
Answer.co.uk's AI receptionist starts with Lite at £10 a month plus 85p a call, and a £25 deposit opens the account. Growth is £30 for 50 calls, Plus £120 for 200 and Advanced £300 for 500, then 85p for each extra call. Messages arrive by email, by text at 10p each, or both, and the plans are monthly with no long-term commitment.
One gotcha: the £10 plan is the basic one. Transfers start on Growth at extra cost, to you or to Answer.co.uk's human answering service, and booking starts on Plus. Its price table lists the £10 plan excluding VAT, but the AI page doesn't say for the larger plans. You buy those by enquiry, so ask whether VAT is added before you compare. Shortlist it for a quiet line that mostly needs messages, or when you want a human service behind the AI from the same provider.
Voco: per-minute plans with every feature
Voco charges by the minute, billed by the second. Pay as you go costs 39p a minute with no monthly fee. Starter is £49 a month for 136 minutes, Professional £99 for 300 and Enterprise £499 for 1,719, then 36p, 33p or 29p a minute. Every plan has every feature, including booking and transfer rules for urgent calls. There's no contract, and prices exclude VAT.
Because the meter is minutes, your call lengths set the bill: short calls cost less and long ones more. Starter and Professional start with a £20 or £50 spend cap, which stops extra-minute charges while Voco keeps answering. Pay as you go works differently: you load credit in advance, from £19.98, and new calls stop soon after it runs out unless you switch on auto top-up. Shortlist it when a quiet line needs booking without a bigger plan, and ring its demo line before you sign up.
Moneypenny: an AI service with human fallback
Moneypenny advertises AI reception from £49 a month and describes handoff to its receptionists or your team. The complete allowance, excess charges and human cost require confirmation.
Shortlist it when an in-call route to a person is essential. Get the combined cost and fallback conditions in writing. Compare Moneypenny and Sayora's different service models if you are choosing between them.
ARROW: provider-led setup
ARROW starts at £99 a month with 150 minutes and describes setup by its team. It publishes lead capture and SMS or email notifications; higher usage follows a quote route.
This may fit when you want help shaping the call flow. Before buying, agree what a successful test looks like and what happens to the bill beyond the included minutes.
RingCentral: an add-on for the UK phone-system buyer
RingCentral's UK page describes routing, lead capture and scheduling. Its availability FAQ states that the UK product is an add-on; standalone availability in other countries does not establish a UK standalone offer.
Existing RingCentral customers should price it within their current setup. New customers need the combined phone-system and AI cost from sales.
BookedSolid: workflows for healthcare clinics
BookedSolid shows £109 a month for four practitioners, billed monthly and excluding VAT, with price scaling by practitioner count. It includes unlimited inbound calls and messages and a seven-day trial.
For a clinic, investigate its practice-system fit before comparing a general-purpose receptionist. Four practitioners is a pricing example, not the maximum size of clinic it supports.
Compare the real bill
Use an ordinary month and a busy month from your call logs. Record calls, minutes, required actions and the calendars or locations involved. Ask for setup, tax, overage, human usage and the minimum term alongside the monthly subscription.
The AI receptionist cost guide calculates selected plans at the same call volumes. It also shows why a small allowance can be competitive at low use and more expensive as calls grow. A provider without enough public pricing detail stays a quote-dependent option; it does not become free or expensive by assumption.
Run the same trial on both finalists
Give both services the same approved business information and the same rules. Write the expected answer before making each test call. Use invented caller details and a test calendar.
| Test | What to try | Evidence to inspect |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary enquiry | Ask about an opening time or service in the brief | Answer agrees with the supplied information |
| Missing answer | Ask for a price or policy not in the brief | No invented promise; question and callback captured |
| Correction | Change a name, number or requested time | Final record contains the corrected detail |
| Appointment | Ask for a slot, then one that is unavailable | Calendar and caller agree on what is confirmed |
| Human request | Ask to speak to a person | Transfer works if supported, or callback limit is explained |
| Usable handoff | Make an enquiry that someone must follow up | Team can identify the caller, request and next action |
Use the reusable trial sheet to record the setup, expected result, actual result and anything to fix. Repeat failed scenarios after a correction. A small set of successful test calls is evidence about those calls, not an uptime or accuracy percentage for the service.
Moving from a human answering service? The AI answering service page sets out what stays the same, what changes, and how to run Sayora beside your current service first.
What matters for estate agencies and dealerships
For an estate agency, distinguish a viewing request from a confirmed viewing. Establish who keeps property facts current, who approves the appointment and where valuation enquiries go. The AI must not promise availability from an old listing. Sayora for estate and letting agents goes through it call by call.
For a dealership, distinguish a vehicle enquiry, test-drive request and service question. Decide which stock facts the receptionist may use, which questions require a person and who owns the follow-up. Capturing a vehicle reference is different from checking live stock or writing into the dealership's systems.
These are proposed buying checks, not claims that every provider has these integrations. They matter more than an industry label on a landing page.
When a human service is the stronger choice
Choose a human or hybrid service when reassurance, negotiation or an immediate conversation with a person is essential. Round-the-clock cover and SMS messages are available from human providers too. If a person must answer, compare the best UK virtual receptionist and answering services on the tasks you need.
For repeatable enquiries, an AI trial can establish whether the service leaves your team with useful work. Finish with two pieces of evidence: the completed bill and the completed call record. Pick the service that makes both work for your business.