AI Receptionists · 7 min read
AI Receptionist Cost in the UK: What You Actually Pay
By Mohamed Omar, founder · Published 2026-10-19
By Mohamed Omar, founder · Published 2026-10-19
An AI receptionist in the UK costs from about £15 a month plus a charge for every minute, up to several hundred pounds a month for services built around dental and clinic diaries. Most self-serve plans sit between £49 and £199 a month. What you actually pay depends on four things: how many minutes your callers use, whether it books appointments or only takes messages, who does the setup, and whether VAT is added on top.
These are the prices UK providers publish on their own websites. Some charge a flat monthly fee, some a monthly fee plus a rate per minute, and a few publish nothing and quote instead.
| Provider | Published price | Built for |
|---|---|---|
| Answer4u AI | £14.99 a month plus 27p a minute, £25 setup | General |
| Moneypenny AI Receptionist | From £49 a month | General, with escalation to people |
| Jodie | £49, £99 or £199 a month with unlimited minutes, excluding VAT; bookings from the £99 plan | General, with a dentists page |
| Voco | 29p a minute pay as you go, or from £49 a month plus 28p a minute, excluding VAT | General, with dental and physio pages |
| Ivy by Verbalise | £147 a month plus 55p a minute; Verbalise states this price has VAT in it | Physio and allied health |
| Intavia | From £249 a month with 550 minutes | Dental and clinics |
| ViveoAI | From £349 a month per location with 500 minutes | Dental |
| The Scaling Firm | £500 setup, then from £1,500 a year or £249 a month; no VAT charged | Dental, cosmetic and other clinics |
Prices and terms from each provider’s own website, checked 16 October 2026. Prices change, so check before you buy.
A per-minute rate looks small until you multiply it. As a rough guide, a practice taking 10 to 20 calls a day at about 2.5 minutes each uses 500 to 1,000 minutes a month. At 27p a minute, 750 minutes is about £200 a month before the subscription. Ask every provider how many minutes are included, what each minute costs after that, and whether they warn you before a call is cut off. Count a month of your own calls first: your phone provider can usually show the number and length of calls, including the ones you missed.
Some cheaper plans answer the call and take a message, and someone still has to ring the caller back and book them in. That call-back is the work you were trying to save. If you want appointments booked, check that the plan books straight into the diary you already use, and on which tier. One provider’s own pricing, for example, puts bookings on its £99 plan rather than its £49 one.
Self-serve tools are cheap because you build them yourself: you write the greeting, the answers, the booking rules and the handover for urgent calls, then test and fix it. Managed services charge more, or charge for setup, because they do that work for you and review it afterwards. Neither is wrong. Be honest about whether you or your team will have the time to set it up properly, because a receptionist that gives the wrong answer costs more than its subscription.
Several providers quote prices excluding VAT. If your clinic is not VAT registered, or provides medical care that is exempt from VAT and cannot reclaim it, add 20% to those prices before you compare. SHINIMINI LTD is not VAT registered, so we charge no VAT on our prices.
A human answering service puts a person on the line and is usually billed by the call or the minute; one UK provider’s dentists page says its most popular dental service costs around £200 a month. A full-time receptionist on the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour (GOV.UK) costs about £24,800 a year in pay for a 37.5-hour week, before National Insurance, pension and holiday cover. A good receptionist does far more than answer the phone. An AI receptionist is there for the calls nobody can get to: lunchtimes, busy lines, evenings and weekends.
Our AI receptionist is £500 to set up, including 2 weeks live on your real calls and £100 of call time, then from £1,500 a year, which works out at £125 a month, or £249 a month on the monthly plan. We build it around your treatments, prices and booking rules, it books straight into your diary, and we review it with you every month. There is no annual invoice until it books your first real appointment. If you are happy to set up and run a tool yourself, a £49 plan may be all you need. If you want it done for you and proven on your own calls first, take a test call and hear it answer your phone.
Published prices run from £14.99 a month plus 27p a minute to £349 a month or more per location for dental specialists. Most self-serve plans are £49 to £199 a month (providers’ own sites, checked 16 October 2026).
Several providers offer a free trial, from 7 to 30 days. A free trial on test calls tells you less than a trial on your real calls, so ask whether you can run it on your own line before you pay for a full plan.
Often not. Many providers quote excluding VAT, so a clinic that cannot reclaim VAT pays 20% more. We are not VAT registered and charge no VAT.
A practice taking 10 to 20 calls a day at about 2.5 minutes each uses roughly 500 to 1,000 minutes a month. Check your own call records for a month before choosing a plan.
Related service: AI receptionist for clinics and local businesses
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