Guide · Updated 16 October 2026

How much does a call answering service cost in the UK in 2026?

Human call answering costs about 99p to £2.20 a call, usually plus VAT, or £25 to £60 a month plus VAT for 25 to 50 calls. AI answering starts at £10 a month plus 85p a call, and flat AI plans are around £49 a month. Which is cheapest for you depends on one number: how many calls you miss.

Costs for small businesses and for out of hours cover have their own pages. Every price below comes from the provider’s own website, checked on 16 October 2026. Sources are linked. The receptionist cost uses the £12.71 National Living Wage for 20 hours a week. Written by While You Work, which sells an AI answering service, so we show where others are cheaper.

99p to £2.20

Per call for human answering, usually plus VAT

85p

Per call for the cheapest pay-as-you-go AI plan

£25 to £60

A month plus VAT for 25 to 50 human-answered calls

£1,100+

A month for a 20-hour receptionist at the National Living Wage

Pricing models

The three ways UK answering services charge

Pay per call

No or low monthly fee, then a price for every call answered. Answer.co.uk charges £2.20 a call plus VAT for human answering. Cheapest if you miss very few calls, and you pay for sales calls too.

Monthly bundle

A monthly fee that includes a set number of calls, with extra calls charged on top. ReceptionHQ’s message-taking bundles are £25 for 25 calls up to £85 for 100, plus VAT.

Flat monthly

One price whatever your volume, up to a fair-use limit. Jodie is £49 before tax, which it adds at checkout, with unlimited minutes. While You Work is a monthly plan with a set number of calls instead, from £39 plus VAT for 50, and a call counts once however long it lasts, up to 10 minutes.

Published prices

UK call answering prices compared, October 2026

Provider and plan	Who answers	Published price	VAT
ReceptionHQ MessageExpress	Human, message-taking	£15 a month + £1.10 a call, or 25 calls £25, 50 calls £49, 100 calls £85	Plus VAT
ReceptionHQ MyReceptionist	Human, with call transfers	£16 a month + £1.35 a call, or 25 calls £36, 50 calls £60, 100 calls £110	Plus VAT
Answer.co.uk pay as you go	Human	£2.20 a call, no monthly fee, £25 minimum credit	Plus VAT
Answer.co.uk AI	AI	£10 a month + 85p a call, or 50 calls for £30 a month	Not stated
Jodie	AI	£49, £99 or £199 a month, unlimited minutes	Before tax; added at checkout
Cyberstaff	AI	£30 (100 minutes), £75 (300 minutes) or £120 (600 minutes) a month, extra minutes 20p to 30p	Not stated
Moneypenny	Human and AI	Receptionists by quote. AI Receptionist from £49 a month	Not stated
The Answer Centre	Human	99p a call, no monthly subscription; 8.30am to 6pm on weekdays, longer hours cost extra	Not stated
AnswerConnect	Human	From £45 a month; plans shown only after you give your contact details	Plus VAT
Vocalenda	AI, with booking	£49 a month for its first 10 businesses, then £69, with 500 call minutes	Not stated
Team Connect	AI	£19.99 (30 AI minutes), £79.99 (250) or £199.99 (750) a month; 150 extra minutes £34.99	Plus VAT
While You Work	AI, set up per kind of business	£39 (50 calls), £69 (150 calls) or £129 (400 calls) a month; extra calls 60p, 50p or 40p	Plus VAT

Worked examples

What you would pay at 20, 50 and 100 calls a month

The cheapest published plan for each volume, with VAT added where the provider prices plus VAT. This is the monthly bill a small business that is not VAT registered would actually pay.

Provider	20 calls	50 calls	100 calls	Plan used
ReceptionHQ MessageExpress	£30.00	£58.80	£102.00	25-call, 50-call and 100-call bundles, plus VAT
ReceptionHQ MyReceptionist	£43.20	£72.00	£132.00	25-call, 50-call and 100-call bundles, plus VAT
Answer.co.uk pay as you go	£52.80	£132.00	£264.00	£2.20 a call, plus VAT
Answer.co.uk AI	£27.00*	£30.00*	£72.50*	Lite at 20 calls, then 50-call plan plus 85p a call. *VAT not stated
Jodie Basic	£58.80	£58.80	£58.80	£49 before tax, unlimited minutes; 20% UK VAT assumed at checkout
Cyberstaff	£30.00*	£30.00*	£60.00*	Priced by minutes, not calls. Starter (100 minutes) covers about 50 two-minute calls; at 100 calls, Starter plus 100 extra minutes at 30p. *VAT not stated
The Answer Centre	£19.80*	£49.50*	£99.00*	99p a call, office hours on weekdays only; longer hours cost extra. *VAT not stated
Vocalenda	£69.00*	£69.00*	£69.00*	Standard plan, 500 minutes covers 100 two-minute calls; £49 for its first 10 businesses. *VAT not stated
While You Work	£46.80	£46.80	£82.80	Starter (50 calls) at 20 and 50 calls, Pro (150 calls) at 100 calls; £39 and £69 plus VAT

What the numbers say

At about 20 calls a month, The Answer Centre’s 99p a call in office hours, a pay-as-you-go AI plan, Cyberstaff’s 100-minute Starter or a small human bundle is cheaper than our £39 Starter.
Up to about 50 short calls a month, Cyberstaff’s £30 Starter (100 minutes) is cheaper than our £39 Starter. Long calls use up the minutes faster, and a call with us counts once up to 10 minutes.
At 50 calls a month, our Starter at £46.80 including VAT is cheaper than every human answering plan with a published price. The Answer Centre reaches £49.50 at 50 calls, before any VAT, and covers weekday office hours only.
Pay-per-call AI bundles, such as Answer.co.uk’s 50-call plan, are cheaper than us at 20 and 50 calls. At 100 calls it is £72.50 against our Pro at £69 before VAT, so about the same, depending on whether its price includes VAT.
At 100 calls a month, human answering costs about 1.2 to 3 times as much as our Pro plan at £82.80 including VAT.
Moneypenny and Answer4u are not in the table because neither publishes its receptionist prices. AnswerConnect shows its plans only after you give your contact details, so it is left out too.
Team Connect is not in the worked examples because its AI receptionist is sold by the minute with top-up packs, so the bill depends on how long your calls last. Lite is £19.99 a month plus VAT for 30 AI minutes.
Face For Business is not in the worked examples because its plans start at £49 to £115 a month and then charge calls by the second or per call, so the bill depends on how long your calls last.

Read the small print

Hidden costs to check before you sign up

VAT	Many providers quote prices plus VAT. A business that is not VAT registered pays 20% more than the headline.
Extra calls	Bundles charge for every call over the allowance, typically £1.10 to £1.30 a call for human answering.
Minimum credit	Pay-as-you-go services may ask for credit up front, for example £25.
Call length	Per-minute plans and fair-use limits on call length make long calls cost more.
Out of hours	Some services charge extra for evenings and weekends. Check that 24/7 is included.
Transfers and texts	Call transfers, SMS messages and extra numbers can be priced separately.
Contract and notice	Check for minimum terms and notice periods before you sign up.

Is it worth it?

Work out your break-even in one line

Monthly fee divided by the value of an average job or booking tells you how many extra customers the service needs to win to pay for itself. At £39 a month and £150 of work, one new customer every three months more than covers it.

Most small businesses miss far more calls than that. Try our missed-calls calculator with your own numbers.

Human or AI

Which is better value?

A person is better when every call needs judgement, or calls must be transferred to a team. AI is better value when you mainly need the details taken and passed on, because it answers every call at once, 24 hours a day, for one price.

See how the options compare service by service on our alternatives page, or read how our call answering service works.

Questions

Call answering cost FAQs

How much does a call answering service cost in the UK?

Human call answering in the UK costs about 99p to £2.20 a call, usually plus VAT, or bundles of £25 to £60 a month plus VAT for 25 to 50 calls. AI answering starts at £10 a month plus 85p a call, and flat AI plans are around £49 a month. Prices checked 16 October 2026.

What is the cheapest call answering service in the UK?

It depends on how many calls you miss and when. For about 20 calls a month in office hours, The Answer Centre’s 99p a call is cheapest at about £20 (VAT not stated). Pay-as-you-go AI or a small human bundle comes next at roughly £27 to £30. Up to roughly 50 calls of a couple of minutes each, Cyberstaff’s £30 Starter (100 minutes, VAT not stated) is the cheapest published AI plan, and a pay-per-call AI bundle can stay cheapest to roughly 60 to 70 calls. Above that, and against any human service from about 50 calls, a plan with a set number of calls, such as While You Work Starter at £39 plus VAT for 50 calls, works out cheaper than human answering.

Is it cheaper to pay per call or a flat monthly fee?

Per call is cheaper if you miss only a few calls a month. A flat fee beats human answering from about 50 calls a month and pay-per-call AI from about 60 to 70, and it costs the same in a busy week as a quiet one.

Do call answering prices include VAT?

Often not. ReceptionHQ, Answer.co.uk, Team Connect and AnswerConnect publish prices plus VAT, The Answer Centre and Vocalenda do not say, and Jodie shows its prices before tax and adds it at checkout. While You Work’s prices are plus VAT too, and VAT-registered businesses can reclaim it. If you are not VAT registered, add 20% to any price quoted plus VAT.

How much does a virtual receptionist cost compared with employing one?

Employing a part-time receptionist for 20 hours a week costs about £1,100 a month (20 hours a week at the £12.71 National Living Wage, before employer National Insurance, pension and holiday), and covers only their hours. A virtual receptionist service costs from about £20 to £130 a month for a small business’s call volumes, and AI services answer 24 hours a day.

Is an AI answering service cheaper than a human one?

Usually, yes. At 50 calls a month, human answering on published UK prices costs about £50 to £132, with The Answer Centre’s office-hours 99p a call at the low end. AI plans cost about £30 to £69, with Cyberstaff and Answer.co.uk at the low end.

How do I work out if a call answering service is worth it?

Take the value of one new customer or job and the number of missed calls that would have become work. If one extra customer a month is worth more than the monthly fee, the service pays for itself. Our home page has a calculator for this.

Prices change. We re-check this page regularly, but always confirm the current price with the provider before you sign up. All trademarks belong to their owners.