Best Virtual Receptionist UK in 2026: 8 Compared on Real Cost

Looking for the best virtual receptionist in the UK? We compared 8 services, people and AI, on what they cost at 100 calls a month, when they answer and what you sign.

Our pick for most small businesses is Jodie. It answers every call, day and night, for a flat £49 a month with unlimited minutes.

Jodie is our own product, so we also show where others win, like Voco for very quiet phones and Moneypenny if you want a person on every call.

Key takeaways

What a virtual receptionist actually is (and what it is not)

A virtual receptionist is a person or an AI that answers your business phone from somewhere else, in your company's name, and passes on what the caller needs.

You may also see it called a virtual telephone receptionist, a virtual phone receptionist, an outsourced or online receptionist, receptionist services or a virtual answering service.

A good one does five jobs:

• Answers in your business name.
• Takes the caller's name, number and reason for calling.
• Books appointments into your diary.
• Puts urgent calls through to your mobile.
• Covers evenings and bank holidays, if your plan does.

Human, AI or hybrid: the three types

Every service on this page is one of three types:

• Human: a person at an agency. Moneypenny, JAM and Face For Business use trained staff. People handle unusual or upset callers better.
• AI: software that talks to the caller. Jodie and Voco answer every call at once. They cost the same at 3am as at 3pm.
• Hybrid: both. Moneypenny AI and Smith.ai answer with AI first, then hand hard calls to a human.

What a virtual receptionist is not

It is easy to mix these up. A virtual receptionist is not:

• A virtual assistant. A VA does admin and email, not your phone line.
• Voicemail. The caller talks to someone, and the job gets written down.
• A phone menu. Nobody is told to "press 1".
• A virtual office. Some providers sell a business address too, but that is a different thing.
• Someone at your office door. It cannot greet visitors or sign for parcels.

If you only need messages taken, our guide to telephone answering services compares that market.

Still deciding between a person and an AI? Read AI receptionists vs answering services.

How we ranked these virtual receptionists

We scored every service on six things you can check yourself:

• Cost at 100 calls a month. That is 100 calls of 2 minutes each (200 minutes) from 100 different callers. We used the cheapest published plan for that volume, before VAT, and show any setup fee on its own.
• What the cheapest plan includes. Messages only, or booking and transfers too.
• Hours covered. Does the cheapest plan answer 24/7, or office hours and then voicemail?
• Contract and notice. The minimum term, and how long it takes to leave.
• Free trial. Can you test it with real calls before you pay?
• Who answers. A person, an AI, or both.

We took every price and term from each provider's own website in October 2026. Where a provider does not publish a figure, we say so instead of guessing.

Jodie is our product. We ranked it first because it wins on cost and hours for most small businesses, and we say plainly where another service is the better buy.

The best virtual receptionists in the UK in 2026

Here are 8 services, people and AI, for owner-run and small UK businesses. Each one is the best virtual receptionist service for a certain kind of business and budget.

Every entry starts with the facts. Then it says who the service suits, and one thing to watch out for.

1. Jodie, best for owner-run businesses that miss calls while they work

Jodie is an AI receptionist. It answers in your business name, asks the questions you set and takes down the job.

What you get

• Every call answered 24/7 on every plan, bank holidays included.
• A summary after every call, by email. The call also sits in the Jodie app, with the recording and transcript.
• Set-up in under 10 minutes. Jodie learns your business from your website. You keep your number and divert your calls to Jodie.
• A greeting you choose. Your opening line can tell callers it is an AI and that the call may be recorded.

What it costs

• Basic, £49 a month: unlimited minutes, under fair use of up to 1,000 calls a month. The price does not move with your calls, so 50, 100 or 200 calls all cost £49.
• Professional, £99 a month: adds booking, call transfers and team members.
• Premium, £199 a month: adds priority support and links to other apps through Zapier, so call details can reach your CRM.
• No lock-in: month to month, with no setup fee, and you can cancel any time. Paying yearly gets you two months free. All prices are ex VAT.

Watch out for: Jodie is an AI, not a person, and booking and transfers need Professional at £99, not the £49 Basic plan.

2. Moneypenny, best for firms that want a named person (or AI with people behind it)

Moneypenny is one of the best-known UK names for human receptionists. It gives you a named PA (personal assistant): a real person who learns your business and answers in your name.

What you get

• A PA in office hours. Its Telephone Answering service runs 8.30am to 6pm as standard. After that, callers go to voicemail unless you pay for evening, weekend or 24/7 cover.
• Moneypenny AI, 24/7. It answers first, books appointments and routes calls. It can pass calls to a PA if you also have a PA answering plan.
• A quick start on AI. Moneypenny says it can be live in days.
• A free trial of the answering service.

What it costs

• Message taking: from £55 a month for weekdays 9am to 5pm. 24/7 cover starts at an extra £35 a month.
• Moneypenny AI: from £25 for 25 calls, plus a one-off setup fee it does not publish.
• Telephone Answering: a quote made for your business, so we could not work out a cost at 100 calls. Plans are bundles of minutes or calls, with extra charges once you go over. Time is rounded up to the next 30 seconds.
• Contract: schemes up to 150 minutes have a 3-month minimum, then 1 month's notice. Bigger schemes run 6 or 12 months, with 3 months' notice.

Watch out for: you need a quote to know the real monthly bill, and nights cost extra.

3. Voco, best for quiet phones and pay as you go

Voco is a UK AI receptionist that charges by the minute. It bills by the second.

What you get

• Every feature on every plan, including calendar booking and rules for putting urgent calls through. Jodie needs its £99 plan for booking and transfers.
• Free short calls. Calls under 10 seconds, and spam calls it filters out, cost nothing.
• A spend cap that stops the bill running away. Once you reach it, Voco stops charging for extra minutes but keeps answering.
• No lock-in. There is no contract, no notice period and no setup fee. Voco does not publish a free trial for calls.

What it costs

• Pay as you go: 29p a minute, with no monthly fee.
• Starter: £49 a month for 175 minutes, which Voco says is about 132 short calls. Each extra minute costs 28p.
• Spend cap on Starter: it starts at £20. So the most you pay on Starter, at the starting cap, is £69 a month.
• At 100 two-minute calls: £56 on Starter, or £58 on pay as you go. Prices are ex VAT.

Watch out for: above about 84 two-minute calls a month, Jodie's flat £49 costs less.

4. Face For Business, best for small firms that want UK people on a short trial

Face For Business is a UK answering service with PAs in Burscough, Lancashire. It says it uses no AI at all, so a real person picks up whenever it is open.

What you get

• PAs on the phones 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday, 9am to 5.30pm on Saturday and 10am to 4pm on Sunday. Outside those hours, callers reach voicemail.
• A 7-day free trial, with no setup fees.

What it costs

• Taster: from £49 a month, covering core business hours.
• Inclusive Minutes: from £115 a month. This is the plan that adds evening and weekend cover.
• Rates not published. Taster and Inclusive Minutes are billed by the second, and Message Only is a set price per call. Face For Business does not publish those rates, so we could not work out a cost at 100 calls. Ask for them before you sign.
• Contract: its pricing page says there is a 90-day minimum term. After that, it rolls every 30 days, and you give 30 days' notice to leave.

Watch out for: late-night callers reach voicemail, so a 10pm emergency waits until the morning.

5. AnswerConnect, best for a person on the line around the clock

AnswerConnect is a large answering service with people on the phones 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. A person answers at 2am, which no AI-only service can offer.

What you get

• Bundles of minutes: a 25-minute plan, then plans of 50, 75, 150, 250 and 350 minutes.
• Month to month terms. We found no free trial on its website.

What it costs

• From £45 a month for the 25-minute plan it has published. Its full plan list now sits behind a sign-up form, so check the latest prices with AnswerConnect.
• Extra minutes: £1.85 each on the 25 and 50-minute plans, or £1.75 above that.
• Setup: the Entry and Standard plans add a £49.99 setup fee. Growth does not.
• At 100 two-minute calls you use 200 minutes. The cheapest way to cover them is the 250-minute Growth plan, at about £245 a month. AnswerConnect also counts after-call work as billable minutes, so the real bill can be higher than the talk time suggests.

Watch out for: your minutes include the time spent writing up each call, not just the time on the phone.

6. JAM, best for UK PAs 24/7 without a long contract

JAM is a UK answering service with PAs in Borehamwood. It answers 24/7, 365 days a year, at no extra cost, while some human services, like Moneypenny, charge extra for nights.

What you get

• More than messages. JAM can take messages, transfer calls, book appointments and take orders for you.
• A 30-day rolling agreement, not a long contract. If it stops working for you, you are not stuck with it for a year.
• A UK person on every call, nights and weekends included, on a deal you can leave quickly.

What it costs

• From £35 a month, JAM says. Each plan is built around your business.
• Usage rate not published. JAM does not publish its rate per call or per minute, so we could not work out what 100 calls would cost.
• Trial and setup fee not published. Ask about both before you sign.

Watch out for: you only learn the per-call or per-minute rate from a quote.

7. AllDayPA, best for a quoted plan billed per call or per minute

AllDayPA is a UK telephone answering service with a human team. It answers 24/7, takes messages and forwards them to you.

What you get

• Messages passed on to you. Ask how each message reaches you, and how fast.
• A useful choice of billing. You choose whether to pay per call or per minute.

What it costs

• Price on quote. There is no price list on its website.
• Per call suits long calls, because a 6-minute call costs the same as a 1-minute one.
• Per minute suits lots of short calls.
• Terms not published. AllDayPA does not publish a free trial, a contract length or a setup fee. So we could not score it on cost at 100 calls, or on its terms.

Watch out for: nothing about price, trial or notice is on its website, so ask for all three in writing.

8. Smith.ai, best for AI first with live people behind it (billed in US dollars)

Smith.ai is a US company that sells both AI and live receptionists. Its AI can hand a hard call to a live receptionist based in North America, so you get AI speed with a person behind it.

What you get

• 24/7 answering on both the AI plans and the plans with live people.
• Month to month AI plans, but you give 30 days' notice to leave.
• A 30-day money-back promise on the plans with live people, up to US$1,000. It does not cover extra calls.

What it costs

• Free AI plan: 25 calls a month, then US$3.00 a call.
• AI Pro: US$150 for 75 calls, then about US$2.50 a call. At 100 calls, that is about US$212.50.
• Live receptionists: from US$300 for 30 calls, with US$11.50 for each extra call on Starter. At 100 calls, that is about US$915.
• Billed per call, in US dollars. There is no price list in pounds, so what you pay will move with the exchange rate.

Watch out for: every call counts, so a busy month costs more, and the bill is in dollars.

Other options we looked at

These providers came up often when we looked at the UK market, but did not make our top 8.

Team-Connect is a phone system with an AI receptionist built in, not an answering service.

• Lite: £19.99 a month with 30 AI minutes.
• Business Pro: £79.99 with 250 AI minutes. At 100 two-minute calls, that is £79.99.
• Extra AI minutes come in packs, such as 150 for £34.99.
• VAT: it does not say whether its prices include VAT.

Ruby is a US live receptionist service billed in dollars. See Jodie vs Ruby.

• US$250 a month for 50 minutes, or US$720 for 200 minutes.
• No setup fees, and 24/7 cover.
• UK customers: its website does not say it takes them, so ask first.

Posh is a US live answering company with a UK website. So if you have wondered what a Posh virtual receptionist is, that is the company.

• Chic plan: £50 a month plus £1.50 a minute.
• At 100 two-minute calls, its 200-minute plan costs about £254.
• Hours: it answers 24/7.

RingCentral sells an AI receptionist as an add-on to its business phone system. It suits firms that already use RingCentral for their phones. See Jodie vs RingCentral.

Virtual receptionists compared side by side (UK)

Here is the virtual receptionist comparison for the UK, using the six things from our method.

How to read the table

• Cost at 100 calls means 100 calls of 2 minutes each, before VAT, on the cheapest plan that covers them.
• Setup fees are extra.
• Quotes: three of the human services only tell you the real monthly cost in a quote.

Which virtual receptionist fits your business?

Find the row that sounds most like you. The pick is the one we would choose for that kind of business and call volume.

Before you sign: five questions to ask

1. What hours do your customers actually call, and what happens after the plan's hours?
2. Will it ask the questions your trade needs, such as the postcode, how urgent the job is, and whether it is a new or existing customer?
3. How fast does the message reach you, and how?
4. What will it cost at your call volume, including setup fees and minimum terms?
5. Can you try it with real calls first, and does it connect to your calendar or CRM?

During any trial, ring it yourself, out of hours too, and ask it something awkward. You will learn more in five minutes than from any sales call.

What results look like: the monthly bill at 50, 100 and 200 calls

Say 100 people ring you in a month, and each call lasts 2 minutes. That is 200 minutes.

Here is what that month costs, before VAT:

• Jodie: £49.
• Voco: £56 on Starter, or £58 on pay as you go.
• AnswerConnect: about £245.
• Smith.ai: about US$212.50 on its AI plan.
• Ruby: US$720.

Now change the number of calls. The table shows the same two-minute calls at 50, 100 and 200 a month.

All prices are before VAT, except that Team-Connect does not say whether its prices include VAT.

What the numbers show

• Below about 84 calls of 2 minutes a month, Voco's pay as you go costs less than Jodie.
• Above that, Jodie's flat £49 wins, and it stays £49 up to 1,000 calls.
• If you need booking and transfers, Jodie's Professional plan is £99, while Voco has both on every plan. So if you need both, Voco Starter costs less than Jodie at every volume in the table.

A flat price does not grow with your calls. Per-minute bills grow with every minute, and per-call bills with every call.

On a per-minute plan, one 6-minute call costs three times as much as a 2-minute one. On Jodie, it costs nothing extra.

Here is what owners who use Jodie say about it.

Try Jodie free for 7 days

Here is how it works:

1. Set Jodie up in under 10 minutes from your website.
2. Divert your calls to it and keep your number.
3. Jodie answers every call, day and night, and emails you a summary with the recording and transcript.

You pay nothing for 7 days, and you do not need a card. If it is not right for you, cancel before then and you pay nothing.

Start your free trial and ring your own number to hear it.