AI answering service vs hiring a receptionist: the full cost

The short version

A full-time receptionist in British Columbia costs about $53,800 a year once the employer's payroll costs are in, which is roughly $4,500 a month. That buys a person at the desk for about 1,900 hours a year. An AI answering service picks up every hour of the year for $129 to $500 a month on the plans priced below. A human answering service, staffed by people in a call centre, costs $720 to $2,100 for the same month of calls.

The numbers make the decision look obvious. It isn't, because the two options don't do the same job. The rest of this post is the arithmetic, then the part the arithmetic leaves out.

What a receptionist actually costs

Start with the wage. Job Bank puts the median receptionist wage at $21.00 an hour nationally and $24.00 in British Columbia, with Ontario at $20.50. Full-time at 2,080 hours, the B.C. median is $49,920 a year.

Then the employer's share, at the CRA's 2026 CPP rates and 2026 EI rates:

That total leaves out workers' compensation premiums, any health or dental plan, the computer and the headset. It also leaves out what it costs to replace someone, which in a front-desk role happens more often than owners plan for.

In the US, the federal wage data puts the receptionist median at $18.27 an hour, $38,010 a year. The employer adds 7.65 percent for Social Security and Medicare and $42 of federal unemployment tax after the state credit, then state unemployment insurance on top. If you offer health coverage, KFF's 2025 survey puts the average single-coverage premium at $9,325, with the worker paying $1,440. That leaves the employer about $7,885, and lands the all-in figure near $48,800 a year, or $4,070 a month.

The hours you're actually buying

This is the line most comparisons skip. A year has 2,080 paid hours, but the person isn't at the desk for all of them. After their first year, a B.C. employee is owed two weeks of vacation, and the province has 11 statutory holidays. Take those out and you're left with about 1,912 hours of coverage.

$53,821 over 1,912 hours is about $28 for every hour someone is actually answering. And those hours are 40 of the 168 in a week, or about 24 percent. Lunch, sick days and the second line ringing while the first is busy all come out of that 24 percent.

This is why the honest comparison isn't one hire against one subscription. An answering service covers the other 76 percent of the week, plus the overflow inside the 24. A person covers the counter, which no service does at all.

The same month of calls, priced six ways

Vendor pages meter differently. Some count minutes, some count calls, one counts unique callers, so headline prices don't compare. Here's one month priced on each vendor's published plans: 300 calls averaging three minutes, 900 minutes in all, from about 200 different callers. That's ten calls a day. Prices were checked on each vendor's pricing page on October 19, 2026.

Two things fall out of the table. The AI services are close to each other once you price the same month, and the spread comes from the meter rather than the sticker. My AI Front Desk is the cheapest sticker and the third-cheapest month. And human answering services are priced for a fraction of the calls. Ruby's 200-minute plan, its most popular, is $720 and covers about 66 three-minute calls. Smith.ai's human plans charge $8.50 to $11.50 for every call over the allowance. At ten calls a day, a person in a call centre costs about half of a person at your desk.

Change the shape of your calls and the order changes. Fifteen-minute consultations wreck a per-minute plan. Lots of short repeat calls from the same clients favour Goodcall's per-caller meter. Pull last month's call log before you pick, because your phone bill already has the numbers.

What the arithmetic leaves out

Callers don't love talking to machines. In a Gartner survey of 5,728 customers, 64 percent said they'd prefer companies didn't use AI for customer service, and 53 percent said they'd consider switching to a competitor over it. Their top worry wasn't wrong answers. It was not being able to reach a person.

That doesn't mean skip the AI. It means set it up so a person is always one sentence away: a clear "press zero" or "ask for the front desk," a transfer to your cell during open hours, and a callback promise after hours that somebody actually keeps.

The callback is where the second catch sits. In February 2024 the FCC ruled that AI-generated voices count as "artificial" voices under the TCPA, so an outbound AI call generally needs the person's prior express consent. Answering an inbound call is fine. Having the same system ring people back for reminders, follow-ups or re-booking is a different legal question for US numbers, so get the consent wording into your booking form before you switch that on.

And a receptionist does things no phone service touches. They greet walk-ins, take the delivery, calm the patient who's been waiting forty minutes and notice that Thursday is double-booked. Our AI employee post covers why the best agents still finish only about 30 percent of a real job. The phone is one task inside the job, and it's the easiest one to hand off.

Which one fits your front desk

• Mostly walk-ins, and the phone rings a few times an hour. Hire the person. Add a cheap AI plan for after-hours only
• Mostly phone, nobody at the counter. An AI service for all hours, with transfers to whoever is on shift
• A receptionist already, and calls still go to voicemail. Keep them and put AI on overflow and evenings. It's usually the cheapest fix
• Calls that are long, emotional or clinical. A human answering service, or your own staff. Don't route a worried patient to a script

For the vendor-by-vendor feature detail and the missed-call math, read our AI receptionist cost post. If you're weighing a hire for a different role, the social media manager hiring post runs the same payroll arithmetic.

Where we fit

We don't resell answering services and we take no commission from any vendor in the table. Where we come in is what happens after the call. A booked appointment has to land in your calendar and CRM, the confirmation text has to go out, and the no-show needs a follow-up. That connective work is our automation line, $1,500 to build and $500 a month after that, all listed on the pricing page. The monthly fee covers changes and the week a connected app breaks something. Anything a customer will read is approved by you before it goes live.

The honest limit: if you get five calls a day and somebody is always near the phone, you don't need any of this. A voicemail greeting with your hours and a booking link costs nothing. For a front desk like that it's the right answer.

Sources

• Government of Canada Job Bank, wages for receptionists (NOC 14101), updated November 19, 2025
• Canada Revenue Agency, CPP contribution rates and EI premium rates, 2026
• Government of British Columbia, Annual vacation and Statutory holidays
• O*NET / BLS, Receptionists and information clerks (43-4171), 2025 wage data
• Internal Revenue Service, Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates and Topic no. 759, Form 940 (FUTA)
• KFF, 2025 Employer Health Benefits Survey
• Vendor pricing pages, checked October 19, 2026: Goodcall, Rosie, My AI Front Desk, Smith.ai AI Receptionist, Ruby, Smith.ai Virtual Receptionist
• Gartner, Gartner survey finds 64% of customers would prefer that companies didn't use AI for customer service, July 9, 2024
• Hunton Andrews Kurth, FCC issues declaratory ruling that TCPA applies to AI-generated voice calls, on FCC 24-17, February 2024