AI receptionist vs answering service: what a virtual receptionist costs in Australia

What a virtual receptionist is

A virtual receptionist answers your business line from another place, under your business name. In Australia it is either a person at an answering service or an AI receptionist, a voice agent that answers the call itself.

A human virtual receptionist takes a message or transfers the call, and the provider bills by the call. OfficeHQ says it answers in under 15 seconds on average, and Ruby Receptionist says within 10 seconds, read 6 November 2026.

An AI receptionist bills by the month or the minute and answers as many calls at once as the plan allows. Ours starts at A$49 a month for 100 minutes, and our demo agent answers 1800 570 693.

What each option does on a call

A human answering service puts a trained receptionist on your line. OfficeHQ's receptionists take a message or put the caller through to you, and capture 3 details a call on Message Express and 5 on MyReceptionist.

An AI receptionist answers with a voice agent that reads from your own material. Ours books into a calendar, texts the caller, transfers the call to a person, and keeps a recording and transcript of every call.

With either option you keep your number. You forward it to the provider's number, and callers keep dialling the one they know.

Published prices for a human virtual receptionist

5 Australian providers publish full price lists, all before GST: OfficeHQ, Virtual Headquarters, Ruby Receptionist, Business 1300 and Dream Admin, read 6 November 2026. Virtual Reception published the same list as Virtual Headquarters, line for line, on 27 September 2026.

OfficeHQ and Ruby Receptionist raised their prices after our October reads, and both now charge A$190 for 50 calls, up from A$185. Ruby's Virtual Receptionist plans match OfficeHQ's MyReceptionist prices, and its Message Express 50 rose from A$115 to A$125.

Fonebox, Reach Us, Serviced and Oracle CMS publish no price on their virtual receptionist pages. Each asks you to enquire, read 12 October 2026.

Message Express plans take messages for one recipient. MyReceptionist and Virtual Receptionist plans take messages and transfer calls to your staff. Dream Admin prices its pay-as-you-go plans by how many details the receptionist collects.

What 50 to 400 calls a month cost

The table adds 10 per cent GST to the human plans so every column compares the same way. Our column assumes a 3-minute average call. Your own call log gives the real figure.

Our Starter plan costs less than every published human plan from 8 calls a month. Below that, a message-only plan costs less up to 7 calls and a person who transfers calls up to 2. Our price holds at A$49 until 33 three-minute calls, then each call adds A$1.20, while the human plans keep charging by the call.

Each Business 1300 cell is the cheapest of its 4 plans at that call count, extra calls included.

Calls a per-call plan may bill

A per-call plan bills by the call, so the calls that carry no enquiry matter. On the AI receptionists we run for Australian businesses in 2026, 23.9 per cent of calls ended before the caller said anything the agent could transcribe. 8.2 per cent ended within 10 seconds of connecting.

37.4 per cent came from a number that had already rung the same business in the window. A follow-up call from the same customer is a second call on a per-call plan.

None of the 5 price pages above says whether a silent call, a hang-up or a wrong number counts as a call, read 6 November 2026. Ask the provider before you pick a plan size. Our plans count minutes of calls, not the number of calls.

Where a human answering service is the better choice

Choose a person if your line takes fewer than 8 calls a month. Virtual Headquarters' Message Express pay as you go costs A$46.75 with GST for 7 calls, and OfficeHQ's pay as you go A$45.98 for 2 transferred calls, against our A$49.

Choose a person if you want a human operator in Australia on every call. Business 1300's operators work in Australia, and its Pro plan costs A$259.60 with GST for 80 calls.

Choose a person when your callers are distressed or confused, or the call needs judgement you cannot write down. Our agent follows the knowledge and call flow you give it, and passes anything outside them to your team. OfficeHQ and Virtual Headquarters both offer a 7-day free trial.

Where an AI receptionist is the better choice

Choose an AI receptionist from 8 calls a month. At 200 calls, OfficeHQ's MyReceptionist 200 costs A$759 with GST, and our Starter plan plus 500 extra minutes costs A$249.

Choose an AI receptionist when calls land at the same moment. Our Starter plan answers 2 calls at once and Growth answers 4. OfficeHQ says its Australian receptionists answer most calls, and that overflow teams in New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States take calls during an unexpected peak.

Choose an AI receptionist when the call has to change a record. Our agent books into a calendar during the call, texts the caller a confirmation, and keeps a recording and transcript you can search.

What our AI receptionist does and does not do

It answers 2 calls at once on Starter, 4 on Growth and 10 on Scale, and each extra line costs A$25 a month. It answers from your website and documents, and our plans charge no after-hours rate.

Every plan keeps a recording, a transcript and a summary of each call. CRM connectors such as HubSpot and Salesforce start on Growth at A$199 a month, and custom API tools against your own systems on Scale at A$499.

It does not answer from anything you have not given it, and it passes a question outside your material to your team. It does no admin between calls. Dream Admin sells that as 2 to 15 hours of a person's time, from A$157.50 a week before GST on a 6-month contract, read 6 November 2026.

ServiceM8 and Simpro are not on our integrations list. A trades business that wants each job written into one of them needs a custom API tool on Scale or a Concierge build from A$7,500.

Running an AI receptionist and a person together

You can run both on one line. Our agent answers first, settles the routine calls, and transfers the rest to your team or to an answering service you already pay for.

OfficeHQ sells the same pairing from the other side: an AI receptionist with a live receptionist as backup, read on its site on 27 September 2026. Ring 1800 570 693 to hear our agent take a call before you decide.

Privacy rules that apply to either option

The Privacy Act covers organisations with an annual turnover over A$3 million, and private health service providers of any size, the OAIC says (read 2 October 2026). A clinic with one receptionist is covered.

Australian Privacy Principle 8 sets the steps a covered business takes before personal information goes overseas. Ask each provider which countries a caller's details pass through, the answering team and the software both.

Where the call and the caller's details go

OfficeHQ says most calls are answered by its receptionists in Australia. For MyAssistant and MyDiary plans, its UK team covers overflow after hours.

Our agent runs on call servers in Sydney, and we store recordings and transcripts there. Speech recognition, the voice and the AI model run in Australia by default, and call audio stays in Australia. Nothing leaves Australia unless you switch an agent to an overseas model or voice.