AI receptionist for tradespeople in the UK: phone answering, costs, and call recording

Prices on the companies' own pages

Three software suppliers publish enough to compare. One well-known UK name does not publish a menu. A staffed UK service is here so the monthly figure has something to sit beside. Read the unit each one counts. A low month with a sharp overage is not a low month.

Moneypenny, UK. The AI Receptionist page (opens in a new tab) says the service works 24 hours, takes messages, books appointments and qualifies leads. You keep your number and divert to one they provide. Summaries can arrive by email, text, or both. If a call needs a person, Moneypenny says it can pass the call to their receptionists or to your team. The FAQ does not print a plan price. It says pricing is built around what you need, and that the next step is to talk to them. It also says the service is often up to 65% less than their people-first answering. That 65% is their comparison, not a sum done here. Moneypenny says the product is GDPR-compliant. Your duty to the caller is covered below.

Smith.ai, in US dollars. The pricing page (opens in a new tab) lists a free plan at $0 a month for 25 calls, then $3 a call. Pro is $150 a month at $2 a call. The table shows 75 included calls on that column and an extra-call rate of $2.50, with larger bundles beside it. Enterprise is $500 a month at $1.67 a call, with a 300-call column. Handling is 24/7, and the feature list includes recording, transcription and summaries. The FAQ says it is month to month, with 30 days' notice to cancel. Live backup is described as a North America-based receptionist. There is no pound price. Your card provider converts the dollars.

Spam matters. Smith.ai says every call the receptionist answers counts towards the quota by default. Spam on a list they keep is filtered first and does not count. They also say you can remove up to 10% of calls from the bill each cycle for selected spam. Nuisance calls can still use the free 25.

Goodcall, in US dollars. The pricing page (opens in a new tab) bills by unique customer: one phone number, once in a month. The same person ringing five times is one. Spam and wrong numbers do not count. Starter is $79 a month for 100 unique customers, then 79 cents each. Growth is $129 for 500, then 26 cents. Scale is $299 for 2,000, then 15 cents. The page says it does not meter minutes. Call history is 30 days on Starter, 90 on Growth, and unlimited on Scale. A local number is included, or you can forward your existing one. You can build a demo and pay when you connect a number. If another Goodcall page shows different allowances, use the pricing page and ask which one they will bill.

ReceptionHQ, people answering, in pounds. This is a different product. ReceptionHQ's pricing page (opens in a new tab) says message-taking starts from £15 a month, plus VAT, with staff rather than software as the thing the caller hears. The terms (opens in a new tab) say quoted prices exclude VAT. MessageExpress with no calls included is £15 a month and £1.10 a call. A bundle of 25 calls is £25 a month, still £1.10 after that. MyReceptionist with no calls included is £16 a month and £1.35 a call. A bundle of 25 is £36. The pricing page says 24/7 cover is included, with no after-hours surcharge. The terms also say they may use software for parts of the work, including spam filtering, greetings and directing calls. You are still buying a staffed service, and the per-call line decides the bill.

Compare the unit, not the headline. Smith.ai counts calls. Goodcall counts phone numbers. ReceptionHQ counts staffed calls in pounds, plus VAT. Moneypenny shows a figure only when you ask.

What you gain, and what stays with you

You get an answer when you cannot pick up, the same questions each time, and a text you can read at the lights. A diary booking only helps if that diary is the one you use.

The tool does not know you are booked until you block the time. Check a house number before you drive. A booking is not a quote: if Tuesday is only a look, say so when you ring back. Dollar prices move against the pound without a tariff change. Recordings are personal information, covered below. You still ring back.

How to choose

Ring the trial yourself. On the test call, correct a postcode, describe a job you do not take, ask for a price, ask for a person, describe something urgent, and try to book a day you have marked full. Then read the transcript. A wrong address means it is not ready.

On the pricing page, check what is counted, what the next unit costs, whether spam counts, and how you cancel. Check that the van number can stay on divert, that the diary is one you will open, and when recordings disappear. Goodcall prints 30, 90, or unlimited days of history by plan. That is their limit until you accept it.

If you only want a message on site, skip booking and connections you will not use. If you want a person every time, compare ReceptionHQ's bundles with a quote for a staffed service, not with a software plan. Keep the first week on a divert you can switch off.

Recording the call: what the ICO says

A transcript of a householder describing damp, plus a phone number and an address, is personal information. If you employ anyone, a recording of them on the phone is information about them too.

The ICO's guidance on monitoring workers, in the telephone section (opens in a new tab), says it is not usually proportionate to record the content of calls in all cases. It says you could monitor business calls if that is necessary to provide evidence of a business transaction, or for training or quality control. Those are examples of a reason, not permission to record every call because the software can.

The same page says you must tell people you are recording, and why. A recorded message is good practice. Where that is not possible, you must tell staff to say it and to explain the reason. The rest of the privacy information, including how long you keep the recording, what rights people have, and who you share it with, can go by email or on a web page. A recording may have to be disclosed if someone makes a subject access request. The ICO says workers should know that.

You need a lawful basis before you handle personal information. The ICO's guide to lawful basis (opens in a new tab) says the bases are in Article 6 of the UK GDPR, that you decide which one applies before you start, that you record why, and that you tell people. This guide does not pick a basis for you. If you have no employees, the worker-monitoring duties are thinner, but the caller is still a person. Tell them.

Write down the reason, the basis, and how long you keep recordings. Keep them only for that reason. If a message is enough, a summary without a stored recording may do. Sales calls you make to other people sit under different rules, in the ICO's guidance on live direct marketing calls (opens in a new tab). Answering your own inbound enquiry is not the same as ringing a bought-in list.

This is not legal advice. If the tool records every customer as standard, read those ICO pages before you divert the number.

A first week that stays tidy

Before you pay, write down the areas you cover, the jobs you do not do, when you will ring back, and what to say to "how much?". That answer is a call-back, not a guessed price.

Make the test calls, then divert the number in work hours first if you can, and read every summary the same day. If one is wrong, ring the customer. Do not send a quote from a transcript you have not checked. The price still comes from the notes in the quoting guide.