Will an AI receptionist pay for itself?
Model it against your real call volume: the hours your team gets back, the after-hours bookings you currently lose, what the AI costs to run on your own keys, and how many days until it is paid off.
Your calls
Defaults suit an appointment-led business. Edit anything.
Roughly 15, 60 or 300 inbound calls a day. Start from the closest and change anything below.
After hours and overflow
Running cost
WhautoVoice plan is picked from the minutes the AI handles: Starter US$39 (3,000 min), Growth US$179 (12,000 min), Scale US$549 (50,000 min). Above an allowance, extra minutes are added in blocks of 1,000 at US$5 (half a cent a minute). There is no overage.
Labour saved plus revenue recovered, minus what the AI costs to run.
Test these numbers on your real phone line for 14 days, free, on your own Twilio and AI engine keys.
Start free trialHow to read this calculator
An AI receptionist earns its keep in two very different ways, and it helps to keep them separate. The first is time: every routine call the AI resolves is a call your front desk does not take, and those minutes add up to real hours a month. The second is revenue: the calls that arrive when nobody is there to answer, which today produce nothing and with an AI answering produce bookings. Most businesses find the second number is larger and more surprising than the first.
Methodology
- AI-handled calls = calls a month x share resolved without a person. The AI also answers the calls it hands off, but the calculator only counts fully resolved calls as labour saved, which is conservative.
- Hours freed = AI-handled calls x average call length. Labour saved = hours freed x loaded hourly cost.
- After-hours revenue = calls a month x share arriving unanswered today x booking conversion x value of a booking.
- AI-handled minutes = calls a month x average call length x share the AI handles. Handed-off calls are counted at half length for the AI portion.
- AI cost = AI-handled minutes x your combined carrier and AI engine rate + the cheapest WhautoVoice plan and blocks of 1,000 extra minutes (US$5 each, half a cent a minute) that cover those minutes. There is no overage. Minutes your team spends on handed-off calls are processed minutes too, inside the plan allowance or half a cent each beyond it, and are not modelled here.
- Net benefit = labour saved + after-hours revenue - AI cost. Return = (labour + revenue) / AI cost. Payback = AI cost / daily benefit.
Sensible defaults by business type
| Business | Calls a month | AI resolves | Value of a booking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dental or medical practice, 1 to 3 chairs | 600 to 1,500 | 60% to 75% | US$150 to US$400 |
| Plumbing, HVAC, electrical | 300 to 1,200 | 50% to 70% | US$250 to US$600 |
| Salon, spa, studio | 500 to 2,000 | 70% to 85% | US$60 to US$150 |
| Restaurant with reservations | 800 to 3,000 | 75% to 90% | US$80 to US$200 per table |
| Estate or letting agent | 400 to 1,500 | 50% to 65% | Viewing value varies widely |
Where the model is conservative, and where it is not
Conservative: it ignores calls the AI answers and then hands off, even though the caller is greeted immediately and the human gets a summary. It ignores the reduction in voicemail chasing, the reviews you do not get from callers who reached a machine, and the fact that a booked appointment often becomes a repeat customer. Not conservative: the containment and conversion rates are yours to set, and a badly prompted AI agent will not hit 60%. Run the trial, read the transcripts, and set the sliders from evidence.
Frequently asked questions
For appointment-led businesses, between half and three quarters of calls are bookings, reschedules, hours, directions and simple questions that a well-configured AI agent resolves without a person. Complaints, clinical questions and anything unusual should hand off to a human. Start at 60% and refine with your own transcripts after the first week.
Usually not, and the calculator does not assume it does. It values the hours your team no longer spends on routine calls, which they spend on patients, customers and the calls that need a person. The clearest return is usually after hours, where the AI takes calls nobody was taking.
A flat plan from US$39 a month plus what your own carrier and AI engine charge for the minutes used, typically a few cents to ten cents per AI-handled minute combined. There is no per-minute markup. Every plan includes a monthly allowance of processed minutes, our fee for handling each call, and extra minutes are half a cent each. See the Voice AI Cost Calculator for a line-by-line comparison with bundled vendors.