Answering Service Pricing UK 2026: What Providers Actually Charge

The short answer

A UK answering service starts around £35 a month on a human plan and rises with the hours you need covered. AI services charge by the call or the minute instead, from 29p a minute with no monthly fee, and in one case a free monthly allowance. Three pricing models dominate: per minute, per call, and a monthly bundle with an overage rate. The headline figure rarely matches the invoice, because rounding, out-of-hours premiums and overage rates do most of the damage. All figures here were checked on 4 September 2026 against each provider's own pricing page.

The three pricing models, and where each hurts

Per minute

You pay for talk time. Simple, and it scales with actual use.

Where it hurts: rounding. Many providers round every call up to the next whole minute, so a 20-second wrong number costs a full minute. Over a month of short calls that is a substantial hidden markup. Ask whether billing is per second or rounded, and to what increment. Face for Business publishes that it bills by the second, which is unusually clear.

For the avoidance of doubt, Voco rounds up to the whole minute too. We are not going to criticise a practice and quietly do it, so: on a 20-second call you pay for a minute with us as well. The case for Voco is the rate and the absence of a monthly fee, not the billing increment, and if your calls are typically very short a per-second biller may well work out better.

Per call

A flat rate per call regardless of length.

Where it hurts: short calls. Smith.ai's AI Pro plan works out between $2.00 and $1.67 a call, and a misdial costs the same as a six-minute booking. If a meaningful share of your calls are wrong numbers, sales callers or hang-ups, ask whether those are billed. Some providers exclude them, which is worth real money.

Monthly bundle with overage

A fixed fee buys a set number of calls or minutes.

Where it hurts: both ends. Unused allowance is usually lost at the end of the month, so a quiet month costs full price. And the overage rate is typically far higher than the effective in-bundle rate. Smith.ai's AI Free tier costs nothing for the first 25 calls and $3.00 for every call after that. Ruby's minutes do not roll over.

What UK and US providers actually publish

Checked 4 September 2026.

• JAM (UK). From £35 a month for its virtual receptionist service, with human PAs answering 24/7. A starting price only, so the detail comes from a quote. Invoiced monthly, with no long contract.

• Face for Business (UK). Taster from £49 a month, core business hours. Message Only from £99. Inclusive Minutes from £115, adding evening and weekend cover. No setup or onboarding fees, billed by the second, 7-day free trial. Does not charge for sales or nuisance calls on Inclusive Minutes or Message Only, but does on Taster.

• Smith.ai (US), AI receptionist. Free at $0 for 25 calls, then $3.00 a call. Pro $150 a month for 75 to 300 calls at $2.00 down to $1.67 a call. Enterprise $500 for 300 to 1,000 or more. Billed in US dollars. Their separate human virtual receptionist service starts at $300 a month for 30 calls.

• Ruby Receptionists (US). $250 for 50 minutes, $395 for 100, $720 for 200, $1,725 for 500. Effective rates $5.00 down to $3.45 a minute. Tiers are sold by minutes rather than named plans. 24/7 included, no activation fees, and optional AI enhancements are included in every plan at no extra cost. Billed in US dollars.

• Voco (UK). 29p a minute ex VAT on pay as you go. No monthly fee, no contract. Monthly plans available.

Starting price only: Moneypenny publishes £25 a month for its AI receptionist but no rate card for its human answering service, and AnswerConnect advertises from £45 a month with its plans shown only after you enter your details. In both cases the numbers that decide your bill, the included allowance and the overage rate, come from a quote.

No published rate at all: alldayPA, whose own pricing packages page carries no figures. Billing is per call or per minute, your choice, on a quote.

Three worked examples

Sole trader, 30 calls a month, average 90 seconds

That is 45 minutes of talk time. At 29p a minute, roughly £13. On a human plan you are paying the monthly minimum regardless, so at least £49 with Face for Business, and Ruby's smallest plan at $250 covers the minutes but costs many times more. For low volume, per-minute with no minimum is hard to beat on cost alone.

Six-person trades firm, 150 calls a month, average 2 minutes, a third out of hours

300 minutes of talk time. At 29p a minute, roughly £87 with out-of-hours included at the same rate. A human service needs an evening and weekend plan, so Face for Business at £115 or above. Ruby would need the 500-minute plan at $1,725. This is the volume band where out-of-hours cover decides the answer, because it is where human plans get expensive fastest.

Dental practice, 400 calls a month, average 2.5 minutes

1,000 minutes. At 29p a minute, roughly £290, at which point a monthly bundle is worth pricing against pay as you go. This is the band where bundles start winning on unit cost, provided you actually use the allowance. Ask what happens in August when half your patients are away.

What is never in the headline price

1. Setup and onboarding. Often free, sometimes not. Ask.

2. Number porting. Moving your existing number can carry a fee and takes time.

3. Transfer minutes. Some services charge for the time spent transferring a call to you, on top of the call itself.

4. Out-of-hours premiums. The single biggest source of bill shock. Get the evening, weekend and bank holiday rates in writing.

5. Integration work. Connecting to your CRM or diary is sometimes a paid setup.

6. Contract length and notice. Not a cost until you want to leave, and then it is the whole cost. Moneypenny's own FAQ states a three-month minimum on its smaller schemes, rising to six or twelve months on larger ones, with up to three months' notice to close the account. JAM invoices monthly with no long contract. Ask for the notice period in writing before you sign.

7. VAT. Check whether quoted rates include it. Voco's 29p is quoted ex VAT.

The comparison most people forget: a part-time receptionist

A part-time receptionist is not just their hourly rate. The real cost includes employer National Insurance, pension contributions, holiday cover, sick cover, recruitment, training and the desk they sit at. They also work one set of hours, take lunch, and cannot answer two calls at once.

That is not an argument against hiring someone. A receptionist does a great deal an answering service does not. But if you are comparing a £115 a month service against "just getting someone in", compare against the fully loaded cost rather than the wage.

The five questions that get you a real number

1. What is the per-minute or per-call rate, and is billing per second or rounded up?

2. What is the monthly minimum, and does unused allowance roll over?

3. What is the out-of-hours, weekend and bank holiday rate?

4. Are wrong numbers, sales calls and hang-ups billed?

5. What is the overage rate, and what did a customer like me actually pay last month?

The fifth question is the one that separates providers. Anyone confident in their pricing will answer it.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an answering service cost in the UK?

Published prices as of 4 September 2026 start around £35 a month for a UK human answering service and run to £115 a month and above where evening and weekend cover is written into the plan. AI is charged by the call or the minute instead, from 29p a minute with no monthly fee. Several UK providers quote on request rather than publishing rates.

How much does an AI receptionist cost?

Less than a human service in almost every case, because there is no per-agent cost. Voco charges 29p a minute ex VAT with no monthly fee. The relevant comparison is not AI against human on price alone, but whether your calls need a person.

Is pay as you go cheaper than a monthly plan?

At low and variable volume, usually yes, because you pay nothing in a quiet month. At high steady volume a bundle often wins on unit cost. The crossover depends on your volume, so run both numbers.

Why do so many providers hide their prices?

Because pricing is genuinely variable, and because a conversation lets them tailor a package and sell. Neither is sinister. It does make comparison harder, so ask for rates in writing early.

What is the cheapest way to add a receptionist to a small business number?

Pay-as-you-go AI with no monthly fee is the lowest floor, because a quiet month costs close to nothing. Work out your likely monthly cost with a missed call calculator before committing to any plan.

All prices checked on 4 September 2026 against each provider's own public pricing page. Providers change prices without notice; verify before you buy.