Investing in a virtual receptionist (VR) frees up your team from fielding basic customer support queries, making your business more efficient and productive. Costs range from just a few cents to $10+ per call, varying based on factors like…
📞 Call volume
📝 Contract length
🕙 Hours of service
But is it worth the money for your business?
Virtual receptionist pricing models explained 🤓
Virtual receptionist services fall into one of four pricing categories:
👉 Per-call pricing
👉 Per-minute pricing
👉 Inclusive subscriptions
👉 Custom pricing plans
Before choosing one of those paths, you need to consider the specific requirements of your business. For instance, if you only receive a handful of calls a day, but each typically lasts for 10+ minutes, you might save money with a VR that charges per call rather than per minute.
Per-call pricing
Arguably the simplest model, per-call pricing charges a fixed fee for every call you receive. So if your virtual receptionist deals with 100 calls in a month at a flat rate of $5 per call, you’ll be billed $500.
That might be a good deal if you mostly receive long calls. But if your calls typically only take a minute or two, per-call pricing works out pretty expensive.
Also, bear in mind you’ll pay the same amount whether a caller is an interested potential customer or someone who misdialed while trying to phone their local pizza joint 🤦
Per-minute pricing
By contrast, with per-minute pricing, your VR will charge a set rate per minute – meaning your costs will vary based on the length of calls you receive.
There are actually three different “flavors” of per-minute pricing:
⏱️ True to the second: You pay for every second of call time, with no rounding up.
⏱️ 30-second increments: You’ll be billed in multiples of 30 seconds, with calls rounded up to the nearest increment.
⏱️ 60-second increments: Calls are charged in one-minute increments, rounded up to the nearest minute.
Subscription-based pricing
Whereas per-call and per-minute pricing models work on a pay-as-you-go basis, subscription-based pricing involves paying for a fixed amount of monthly call handling time (plus an agreed rate per call or per minute for any overages).
For example, Rosie – our AI-powered virtual receptionist answering service – offers unlimited minutes of monthly call-handling time.
Custom pricing
Alternatively, if you want the inclusive allowance of a monthly subscription but can’t find a package that fits your needs, many VR providers will build you a custom plan. Consider custom pricing if you:
📍 Cover multiple locations
⬆️ Receive high call volumes and/or long calls
🚨 Need emergency call transfers to on-call team members
🔁 Require custom CRM integrations
Bear in mind you may be able to negotiate more attractive rates if you’re paying for a higher volume of call-handling time.
Factors affecting virtual receptionist pricing ✅
Multiple factors affect the price of a virtual receptionist – from the volume of calls they deal with to the technology they use and the hours they operate. Also, expect to pay a premium for niche requirements (like unusual integrations or advanced subject-matter expertise).
Service type: Human or AI
Broadly speaking, there are two types of virtual receptionist:
👨 Human VRs: Real humans answer calls for your business.
🤖 AI-powered VRs: AI agents answer your calls based on information drawn from your website, Google Business profile, and other sources.
(Some providers also offer hybrid services in which AI agents act as the “first line” of customer support and escalate more advanced queries to real humans.)
Unsurprisingly, human virtual receptionists are more expensive than their AI counterparts – despite the fact that AI services can deliver a near-human-quality experience at a fraction of the cost.
👉 Learn more in 10 Benefits of Using an AI Phone Answering System For SMB.
Call volume
Simply put, the more work your virtual receptionist does for you, the more they’ll charge. If you consistently clock up a high volume of call-handling time, it’s worth considering an inclusive subscription rather than a pay-as-you-go service. Not only will it help mitigate the risk of unexpectedly high invoices, but you’ll likely get better value for money by paying for a set number of minutes per month.
Virtual receptionist location
If you go down the human VR route, bear in mind you’ll likely pay a premium for services based in locations with a higher cost of living, like Europe and North America. On the other hand, if you choose an AI virtual receptionist service, your location probably won’t affect pricing.
Service hours
Again, if you’re planning to hire a human virtual receptionist, expect to pay more if you want them to work unsocial hours (like evenings, nights, weekends, and public holidays). Conversely, AI-powered services typically handle calls around the clock for the same fixed rate — because robots don’t sleep or celebrate Thanksgiving.
Optional virtual receptionist functionality
Beyond the basic business of answering calls, some virtual receptionists offer additional services, and some of those services carry an extra cost. For example, you might pay more for things like:
📞 Call transfers
🗓️ Appointment bookings
💬 Multilingual support
If these extras are essential to your business, consider choosing a VR plan that bundles them together at a fixed rate. For instance, all Rosie plans include advanced features like bilingual call answering, smart spam detection, and message-taking with custom questions.
VR customization
Most virtual receptionist services offer some level of customization — after all, you want them to sound like part of your business, not like some stranger just barged in off the street and picked up the phone. But you may have to pay more for advanced customization, like bespoke call scripts or niche integrations.
Contract length
Virtual receptionist services want you to stick with them long-term, so many offer discounted rates for longer contracts. Or, to put it another way: you’ll generally pay more if you’re not prepared to commit to a minimum-term agreement.
Rosie AI is different. All our plans are on rolling monthly contracts, so you can cancel whenever you want — because most customers find us indispensable.
Support language
Some virtual receptionists charge extra for support in more than one language, effectively punishing businesses with diverse customer bases. We think that’s kinda unfair, so we include bilingual support in English and Spanish with all Rosie plans 🤝
Setup fees
As well as an ongoing monthly subscription, some VRs demand an upfront “onboarding” fee to cover the time taken to learn about your business and implement your service. Again, Rosie is different — we don’t charge setup fees or any other hidden costs.
Industry and niche
Certain professional industries require receptionists to have some level of expertise. For example, a VR working for an accounting firm might need to understand industry-specific terminology like cash flow forecasting and accounts payable.
Once again, human-led services might charge more for specialist knowledge — whereas AI receptionists instantly learn about your business from the training materials you share.
Why hire a VR rather than an in-house receptionist? ☎️
Hiring a receptionist ensures the rest of your employees spend less time dealing with customer calls. As well as being significantly cheaper than employing a full-time receptionist, VRs offer a range of benefits. For instance, many VR services can handle multiple calls at the same time, including outside regular business hours.
Reduce staffing costs
Want to hire a full-time, in-house receptionist? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you’ll have to pay an average salary of $36,590. Even the most expensive virtual receptionist services will set you back just a fraction of that amount — plus you won’t have to deal with additional costs like health insurance and PTO.
Cut equipment costs
Virtual receptionists don’t just save you money on staffing costs; they also reduce your expenditure on equipment. Items like a desk, computer, and phone system might require a significant upfront investment, not to mention the ongoing cost of maintaining them.
And then there’s all those office supplies – pens, paper, printer cartridges, the list goes on…
On the flip side, if you outsource to a virtual receptionist service, they’ll cover all those expenses for you.
Increase flexibility
Choosing a virtual receptionist gives you a ton of flexibility that you just don’t get with a full-time employee.
For example, imagine you’re a beauty salon that sees a big uptick in bookings around seasonal events like Valentine’s Day or college graduation 💅 In that case, you could dial up your call-handling time for busy months, then reduce it during quieter periods.
That way, you’re only paying for the level of service you need, rather than covering the salary of a full-time receptionist who barely has enough work to do for half the year.
Improve availability
Missed calls aren’t just unprofessional, they can also cost you a ton of money in lost business. Indeed, some research focusing on professional services businesses suggests that missed calls cost…
⚖️ $1.8+ million per year for law firms
🧮 $1.4+ million per year for accounting firms
🏠 $1.6+ million per year for property service firms
💰 $1+ million for financial services firms
If you hire a full-time receptionist, they’ll only work standard business hours, and they can only handle one call at once — they’re only one person, after all. Whereas virtual receptionist services can typically deal with multiple calls simultaneously at any hour of the day.
So you never have to worry about missing a red-hot lead again.
So, how much does a virtual receptionist cost? 💵
Virtual receptionist pricing is affected by a bunch of factors — we named 10 separate ones in this article ☝️
All of which means it’s hard to give a representative quote covering all types of VR service. However, we can tell you that Rosie pricing starts at just $49 per month for 250 minutes of monthly call-handling time, with overages billed at a flat rate of $0.25 per minute.
Plus we throw in a bunch of extras at no additional cost, including…
✅ Call summaries, transcripts, and recordings
✅ Custom FAQ and answers
✅ Custom agent name and greeting
And, to sweeten the deal even more, your first 7 days of call handling are on us when you create your free Rosie account. No credit card required 🙅
FAQs
Is a virtual receptionist worth it?
A virtual receptionist is worth it if you consistently struggle to deal with the volume and/or length of calls you receive. Virtual receptionists tend to be significantly cheaper than hiring a full-time receptionist, and they can often handle more than one call at once. This frees up the rest of your team to deal with other areas of your business.
What is the best AI receptionist?
The best AI receptionist depends on the specific needs of your business. But, for most businesses, we’re confident that Rosie is the top choice. Rosie learns from your business data, notifies you every time a call comes in, and offers custom message-taking – plus we’re 10x cheaper than an answering service.