What an AI receptionist actually costs in Australia

Last checked 1 August 2026

Published prices range from about $49 a month to $500 a month plus a $2,500 setup fee, for things all described as “an AI receptionist”. That spread is real, and it's mostly not about greed.

Everything named below was read from the company's own website. We sell one of these, so read us with that in mind — which is also why our own prices are on the page.

The honest range

“AI receptionist” in Australia covers products that cost wildly different amounts to run, so the spread is enormous. Two real published examples, both read from the companies' own pages on 1 August 2026:

Voxworks

“Plans start at $49 a month with 60 minutes included, stepping up through $149, $349 and $999 as call volume grows, with a 14-day free trial and nothing to pay for setup.” Extra simultaneous-call slots are $20/month.

Fully Booked

Their own guide states a setup cost of “around $2,500 AUD” and ongoing cost of “$500 AUD/month”, and describes the category generally as typically costing “between $1,000–$2,000 per month plus setup”.

Prices change. These were accurate on their own websites on 1 August 2026 — check before you buy, and don't take our word for what a competitor charges.

The setup fee is the bit that stings

A four-figure setup fee is common at the voice end of the market, and it isn't greed. An AI that answers the phone in a synthetic voice has to be configured, scripted, voice-tuned, tested against your job types and wired into your job-management software. That's consulting work, and someone has to do it.

But it changes what you're deciding. A $2,500 setup means you've committed roughly five months of subscription before the thing has answered a single call. If it doesn't suit you, that money is gone.

Minutes, calls, or conversations?

This is the part that actually determines your bill, and almost nobody compares it properly.

  • Per minute. Standard for voice AI, because voice costs real money per second. A $49 plan with 60 minutes included sounds generous until you realise a chatty customer describing a bathroom reno can eat four of those minutes, and that a robocall that reaches your AI spends your minutes too.
  • Per call. Simpler, but every wrong number and supplier counts the same as a real job.
  • Per conversation. What we do — a caller who never replies to the text-back doesn't count.

None of these is dishonest. But two $49 plans can mean completely different things, and the only way to compare them is to work out roughly how many real enquiries you get in a month and price each option against that.

What we charge

Since it would be a bit rich to write this page and be coy: Don't Miss A Call is $49/month for up to 30 caught conversations, $99 for 80, and $300 for 250. No setup fee. Month to month.

And you don't pay until it catches you a job. Not a trial with a countdown — there's no clock running. The day it works out what a real customer needs is the day billing starts. Testing it with a mate doesn't count, and neither do wrong numbers or spam.

Note that Voxworks also starts at $49, so this isn't us being cheapest. The difference is what the $49 meters — 60 voice minutes versus 30 completed text conversations — and who carries the risk if it doesn't work out. We think no-setup-fee and no-bill-until-it-works is the better deal for a sole trader. You might weigh it differently, and that's a fair call.

The maths you should ignore

Nearly every page in this category, including the one we quoted above, runs a version of this sum: missed calls × average job value = a large monthly figure you're supposedly losing. That page puts it at “Average job value: $450 / Monthly lost revenue: $9,000”.

The sum only works if every missed call was a job. Yours weren't. Some were suppliers, some were wrong numbers, some were robocalls, and some were people who'd already booked someone else by the time you looked at your phone. Nobody selling you this software knows your ratio, including us.

A better question than “how much am I losing” is “how many genuine enquiries did I actually fail to get back to last week” — which you can answer from memory in about two minutes. We built a leak test that walks you through it, runs entirely on your phone, and tells you to buy nothing if the answer is zero.

How to compare properly

  • Add the setup fee to twelve months of subscription. That's your real year-one number.
  • Find out what the plan meters, and estimate your own volume against it.
  • Ask what happens when you exceed the cap — overage charges or a soft stop?
  • Ask what happens if it doesn't suit you in month two.
  • Check it works on your phone and your plan. Ours needs neither a new phone nor a new number.

Voice or text-back? That choice matters more than the price →