The three options
If your phone is not being answered reliably, you have three realistic routes: hire someone, outsource to a human answering service, or deploy an AI receptionist. Each genuinely wins in different circumstances, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling one of them.
Option 1: hiring a receptionist
A part-time receptionist in the UK costs roughly £900 to £1,400 a month once you include employer National Insurance and pension contributions. Full-time runs £1,900 to £2,600 depending on region and experience.
What you get is genuine human judgement, warmth and the ability to handle anything. What you do not get is coverage outside their contracted hours, and you inherit holiday, sickness, recruitment and training. One person also answers one call at a time.
Best for: businesses with enough front-desk work to justify a full role, where the receptionist also handles walk-ins, admin and office coordination.
Option 2: a human answering service
UK answering services typically charge £50 to £600 a month depending on volume, frequently with per-call or per-minute charges on top. Out-of-hours coverage usually costs extra.
The operator answers in your business name and takes a message. What they generally cannot do is answer detailed questions about your services, quote your prices, check your coverage area, or book into your live diary. You still make the callback.
Best for: businesses that need a human voice and mainly need message-taking rather than question-answering or booking.
Option 3: an AI voice receptionist
A managed AI receptionist runs from roughly £300 to £600 a month for an SMB, and in our case sits inside a plan that also includes the website, chatbot and lead pipeline.
It answers instantly, 24 hours a day, on unlimited simultaneous calls. Because it is trained on your business it answers real questions about services, pricing bands and coverage, and it books into your live calendar rather than taking a message. It escalates anything complex to you with a transcript.
What it does not do is replicate human warmth in a genuinely emotional conversation, and it will not handle a situation nobody anticipated. Both matter, which is why escalation rules are part of the build rather than an afterthought.
Best for: businesses where enquiries are high-volume, largely predictable and time-sensitive — trades, clinics, garages, agencies, salons and service firms.
Side by side
| Hire someone | Answering service | AI receptionist | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £900–£2,600 | £50–£600 + per call | £300–£600 managed |
| Hours covered | Contracted only | Often 9–5; 24/7 extra | 24/7/365 |
| Simultaneous calls | 1 | Depends on staffing | Unlimited |
| Knows your services | Yes, after training | Script only | Yes, trained on your business |
| Quotes price ranges | Yes | No | Yes, where you authorise it |
| Books into your diary | Yes | Rarely | Yes, live calendar |
| Transcript of every call | No | Message only | Yes, full transcript |
| Holiday and sickness | Yes | Managed by provider | None |
| Handles the unexpected | Best in class | Reasonable | Escalates to you |
The honest verdict
If you have a physical reception that needs staffing anyway, hire someone. The phone is the smallest part of that job.
If your call volume is low and irregular, and you genuinely just need messages taken by a human voice, a traditional answering service is fine and inexpensive.
If you are losing work because calls go unanswered, if enquiries arrive outside your working hours, or if demand comes in unpredictable spikes, an AI receptionist wins on every axis that matters — and usually costs less than the alternatives while doing more.
The strongest setup for most small businesses is actually a hybrid: AI answers everything first, handles the routine 80% end to end, and hands you the 20% that needs a person, with the full context attached.
Where Swift Solution fits
We build and manage the whole system for UK small businesses — website, AI chatbot, AI voice receptionist, lead pipeline and process automation — for a monthly fee with no long contract: from £297 for the website, chatbot and follow-up, or from £497 with the AI receptionist. If you would rather not assemble it yourself, book a free consultation and we will tell you honestly whether it is worth doing for your business.