Hiring a full-time receptionist costs $30,000-$42,000 per year in salary alone. Add payroll taxes, benefits, training, and turnover costs, and you are looking at $40,000-$55,000 annually. That receptionist works 40 hours a week, takes lunch breaks, calls in sick, and goes on vacation. During those gaps, your phones go unanswered.
An AI answering service costs a fraction of that and works 168 hours per week, 52 weeks per year, with zero sick days and zero turnover.
The Hours Comparison
A full-time receptionist covers roughly 2,080 hours per year. An AI receptionist covers 8,760 hours per year. That is 4.2 times more coverage. The calls that come in at 6 PM, 8 PM, Saturday morning, and during lunch get answered instead of going to voicemail.
For most service businesses, after-hours and overflow calls represent 20-35% of total inbound call volume. Those are leads you are currently losing because nobody is there to pick up.
The Capability Comparison
A human receptionist handles one call at a time. If two calls come in simultaneously, one goes to hold or voicemail. An AI receptionist handles unlimited concurrent calls. Every caller gets an immediate answer.
A human receptionist is great at handling complex, emotionally sensitive conversations. An AI receptionist excels at routine tasks: answering FAQs, booking appointments, collecting information, and routing calls. The best setup uses AI for the routine work and humans for the complex work.
The Real Math
A Starter plan AI answering service at $297/month plus average usage of $50/month totals roughly $4,164/year. A Growth plan at $497/month plus $70/month usage totals roughly $6,804/year. Compare that to $40,000+ for a human receptionist, and the AI costs 83-90% less while covering 4x more hours.
The question is not whether an AI answering service is better than a receptionist. The question is whether your business needs 24/7 coverage and lead capture or if you are comfortable losing after-hours and overflow calls to competitors.
See the numbers for your specific business. Book a free demo and we will walk through the ROI.