How much does a virtual receptionist cost?
Estimate the real monthly bill from your call minutes and plan rate — then see what a flat-rate AI can take off the receptionist's plate.
Your numbers.
Total talk time you'd hand off. A 3-minute average call × 50 calls is 150 minutes.
Plans commonly work out to about $2–$3 per minute.
Some services charge one; set to 0 if not.
What that receptionist costs.
Estimated from your inputs. Overage rates not included.
This estimates a typical minutes-based plan from your inputs; real quotes vary and overages add up in busy months. A virtual receptionist covers your phone; Zurvo covers your website — answering questions and capturing leads 24/7 at a flat price.
Start your 3-day trialComparing a simpler message-taking service instead? Use the answering service cost calculator.
How virtual receptionist pricing works.
Virtual receptionist services sell monthly plans built on included minutes, and the arithmetic usually lands around $2–$3 per minute of live answering — more than a basic answering service, because you're paying for front-office skills: warm greetings, appointment handling, transfers. Watch how minutes are counted (many round up per call), what spam calls cost you, and what the overage rate is once plan minutes run out.
Because billing follows talk time, the cost curve follows your busiest months. That's worth it for calls that genuinely need a person — and wasted on the ones that don't.
Shrink what the receptionist has to handle.
A big share of front-office time goes to questions your website already answers badly: hours, prices, services, service areas. Zurvo learns your website and answers those visitors 24/7 — collecting the name and number when someone wants follow-up and emailing you the lead — from $39/mo flat. The receptionist handles the calls that need a human; the website stops generating the rest. See pricing or try it live.
Virtual receptionist cost FAQs
How much does a virtual receptionist cost?
Virtual receptionist services usually sell monthly plans with a block of included minutes — commonly somewhere around $2–$3 per minute once you do the division, so a 100-minute plan often lands in the $200–$300 range, with overage rates above it. Put your own minutes into the calculator above for a real estimate.
What’s the difference between a virtual receptionist and an answering service?
Overlapping ideas, different depth. An answering service takes messages at volume; a virtual receptionist typically acts more like front-office staff — warmer scripts, appointment handling, call transfers — and charges more per minute for it. If you’re comparing the message-taking end, see our answering service cost calculator.
How much does an AI receptionist cost?
AI pricing is usually flat instead of per-minute. Zurvo, for example, answers your website visitors 24/7 — questions, lead capture, and email alerts — from $39/mo regardless of how busy the month gets. It doesn’t answer phone calls, so it complements rather than impersonates a phone receptionist.
Do I still need a receptionist if I use Zurvo?
For the phone line, maybe — Zurvo doesn’t take calls. But much of a receptionist’s day is answering the same questions your website already gets: hours, prices, services, directions. Zurvo handles those on the website around the clock and hands you the lead, which shrinks what you need the phone coverage for.
What should I watch for in a virtual receptionist quote?
How minutes are counted (rounded up per call?), what happens to spam and wrong numbers, overage rates once your plan minutes run out, after-hours coverage costs, and setup fees. Per-minute billing means your busiest months are your most expensive ones.
Give your website its own receptionist.
Point Zurvo at your website and try it free for 3 days. Set up in about five minutes.