Whether you call it a telephone answering service or a virtual receptionist, the best one for a small business is the one that can finish the conversation your callers need. Some calls need a useful message. Others need an appointment, a transfer to you or a person with the judgement to handle something unusual.
In this guide I'll show you which UK services do each of those jobs, what they charge, the hours they cover, how you can try them and what their contracts ask of you. Decide which job matters most first, then price the bill at your real call volume. Otherwise a low starting price can steer you towards the wrong kind of service.
Still deciding between a person and AI? The human, AI or hybrid worksheet works it out from your calls. And if your calls are shaped by your profession, start with your sector's guide instead: there are guides for solicitors, estate and letting agents, accountants and car dealerships and garages, each comparing UK services that offer something for that sector.
Which service belongs on your shortlist?
| Need | Service to investigate | Main reason | Main question |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI with an in-call human route | Moneypenny | AI and a human handover from one supplier | What does the complete service cost? |
| Human answering with public minute bundles | AnswerConnect | Allowances from 25 minutes, with stated overage | What is the rounded billable duration? |
| Human message-taking or call transfers | ReceptionHQ | A separate product for each job, and a free trial | Which product and extras fit the task? |
| A quiet line, paid by the call | Answer.co.uk | £2.20 a call before VAT, with no monthly fee or contract | What will a busy month cost? |
| Bespoke human handling | JAM | Transfers, diary management and tailored call handling | What is included in the quote? |
| Calls plus wider communication work | alldayPA | Call, email, live chat and social media services | Which channels and tasks are covered? |
| Repeatable inbound enquiries at a flat price | Sayora | £49 a month, text or email summaries and calendar booking | Will your team act on the enquiries? |
Looking for the best virtual receptionist?
Then you're making the same choice. UK providers sell this exact job as a “virtual receptionist”: your calls answered by someone, or something, that isn't in your office. JAM and ReceptionHQ use the name for their human receptionists, Answer.co.uk calls its AI service an AI Virtual Receptionist, and Sayora is an AI virtual receptionist too.
So it comes down to a person, AI, or AI with a person behind it. The difference that matters most is the transfer. JAM and ReceptionHQ's MyReceptionist can put a caller through to you. Answer.co.uk's pay-as-you-go page lists call patching too, so ask whether its £2.20 a call covers it. Sayora can't put callers through, and sends the enquiry to your team instead.
Price, hours, trial and contract at a glance
| Service | Who answers | How you pay | Trial and contract |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moneypenny AI | AI, with a handover to a Moneypenny receptionist or your team | From £49 a month; full price on a quote | No trial or contract terms on its AI page; sector demo lines to ring |
| AnswerConnect | People | From £45 for 25 minutes; £1.75–£1.85 a minute over the allowance; setup fee on some plans | No trial published; says you're not locked into a plan |
| ReceptionHQ | UK receptionists | MyReceptionist £19 a month plus £1.40 a call, before VAT; message-taking from £15 | Seven-day free trial with no card; rolling monthly |
| Answer.co.uk | People, or AI on its AI Virtual Receptionist | £2.20 a call before VAT, no monthly fee; AI from £10 a month plus 85p a call | No contracts; a test number to ring |
| JAM | UK-based receptionists | From £35 a month; full price on a quote | Invoiced monthly, with no long contract; no trial published |
| alldayPA | People | On a quote, per call or per minute | No trial or contract terms on its pricing page |
| Sayora | AI, with no transfer | £49 a month, with unlimited minutes and no VAT added | Seven days free from signup, with no card; no contract |
ReceptionHQ and Answer.co.uk quote their prices before VAT, and Sayora adds none. For the others, ask whether VAT goes on top.
Hours rarely separate them. Every service here publishes 24/7 answering, though Moneypenny's human receptionists work 8.30am to 6pm as standard, with evenings, weekends and 24/7 cover as options. ReceptionHQ says evenings, weekends and bank holidays cost nothing extra, and Answer.co.uk says the same of its 24/7, 365-day cover. The question worth asking is what happens at 2am: a message for the morning, a call to your on-call person or a transfer, and whether any of that costs more.
Few publish a free trial. ReceptionHQ gives you seven days on MyReceptionist without a card. Sayora gives you seven days from signup with no card, answering real calls on your own number; add a card and nothing is charged until the week is up. Answer.co.uk gives you a number to ring to hear its service, and Moneypenny has demo lines for its AI and a free trial of its human receptionists. The others don't publish a trial on the pages checked, so ask for one, or for a short first term.
Most published contracts are short. ReceptionHQ rolls month to month, JAM invoices monthly, AnswerConnect says you're not locked in, and Answer.co.uk and Sayora have no contract at all. Moneypenny's human service is the exception, with a three-month minimum up to 150 minutes and six or twelve months on larger schemes. Its AI page and alldayPA's pricing page don't state a term, so ask for the minimum term and notice period before you sign.
The providers and their trade-offs
Moneypenny: AI with a person behind it
Moneypenny's AI receptionist starts from £49 a month and answers 24/7. When a call falls outside its brief, or the caller asks for a person, it hands over to a Moneypenny receptionist or someone on your team. Shortlist it when callers sometimes need a person during the conversation.
The catch is that £49 is only where the price starts: the page asks you to talk to Moneypenny about the rest. Get the usage, the cost of handovers and the contract term in writing. The Moneypenny alternative comparison explains where Sayora's model differs.
AnswerConnect: a person on every call, with a published meter
AnswerConnect's plans page starts at £45 a month for 25 minutes, with bigger bundles such as £205 for 150 minutes, all answered 24/7 by people. Some plans add a £49.99 setup fee. It's the one to look at when you want a person on every call and a price you can work out before you speak to sales.
Watch the rounding: every call is billed up to the next whole minute, apart from the first 30 calls under 30 seconds in each billing cycle. Its main plan cards also start with the £205 Entry plan, while the 25, 50 and 75-minute plans sit further down. Apply the rounding to your real call lengths before you pick an allowance.
ReceptionHQ: a product for each job
ReceptionHQ splits its service by job: message-taking from £15 a month, messages and transfers on MyReceptionist from £19, and assistance or diary work from £30, all before VAT. It answers 24/7 with no after-hours surcharge, and its seven-day free trial runs on MyReceptionist with no card needed.
Match the product to the work before you compare prices: a message-taking fee doesn't price a booking service. On pay as you go, MyReceptionist adds £1.40 a call to the £19, before VAT.
Answer.co.uk: pay by the call, with people or AI
Answer.co.uk charges new customers £2.20 a call before VAT, with no monthly fee, no contract and 24/7 cover at no extra cost. You buy credit from £25, and the minimum spend is one call a month. It also sells an AI Virtual Receptionist from £10 a month plus 85p a call, before VAT.
That makes it a strong fit for a quiet line, where you only want to pay when someone rings. But the bill grows with every call: 40 calls a month on the human service is £88 before VAT. Price your busy month as well as your quiet one.
JAM: bespoke human handling
JAM publishes a starting price of £35 a month for its 24/7, UK-based virtual receptionist service, with call transfers, diary management and handling tailored to your business. It invoices monthly, so you're not tied into a long contract.
Shortlist it for a call flow that needs tailored instructions or transfers. The £35 is a starting point rather than your monthly total, so ask for a quote at your call volume.
alldayPA: calls plus wider communication work
alldayPA offers 24/7 telephone answering by people, paid per call or per minute as you choose, and packages that add email, live chat and social media. Prices come on a quote.
It suits a job that goes beyond phone messages. List the channels and tasks precisely, and ask for the minimum term and notice period, which its pricing page doesn't state.
Sayora: AI at one flat price
Sayora's virtual receptionist is AI, at £49 a month with unlimited minutes, no VAT added and no contract. Sayora answers the calls you forward, day or night, tells callers it's AI when they first call and sends your team a summary of each enquiry by text, email or both. Sayora can book callers into Google Calendar or Cal.com once you've set that up.
The limit is clear: Sayora can't put a caller through and has no staffed fallback. Sayora suits enquiries someone on your team will follow up. A caller who needs a person there and then belongs with a human or hybrid service.
For a closer look, the call handling page shows what Sayora does on a call and what you get afterwards, and the 24/7 call answering page covers a line that's answered round the clock.
How to read the reviews
Reviews are the one thing a price page can't tell you. Trustpilot's UK category for telephone answering services lists most of the providers in this guide, each with a TrustScore and a review count.
Before you read it as a league table: it isn't one. Companies choose their own categories on Trustpilot, and the default “Most relevant” order weighs a high TrustScore and the number of reviews (up to a limit) alongside how well a company fits the category. Use the list to find providers, then read their reviews for calls like yours:
- Search each provider's reviews for the job you need: messages, transfers, bookings or night calls.
- Read the newest reviews and the one- and two-star ones. That's where billing surprises such as rounding, overage or notice periods would show up.
- See whether the provider replies to complaints, and how.
Sayora's own reviews are in full on our About page, with a link to Trustpilot. But reviews tell you about other people's calls. The test at the end of this guide tells you about yours.
What the starting price leaves out
A subscription, a base fee and an allowance are three different prices. So ask every supplier to price the same ordinary month and the same busy one: how many calls, how long they last, the hours you need covered and what has to happen on each call.
The telephone answering cost comparison calculates selected human and AI bills at the same usage and shows how rounding and setup alter the result. Use the AI-only comparison if an AI service already meets your requirements and you want to compare its feature tiers.
Use your real workflow to decide
Here's the test that settles it. Give your two finalists the same brief about your business and write down what should happen on each call. Then try five calls on each: an ordinary enquiry, a question the brief doesn't answer, a caller who corrects a detail, a request for a time that's already taken and a request to speak to a person. Check the message, the calendar entry and any transfer, and record the failures as well as the successes.
If you run an estate agency, check whether a viewing is confirmed or only requested. At a dealership, find out whether stock is checked or the enquiry is passed to sales. These are buying checks, not claims that every provider connects to property or dealer systems.
Record each call on the trial sheet. Then choose the service that finishes the job at a bill you can predict, with a clear next step when it can't help.