Every option we could find, with real published prices, and an honest note on who each one suits. Including the ones cheaper than us, and the situations where you shouldn't pick us.
Kraftweb is one of the services on this page. We're a Brisbane business and we're the most expensive option listed. We wrote this because every other comparison of AI receptionists we could find was written by someone selling one, and none of them mentioned a competitor by name or a price. We've included both. Check the prices yourself before you buy anything — they change.
The market splits into three tiers, and the difference between them isn't the AI. It's who does the work.
Most people asking "what's the best AI receptionist" are really asking "how much of this do I have to do myself." That's the whole decision.
| Service | From | Setup | Free trial | Who builds it | Based |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hey Jodie | $99/mo | None | 7 days | You do | Check their footer |
| TransferToAI | $99/mo | None | 14 days | You do | Australia |
| Valory | $149/mo | Varies | Ask | You do, with help | Australia |
| Nexwin | $249/mo | Varies | 7 days | You do, with help | Australia |
| Sophiie.ai | ~$300/mo | ~$800 | Ask | They do | Australia |
| Kraftweb | $497/mo | None | 30 days | We do, weekly | Brisbane |
| Human answering service | $1,000–2,500/mo | Varies | Rare | They do | Mixed |
The cheapest serious option, with unlimited minutes at every tier and published pricing. Self-serve, so you build and maintain the script yourself.
The longest free trial in the category and no sales call required to start. Self-serve.
Sits between the budget tools and the managed services, with more setup assistance than the $99 options.
Higher entry price with more capability included, and a trial so you can test it against real calls.
The most established Australian player, and the setup fee reflects that they build it for you rather than handing you a dashboard.
We're the most expensive on this page and we should explain why anyone would pay it.
We build your receptionist around your services, hours and suburbs, then tune it every week based on the actual calls. You never open a dashboard or write a script.
The part nobody else does: we chase you until the lead is called back. Every other service on this list texts you the lead and stops there. Around 85% of callers who can't reach you first time never book, even if you ring back later — so catching the lead isn't the job, the callback is. We nudge you at fifteen minutes, again at thirty, then escalate to your second contact. At the end of the month you get every lead listed with how fast it was called back, and the ones that were dropped.
On the higher plan we also text tomorrow's appointments a reminder from your own calendar, handle the reply, and tell you by 8am who hasn't confirmed so you can fill the slot.
Ask for the number, not the headline rate. Per-minute billing is where the advertised price stops being the real price.
This is the actual difference between tiers. The voice quality is broadly similar now. What varies is whether an AI saying the wrong thing to your customer is your problem to solve or someone else's.
Scroll to the bottom of any provider's website and read the company details. Several services marketed to Australian businesses with Australian flags are registered overseas. That matters if you're a medical, dental, veterinary or legal practice, because the recordings are your patients' and clients' calls.
Most of this category makes you register or book a demo first. Ask for a number you can ring, and talk to it like one of your own customers. Ninety seconds tells you more than any comparison page, including this one.
Talk to it like one of your own customers — a burst pipe, a sick pet, a booking enquiry. Ninety seconds and you'll know whether a managed service is worth the difference.
Self-serve AI answering starts around $99 a month. AI plus booking runs $150–300. Fully managed services, where a person builds and maintains it for you, run $500–2,500. Check whether per-minute charges apply beyond an included allowance — that's where quoted prices and real bills diverge.
Hey Jodie and TransferToAI both start at $99 a month with no setup fee. Both are self-serve, so you write and maintain the script yourself.
The voice quality is now good enough that most callers don't realise. The failure point is almost never the voice — it's the script. An AI receptionist is only as good as the instructions it's given, which is why self-serve and managed options produce such different outcomes from similar technology.
Most won't, unless they ask. Any reputable service will have it admit to being AI when asked directly — ours does. Be wary of any provider that claims their AI will deny it.
Depends entirely on the provider. Read the company details in the website footer. If you handle sensitive caller information — medical, dental, veterinary, legal — ask directly where recordings and transcripts are stored, and whether the provider is bound by the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).
No, with any provider on this list. You divert your existing number, which takes about thirty seconds with your telco or on the handset, and you can switch it off any time.
Prices were taken from each provider's public pricing page. We've named competitors and included the ones cheaper than us because a comparison that only flatters the author is worthless to a reader.
If we've got a price wrong, or you run one of these services and want a correction, email hello@kraftweb.co and we'll fix it. If a cheaper option genuinely suits you better, take it — we'd rather you found the right thing here than the wrong thing from us.