Phone answering cost comparison: three options for small businesses
Your own secretary, an outsourced answering service, or an AI answering service. Each has its own price, its own strengths, and its own limits. Here's a comparison by service type and cost.
Phone answering is one of the first touchpoints between a customer and a business. How the call is handled affects whether the customer continues with the business or moves on to the next one. Yet in many small businesses, the setup evolved over time without any real comparison or planning.
Small businesses usually choose from three options. Let's compare them by service type and cost.
Option 1: Your own secretary or office staff
The most traditional model. The company has a person whose duties include answering calls. This could be an office secretary, a receptionist, or an assistant who handles phone answering as part of a broader role.
Real monthly cost:
- Salary (gross): roughly €2,300–2,800
- Employer costs (pension, social security, insurance, roughly 30-33%): roughly €700-900
- Need for a summer or sick-leave substitute: extra cost or service gap
- Recruiting and onboarding when staff changes: one-time or recurring cost
Total cost is typically €3,000-4,000 per month, and it's tied to a single person.
The service only works during office hours. In the evenings, on weekends, and during sick leave, the phone rings unanswered. Depending on company size, that person may also have plenty of other duties, so calls don't always get answered even during the day.
Fits: businesses where there's enough other work to fill the same person's day, and where customer interactions require deep, company-specific knowledge.
Option 2: Outsourced answering service
The business outsources call answering to an external provider. Their agents answer calls on your company's behalf and pass on messages according to an agreed process.
Typical cost: €200-800 per month depending on volume, service level, and how broadly the service covers hours outside the office day. Overtime charges are common.
A human answers the call, and availability can be extended outside office hours. The agent, however, doesn't know your business or industry in depth. Responses tend to be generic: name, matter, and number are logged, and the message is forwarded. Industry-specific knowledge is missing.
Fits: businesses where a human voice matters but industry-specific depth isn't a top requirement.
Option 3: AI answering service
The modern option, where a smart answering service handles calls on the business's behalf, has a natural conversation, and collects exactly the information the business needs.
Cost: Puhebotti €99/month, including 120 minutes of talk time per month. Extra minutes €0.29/min.
The service is available 24/7, including evenings, weekends, and holidays. No gaps for vacation or sick leave. Puhebotti is tailored to your industry: it collects the details that matter for your specific business, such as address, urgency, or type of job.
Every call produces an email summary: the caller's name, matter, and collected details, clearly logged. Calls are also recorded as audio, so quality can be reviewed afterward.
Puhebotti always tells callers it's AI. Most callers respond neutrally or positively, especially when the matter is handled smoothly.
Fits: small businesses with regular call volume that want a cost-effective, always-available solution without recruiting risk.
Comparison at a glance
| Own staff | Outsourced service | AI answering service | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost/month | ~€3,000-4,000 | €200-800 | €99 |
| Availability | Office hours | Extendable | 24/7 |
| Industry knowledge | High | Low | High (customized) |
| Vacation and sick leave | Service gap | No gap | No gap |
| Setup time | Weeks | Days | 2-3 days |
Which fits you?
Your own staff makes sense when phone answering is just part of a broader role and the company is large enough that the total workload fills a full-time position. Then the cost spreads across many duties, not just answering the phone.
An outsourced answering service is a compromise. A human voice is kept, but industry-specific knowledge is missing. It can work as a temporary solution or a complement during peak periods.
An AI answering service is an option especially when call volume is regular, matters repeat in similar patterns, and the business wants every call to produce a usable summary. Availability doesn't break down due to staff changes or vacation periods.
A combination often works best
The options aren't mutually exclusive. In many businesses, an AI answering service works best as a complement: a human answers when they can, and AI takes the call when the line is busy, the person is in a meeting, or the office is closed.
This matters especially for winning new customers. When a new customer calls for the first time, they have no relationship with the business yet and no reason to wait. If the call goes unanswered, they call the next business on the results page. A missed call costs more than most people think.
An AI answering service activates through call forwarding: it only steps in once a human doesn't answer within a set number of rings. Day-to-day operations don't change, but no call goes unanswered.
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