How much does a phone answering service cost in the UK? Telephone answering service cost, per call, per minute and per month

Telephone answering service cost: what you can expect to pay

From the prices providers publish, AI receptionists we checked start at between £9.99 and £59 a month, although the cheapest plans include few or no AI minutes. Human answering services we checked start at £49 to £75 a month for limited hours or a small number of calls. Some well-known providers only give prices on request.

The monthly figure is only part of the story. What you actually pay depends on how many calls you get, how long they last, what happens when you go over your allowance, and whether VAT is added.

The five ways answering services charge

1. Per call

You pay for a set number of calls each month, then a fee for each extra call, however long it lasts. Pocket Receptionist (human) starts at £75 a month for 30 calls, with calls beyond your allowance billed at £2.99 each. Face For Business also offers a Message Only plan “for those who prefer a set price per call”, from £99 a month.

2. Per minute or per second

You pay for talk time. Face For Business (human) says it charges “by the second on calls”, with plans from £49 a month (Taster, core business hours) and £115 a month (Inclusive Minutes, adds evening and weekend support). It does not publish a per-second rate, so we cannot work out a monthly cost for a given number of calls.

3. Monthly plan with a minute allowance

Common for AI services. You get a set number of minutes, then pay per extra minute.

• Aria Starter: £59 a month, 500 call minutes included, then 10p a minute.
• Answered247: £49 a month, 250 minutes included, then 10p per extra minute.
• Team-Connect: Lite £19.99 a month with 30 AI minutes; Business Pro £79.99 with 250 AI minutes. AI voice add-ons start at £34.99 for 150 minutes.

4. Monthly plan with a call allowance

TradeMore by Checkatrade counts AI calls rather than minutes. Pro is £50 a month (or £500 a year) with 75 AI calls. Team is £200 with 100 AI calls, Team Plus £320 with 250 and Team Max £520 with 750. TradeMore says it does not currently charge overage fees. All its prices exclude VAT.

5. Flat fee or add-on

• JobCatch: from £39.99 a month after a 7-day free trial, with “no per-minute charges”.
• Powered Now Receptionist: Speech £29 a month or Speech + Text £39 a month, added to a Powered Now plan. Those plans start at £28 a month for one user, excluding VAT.
• Moneypenny AI Receptionist: “from £49 a month”. Moneypenny says the best next step on pricing is to talk to them.

Price on request

Moneypenny (human telephone answering), LineKeeper, Sophiie and Elyos AI did not publish prices on their websites when we checked. We have not guessed them.

What would 40 calls a month cost?

At a low call volume like this, several AI options come out close together. The bigger differences show up in what you get for the money: human or AI, the hours covered, live booking, links to job software, and how much a busy month costs. If you are not sure how many calls you actually miss, our free missed-call check can help you find out.

Hidden costs to check

• VAT. Most pages we checked did not say whether VAT is included. If you are not VAT registered, 20% on top makes a real difference.
• Going over your allowance. Extra minutes (10p each at Aria and Answered247) or extra calls (£2.99 each at Pocket Receptionist) add up in a busy month.
• Hours covered. Some human plans cover set hours only. Pocket Receptionist’s standard cover is 08:00–20:00, and Face For Business’s Taster plan covers core business hours. If you want cover at every hour rather than set hours, see our 24/7 telephone answering service page. If it is evenings and weekends you are worried about, see our after hours phone answering service page.
• Minimum contract. Moneypenny’s smaller human answering schemes have a three-month minimum. Many AI services are monthly.
• Base plans. Add-ons such as Powered Now Receptionist need a paid base plan as well.
• Booking. If you want jobs booked into your calendar live on the call, check which plan includes it. On Aria that is Pro at £250 a month; Starter texts the caller a booking link instead.

Where Aria sits

Aria is our AI receptionist. From our Aria page: Starter is £59 a month and answers calls 24/7, including nights, weekends and bank holidays. It includes 500 call minutes a month, then 10p a minute. Pro is £250 a month and adds live booking into Google Calendar. Multi-Site is £449 a month for up to 3 locations. All plans include a real UK number, no setup fee and cancel anytime. You get 14 days free, and a card is required to start.

Aria is not the cheapest option in the table, and it is AI, not a person. It is new, so there are no customer reviews to show you yet. The fairest test is to have Aria ring you and hear it for yourself. Trade pages: plumbers, electricians, heating engineers. If you are not a trade — a salon, garage, clinic, shop or practice — the plan and the number work exactly the same way, and the page written for you is Aria, the AI receptionist for small businesses.

What people ask about answering service prices

These are the price questions we are asked most often. Every figure below comes from the table above, which we read from each provider’s own website on 26 October 2026.

How much is a call answering service per month?

Monthly plans we read on 26 October 2026 ran from £9.99 a month at the cheapest to £635 a month at the top of a human provider's range. Plans aimed at a small business taking a few dozen calls a month mostly sat between £39.99 and £75 a month. Aria Starter is £59 a month, and because TradeBoost AI Ltd is not VAT registered there is no VAT to add.

How much does an AI receptionist cost in the UK?

Across the AI services we read on 26 October 2026, published entry prices ran from £9.99 to £59 a month, but the cheapest plans include few or no AI minutes, so they are not directly comparable. LineKeeper, Sophiie and Elyos AI publish no price at all. Aria Starter is £59 a month and includes 500 call minutes, then 10p a minute.

What is the cheapest phone answering service in the UK?

The lowest published monthly figure we found was £9.99 for Team-Connect Starter, but its pricing page lists no AI minutes, so it will not answer calls on its own. Of the plans that include answering minutes, the lowest published was JobCatch at £39.99 a month. The cheapest headline price is often not the cheapest in use, once a base plan and going over your allowance are counted.

How much does a 24/7 answering service cost?

Round-the-clock cover is where AI and human pricing separate. Aria answers 24/7, including nights, weekends and bank holidays, on the £59 a month Starter plan. The human plans we read cover set hours instead — Pocket Receptionist's standard cover is 08:00 to 20:00 at £75 a month for 30 calls.

How much does a telephone answering service cost per call?

Published per-call rates are usually for calls beyond your allowance: Pocket Receptionist lists £2.99 for each extra call. On the AI plans we read the overage is normally per minute instead, at 10p a minute on both Aria and Answered247. Face For Business charges by the second but does not publish its rate.

Is there a free phone answering service?

We found no UK provider offering a permanently free service that answers your calls. What providers do offer is free trials: Aria gives 14 days free with a card required, and Answered247, JobCatch, Pocket Receptionist and Face For Business each list a 7-day free trial. TradeMore publishes a free plan, but its own comparison table shows that plan includes no AI features.