An AI receptionist against hiring someone
One of them greets the person at the counter and does the other ninety per cent of the job. The other one answers at seven on a Saturday.
That is our own line, answered by the same system this page is comparing. Ask it for a quote.
The short answer
WorkBC puts annual earnings for a receptionist in British Columbia at $37,670 CAD a year, and says the hours are generally Monday to Friday. Ours is $97 CAD a month plus a one-time $297, and it answers at seven on a Saturday. A person can do a hundred things our AI cannot. If those hundred things are the job, hire the person. If answering the phone is the job, this is cheaper and it is awake.
What a front desk actually costs
WorkBC’s Receptionists profile publishes annual earnings of $37,670 CAD a year in British Columbia. The provincial hourly rate on the same profile is $24.00 CAD an hour median, $30.00 high. For reference, the general minimum wage in BC is $18.25 CAD an hour.
The wage is not the whole cost. An employer also carries:
- CPP and EI contributions
- WorkSafeBC premiums
- Statutory vacation pay
- The cost of hiring, training, and eventually replacing someone
We have not put a dollar total on those, because we could not source one. They are real, and the figure above is the wage alone.
Sources: WorkBC's Receptionists career profile and the Government of British Columbia, checked 20 July 2026. All prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude tax.
Where hiring someone beats us
Four things a person does that our AI does not, with nothing attached to soften them.
A person greets the customer who walks in the door.
Ours cannot. If somebody has to be at the front when the door opens, that is a person's job and no software changes it.
A person does the other ninety per cent of a front-desk job.
The filing, the follow-up, the supplier who needs chasing, the thing you forgot. Answering the phone is one line on that list.
A person exercises judgement.
They remember that this customer's mother was ill last month, and they know when the rule should be bent. Ours follows the rules you gave it and escalates the rest.
A person can be trained on anything.
You explain it once and it is learned, including the parts nobody wrote down. Ours has to be configured, and anything it has not been configured for goes to you.
The two ways to answer the phone
Sources: WorkBC's Receptionists career profile, checked 20 July 2026. Employer costs above wages are real and are not included in that figure. All prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude tax.
This is not an argument for firing anyone
Almost everyone who reads this page is in one of two situations, and neither of them is about removing a person.
In the first, there is no front desk. There is you, a phone in a pocket, and a voicemail box that callers hang up on. The decision is not whether to keep someone; it is whether the next step is a salary you are not sure the year can carry.
In the second, there is a front desk, and it is working. The calls being lost are the ones that arrive after that person has gone home. WorkBC’s own line on the job is plain: “Most receptionists work in office settings. Hours are generally Monday to Friday.”
Which is the case where you buy both. The person works the week and does the hundred things a person does; the AI takes the call that comes in at seven in the evening, which is exactly the call the wage was never going to cover.
Sources: WorkBC's Receptionists career profile, checked 20 July 2026.
Hire someone if this is you
Hiring is the right buy when
- Customers come to your premises and someone needs to be there.
- The phone is a small part of a job that is mostly other things.
- You have the volume of administrative work to justify a salary.
- You want someone who can be handed anything.
Ours is the right buy when
- You are on the tools and cannot pick up.
- Your calls come outside office hours as often as inside.
- You need the phone answered but you do not need a desk staffed.
- A salary is not something you can commit to this year.
The questions this comparison raises
If they ask, it tells them the truth: it says it is an assistant for your business and carries on. It does not pretend to be a person and it does not perform a personality. What it is configured to do is answer the question, quote inside the ranges you set, book the job, and hand anything it has not been given an answer for straight to you. We are not going to claim callers cannot tell.
It hands them to you. You write the rules for what counts as urgent, and those calls route to your mobile while the caller is still on the line. Everything else is recorded, transcribed and summarised.
Yes, and it is a common order to do it in. The configuration stays as it is; when the person starts, calls in their hours can ring the desk first and fall through to the AI when nobody picks up, and the AI keeps the evenings, the weekends and the overflow. Nothing gets rebuilt.
For most of the people who buy it, no, because there is no job there to replace. They have a phone that nobody answers and a voicemail box that callers hang up on. Where there is a front desk, the honest version is that this takes the calls that arrive when that person is not at work, and the desk keeps the hundred other things it does.
Calls past 75 a month bill at $0.75 CAD each. Spam and wrong numbers don't count. You can see the running count in your dashboard all month. All prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude tax.
One-year term, billed monthly. At the end of the year it renews for another twelve months at the then-current rate, unless you tell us before it does. You are billed monthly at the published price the whole way through. If you leave before the term is up, early termination is 3 months of the monthly subscription: $291 CAD at $97 a month. The one-time implementation fee covers work already delivered and is not refunded. If you want to talk through a case this does not cover, call 236-500-MANN and we will tell you straight rather than point you at a terms page.
The whole number, in one place.
$97CAD a month
One-time $297 implementation fee
One-year term, billed monthly. At the end of the year it renews for another twelve months at the then-current rate, unless you tell us before it does.
Included: 75 calls a month. Past that, $0.75 CAD per call. Spam and wrong numbers do not count.
We don't stop configuring until your AI receptionist answers every call, quotes accurately, and books the job. If it's not right in your first 30 days, we keep working at no extra charge until it is, implementation fee included.
No hourly billing. No mystery quotes. No surprise invoice.
All prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude tax.
If you are busier than that
75 calls is two or three a day. A month where the phone rings 150 times costs $97 plus $56.25. You see the count in your dashboard all month, so it never arrives as a surprise.
$297 CAD to start, then $97/mo on a one-year term.
We don't stop configuring until your AI receptionist answers every call, quotes accurately, and books the job. If it's not right in your first 30 days, we keep working at no extra charge until it is, implementation fee included.
One-year term, billed monthly. At the end of the year it renews for another twelve months at the then-current rate, unless you tell us before it does.
If you leave before the term is up, early termination is 3 months of the monthly subscription: $291 CAD at $97 a month. The one-time implementation fee covers work already delivered and is not refunded.
Still weighing the other options? An answering service against ours is the other comparison people read beside this one.