What is an AI receptionist?

An AI receptionist is software that answers business phone calls using conversational AI — greeting callers in your business name, answering frequently asked questions, booking appointments directly into your calendar, capturing lead details, and routing urgent calls. Orval is the AI receptionist designed for small and local businesses in the US. It replaces voicemail and traditional telephone answering services with a true 24/7 AI voice agent — at a fraction of the cost of hiring staff or outsourcing to a human call answering service.

How does Orval compare to a traditional telephone answering service?

Traditional telephone answering services charge per minute and rely on human operators who may not know your business. Orval is different. As an AI-powered call answering service, Orval is trained on your specific business information, answers in seconds with zero wait time, works 24/7 including weekends and public holidays, and costs a fixed monthly fee with no per-minute surprises. Unlike a human service, Orval never calls in sick, never puts callers on hold, and handles multiple simultaneous calls during peak periods.

Is my data secure and CCPA compliant?

Absolutely. Orval is built with CCPA compliance and US data protection standards from the ground up. All credentials and sensitive data are encrypted at rest using AES-256. Caller IDs are hashed by default with SHA-256 for privacy. Every admin action is logged in a full audit trail. We offer configurable data retention policies, right-to-deletion support, and two-factor authentication for all portal access. Your customers' data gets enterprise-grade protection at SMB-friendly pricing.

What tools and integrations does Orval support?

Orval integrates with Microsoft Outlook and Freshdesk out of the box, with more integrations on the way. If your business uses a specific CRM, booking system, or internal tool, get in touch — we're adding new integrations regularly.

Can Orval replace my IVR system or automated phone menu?

Yes — and your callers will thank you. Traditional IVR systems frustrate customers with robotic menus, long hold times, and "press 1 for sales" loops. Orval replaces your IVR with natural conversational AI that understands what callers want and acts on it immediately. No button pressing, no wait times, no dropped calls. Just a helpful, human-like conversation that resolves the enquiry or routes the call intelligently.

Does Orval provide a 24 hour answering service?

Yes. Orval provides a true 24 hour answering service (also called a 24/7 answering service). Evenings, weekends, public holidays — always on. This is especially valuable for businesses that receive after-hours calls: emergency tradespeople, restaurants taking late bookings, real estate agents fielding inquiries from buyers browsing listings in the evening, or dental practices handling urgent calls. With Orval as your 24/7 AI call answering service, every call is answered — no matter when it comes in.

What types of businesses use Orval?

Orval is built for any small or local business in the US that receives customer phone calls. Our most popular industries include restaurants and takeaways, real estate agents and property managers, electricians, plumbers and contractors, dental and medical practices, hair and beauty salons, attorneys and law firms, accountancy firms, and veterinary clinics. Whether you're a sole trader or have multiple locations, Orval adapts to your business and your customers.

Can Orval take orders for my restaurant or takeaway?

Yes. Orval works as a complete takeaway ordering system over the phone. It knows your full menu, takes orders through natural conversation, tracks allergens across all major FDA categories, confirms order totals, and sends confirmation via SMS or email. You can upload your existing PDF menu and your AI ordering agent is ready in minutes. No more missed orders during the dinner rush.

What makes Orval different from other AI voice agents?

Three things set Orval apart. First, Orval is built specifically for small and medium businesses — with US and international phone numbers, CCPA compliance, natural-sounding voices, and understanding of business contexts like public holidays and zip codes. Second, you choose from three AI voice engines depending on your needs and budget. Third, our no-code custom tool builder lets you connect any API or system without a developer — something most competitors charge enterprise prices for.

What does a virtual receptionist do?

A virtual receptionist answers business phone calls on your behalf — without needing a physical person at your front desk. A virtual receptionist takes messages, books appointments, answers frequently asked questions, captures lead details, and routes urgent calls to the right person. Orval is an AI virtual receptionist that does all of this 24/7 in your business name, with a natural voice, and handles multiple simultaneous calls so callers never hit voicemail.

Is an AI receptionist worth it?

For most US small businesses, yes. If you miss even one call a week worth $50+ (a booking, a lead, a new client), an AI receptionist at $24.99–59 per month pays for itself many times over. It captures calls your competitors miss, works 24/7 at no extra cost, and costs 4–10× less than a traditional human answering service. The typical US small business sees net monthly gains of hundreds to thousands of dollars from recovered bookings alone.

What does Orval actually sound like?

Hear every voice on the [Hear Orval page](/us/voices) — that's the actual audio your US customers will hear when Orval answers, recorded at telephone-grade fidelity. We offer 89 voices across 30+ languages: natural English voices, multilingual voices that switch language mid-call, and specific-language voices for businesses serving multilingual communities. Voice is a setup choice and you can switch any time from the dashboard.

Blog · Pricing

How Much Is a Virtual Receptionist? UK Cost & Pricing Guide 2026

Q: How much is a virtual receptionist?

In the US, a traditional virtual receptionist typically charges $1.50–3 per call or $150–400 per month, often with extra fees for out-of-hours cover. A full-time in-house receptionist costs $35,000–50,000 per year. Orval is an AI virtual receptionist starting from just $24.99 per month with a fixed, predictable cost and 24/7 coverage included — less than the cost of a single day of a human receptionist each month.

How much does a virtual receptionist cost in the UK? Traditional services charge £50–£400 per month, often with per-minute fees. AI virtual receptionists start from £19.99/month with 24/7 coverage. Full 2026 cost breakdown.

April 15, 202611 min read

"How much is a virtual receptionist?" is one of the most-asked questions by UK small business owners weighing up whether to outsource their phone answering. The honest answer: it depends on who you ask, because pricing in this market varies wildly — from £19.99 per month at the AI end to £400+ per month for premium human-operated services.

This guide gives you straight numbers. Monthly rates, hourly rates, per-call rates, and the hidden costs providers don't always put on the front of their pricing page. By the end you'll know exactly what you'd pay for each type of virtual receptionist in the UK in 2026, and roughly what your own business should expect to spend.

Virtual Receptionist Cost UK — 30-Second Comparison

Pricing basis	Traditional (human)	AI (e.g. Orval)
Per call	£1–£2	included
Per minute	80p–£1.50	included
Per month	£50–£400	£19.99–£199
Per effective hour	£25–£40	~£4
24/7 cover	usually extra	always included
Appointment booking	often extra	included
Setup fee	£50–£200	usually £0

For most UK small businesses taking 30+ calls a month, an AI virtual receptionist on a fixed monthly fee is the cheapest credible option. The detail of each pricing model is below.

Quick Answer: What a Virtual Receptionist Costs in the UK

Traditional human virtual receptionist services in the UK typically charge £50 to £400 per month for a small business, depending on call volume and the features included. Add-ons like out-of-hours cover and appointment booking usually cost extra.

AI virtual receptionists charge a fixed monthly fee — typically £19.99 to £99 per month — that includes unlimited calls, 24/7 coverage, and appointment booking. No per-minute surprises.

Per-hour pricing is rare in the UK virtual receptionist market. Most providers either charge per call (£1–£2), per minute (80p–£1.50), or as a monthly retainer. When "per hour" does appear, it's usually an internal figure used by call centres that translates to around £25–£40/hour of actual talk time.

So the honest answer to "how much is a virtual receptionist per month" depends entirely on your call volume and which category of provider you pick. Below is the detail.

Traditional Virtual Receptionist Pricing Models

Human-operated virtual receptionist services use three main pricing models in the UK. Each has different tipping points where they become expensive.

1. Per-call pricing (£1–£2 per call)

The most common model. You're charged a flat fee for each call answered — typically £1 to £2. For a quiet business taking 50 calls a month, that's £50–£100. For a busy plumber or restaurant taking 300 calls, that's £300–£600 every single month. And that's before add-ons.

This model is fine for low-volume businesses. It gets expensive fast once your phone actually rings.

2. Per-minute pricing (80p–£1.50 per minute)

Instead of a flat per-call fee, you pay for talk time. A typical rate of £1 per minute means a three-minute enquiry costs £3. Plumbing emergencies, appointment bookings, and detailed questions often run 4–7 minutes — so costs climb quickly for any call that isn't short.

Per-minute is the model most often used for "premium" receptionist services where operators do more than take a message.

3. Monthly retainer packages (£50–£400/month)

A bundled deal: a set number of calls or minutes per month for a fixed fee. Entry-level packages typically start around £50–£100/month for 30–50 calls. Once you exceed the bundle, overage charges kick in at per-call or per-minute rates.

Premium packages with 100–200 calls, dedicated receptionist teams, and multi-channel coverage run £200–£400/month. Bespoke enterprise packages go higher.

What's Usually Excluded From the Headline Price

Here's where pricing pages get sneaky. Most UK virtual receptionist providers charge extra for:

Out-of-hours cover (evenings, weekends, bank holidays) — often +£30–£100/month, or per-call rates go up 1.5×
Appointment booking into your calendar — often +£20–£50/month
Setup fees — one-off £50–£200 to configure your script and training
Bilingual or specialist-trained operators — +£30–£80/month
Call recording or transcription — +£20–£40/month
Dedicated receptionist (not a shared pool) — 50–100% premium on the base rate

If you're comparing quotes, always ask for an "everything-in" monthly number including the coverage hours you actually need. Headline rates rarely tell the whole story.

How Much Is an AI Virtual Receptionist?

AI virtual receptionists — like Orval — have disrupted the pricing model entirely. Instead of per-call or per-minute fees, you pay a fixed monthly subscription for unlimited call handling.

Typical UK AI virtual receptionist pricing in 2026:

Starter tier: £19.99–£29.99/month — covers a sole trader or micro-business, typically includes 200–300 minutes of AI talk time, basic appointment booking, 24/7 coverage, and SMS confirmations
Growth tier: £49–£79/month — higher minute allowance, integration with your calendar, multiple team members, more sophisticated call handling
Premium tier: £99–£199/month — enterprise features, custom voice, advanced integrations, multi-location support

The key difference: 24/7 coverage is usually included at no extra cost, because the AI doesn't need to be paid overtime for Saturday night calls.

Even the cheapest AI tier gives you capabilities that a traditional retainer of £200+ often doesn't: unlimited calls, simultaneous call handling, appointment booking during the call itself, and SMS confirmations to your customers.

For a full side-by-side of how AI compares with traditional services feature by feature, see our guide on AI voice agents vs traditional answering services.

How Much Is a Virtual Receptionist Per Hour?

Per-hour pricing isn't really a thing in the UK virtual receptionist market — at least not publicly. Most providers price per call, per minute, or as a monthly package.

When you do see hourly rates, it's usually in one of two contexts:

Your internal cost of an in-house receptionist. A full-time UK receptionist on £26,000/year works out to about £13.50/hour when you include salary alone, and closer to £18–£22/hour once you add employer NI, pension, holiday pay, sick cover, and desk costs. That's the baseline to beat when you're considering outsourced options.
Call centre wholesale rates. Some providers quote £25–£40 per "effective hour" of operator talk time. This is less useful as a comparison number because your calls won't fill a full hour — they're spread across the month in one- or two-minute chunks.

If you want a real hourly comparison, AI virtual receptionists have the most dramatic difference. £19.99/month divided across 300 minutes of monthly handling time works out to about 7p per minute, or roughly £4 per "hour" of actual call handling — a tenth of a traditional human service.

What Drives the Price Up

Whether you go traditional or AI, the same factors push your bill up:

Call volume — obvious, but the steepness varies. AI costs scale flat; traditional costs scale linearly.
Out-of-hours coverage — huge markup with human services, free with most AI services
Complex scripts — if your business needs operators to quote pricing, check availability, or handle technical questions, expect a "trained receptionist" premium
Integrations — booking into your calendar, logging into your CRM, sending SMS confirmations — each can be a line item
Vertical-specific compliance — legal, medical, and dental practices need GDPR-aware handling and often DPAs. Providers specialising in regulated verticals charge more (but it's worth it)

How Much Does a Virtual Receptionist Cost For Your Business?

The quick calculation:

Estimate your monthly inbound call volume (look at your mobile network statement or call answering app).
Estimate your average call length (typically 2–4 minutes for small business queries).
Multiply call volume × per-call rate OR minute total × per-minute rate to price the traditional option.
Compare to a flat AI subscription tier that covers your volume.

Worked example. A plumber takes 8 calls a day, five days a week, averaging 3 minutes per call. That's ~160 calls and ~480 minutes a month.

Per-call traditional service at £1.50/call: £240/month
Per-minute traditional service at £1/min: £480/month
Monthly retainer with out-of-hours: roughly £250–£350/month
AI starter tier (300 minutes): would need the £49 growth tier for 480 minutes: £49/month

For this plumber, an AI virtual receptionist is roughly £200–£400/month cheaper — and covers evenings and weekends at no extra cost, which is when half their emergency calls actually come in.

If you want to run the numbers for your own business, the missed calls calculator on our home page shows you the revenue side of the equation too — what those answered calls are actually worth.

Which Virtual Receptionist Is Right For You?

As a rough guide:

Under 30 calls a month, simple needs: A cheap virtual receptionist on a per-call traditional plan is fine — you'll pay £30–£60/month.
30–150 calls a month, standard business: An AI virtual receptionist usually wins on both cost and coverage. The £19.99–£49/month tier is the most affordable virtual receptionist option for most UK small businesses, and it covers what a £150–£300 human retainer would.
150+ calls a month or complex scripts: AI still wins on cost, but check that the provider handles your specific vertical (legal, medical, dental) properly. See our AI receptionist UK page or legal answering service guide for specialised setups.
You need a specific human touch that only a trained receptionist can provide (e.g. high-ticket sales where warm handoff matters): Pay the premium for a dedicated human receptionist, typically £250–£400/month.

Worth flagging: "cheap virtual receptionist" doesn't have to mean "bad". The cheapest plans on AI services have the same core call-handling capability as the premium tiers — you just get fewer included minutes and fewer integrations. A UK sole trader on the £19.99 entry tier still gets 24/7 coverage, appointment booking, and SMS confirmations.

Bottom Line

So, how much is a virtual receptionist? In the UK in 2026:

Per call: £1–£2
Per minute: 80p–£1.50
Per month (traditional retainer): £50–£400
Per month (AI): £19.99–£199
Per hour effective handling time: £25–£40 traditional, ~£4 AI

For most UK small businesses answering standard enquiries, an AI virtual receptionist at £19.99–£49/month is the clear winner on both cost and coverage. Human-operated services still have a place for specialised or high-ticket scenarios, but the price delta is substantial.

If you want to try an AI virtual receptionist risk-free, Orval starts from £19.99/month with 24/7 coverage, appointment booking, and no per-minute charges. You can be live in under an hour.

If you're earlier in your research, our plain-English guide to what a virtual receptionist actually is covers the basics. If you've decided AI is the right path and want a buyer-side comparison, see our Best AI Receptionist UK 2026 comparison.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a virtual receptionist cost in the UK?

Virtual receptionist cost in the UK in 2026 runs £19.99–£400 per month depending on whether you pick an AI service or a human-operated one. AI virtual receptionists charge a fixed monthly fee of £19.99–£99 with 24/7 cover included. Traditional human services charge £50–£400 per month and usually layer per-call (£1–£2) or per-minute (80p–£1.50) fees on top.

How much is a virtual receptionist per month?

Per month, AI virtual receptionists in the UK cost £19.99 at the starter tier, £49–£79 at the growth tier and £99–£199 at the premium tier — all fixed-fee with unlimited calls. Human-operated services run £50–£100 at entry tiers, £100–£200 mid-tier, and £200–£400+ for premium dedicated-receptionist packages.

How much is a virtual receptionist per hour?

Per-hour pricing is rare in the UK virtual receptionist market. When quoted, human call-centre rates are typically £25–£40 per effective hour of talk time. An AI virtual receptionist works out to roughly £4 per hour of equivalent handling time — about a tenth of human cost — because the monthly fee covers unlimited calls.

How much is a virtual receptionist per call?

Traditional human virtual receptionist services in the UK typically charge £1–£2 per call answered. A business taking 100 calls a month would pay £100–£200. AI virtual receptionists don't charge per call — the monthly fee covers all calls, so cost per call effectively drops to pence at any reasonable volume.

Is there a cheap virtual receptionist option for UK small business?

Yes. The cheapest virtual receptionist in the UK is an AI tier starting at £19.99/month with 24/7 cover and appointment booking included. The cheapest human-operated option is alldayPA at roughly £30–£100/month, but excludes most 24/7 cover. For under-30-calls-a-month volumes, both work; above that, AI is consistently cheaper.

What's included in the headline price for a virtual receptionist?

With AI services, the headline price usually includes unlimited calls, 24/7 cover, appointment booking and SMS confirmations. With human services the headline price often excludes out-of-hours cover (+£30–£100/mo), appointment booking (+£20–£50/mo), setup fees (£50–£200 one-off), call recording (+£20–£40/mo) and dedicated-operator premiums. Always ask for an everything-in monthly figure.

From the Orval team

If any of this matched what you were already thinking — see what Orval would cost for your business.

See pricing