The number most small business owners think about is the hourly rate or annual salary. The number that actually matters is the total cost of employment — and those two numbers are further apart than most people realize.
Bureau of Labor Statistics data from May 2025 puts the median receptionist salary at $33,960 per year, or about $16.33 per hour. That's the base number. By the time you add what it actually costs to employ someone, you're looking at something significantly higher.
Median receptionist salary is $33,960/year (BLS, 2025). Total employment cost with benefits is $45,000-50,000/year. A full-time receptionist works 40 hours/week and can handle one call at a time. Live answering services cost $279-500/month with overages. AI receptionists cost $49-199/month, work 24/7, and handle unlimited simultaneous calls. For most small service businesses under 200 calls/week, AI answering provides better coverage at 5-10% of the cost of a human receptionist.
That $45,000-46,000 range buys you coverage from roughly 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. Evenings, weekends, and holidays go unanswered. One person can handle one call at a time — if two calls come in simultaneously, one goes to voicemail. And when they're sick or on vacation, you're back to missing calls entirely.
A part-time receptionist at 20 hours per week costs $15,600-20,800 per year in wages alone, before benefits and taxes. It covers some hours but creates a predictable gap during the rest. For a trade contractor who gets calls throughout the day and after hours, part-time coverage often misses the most valuable call windows — the lunch hour and evenings.
There's also the reliability issue. A part-time employee calls in sick, takes a vacation, or leaves for another job. Finding and training a replacement takes weeks. That's weeks of missed calls during the hiring gap.
| Option | Monthly Cost | Annual Cost | Hours Covered | Concurrent Calls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full-time receptionist | $3,750-3,900 | $45,000-47,000 | Business hours only | 1 |
| Part-time (20hrs/week) | $1,300-1,730 | $15,600-20,800 | Partial hours | 1 |
| Live answering service | $279-500+ | $3,348-6,000+ | 24/7 (with wait times) | Shared agents |
| Virtual receptionist | $100-300 | $1,200-3,600 | Business hours | 1 |
| AI receptionist | $49-199 | $588-2,388 | 24/7, instant | Unlimited |
Live answering services sound like a middle ground — real humans, lower cost than a full employee. The pricing is more complex than it first appears though. AnswerForce starts at $279/month for a base package and charges $2/minute in overages. Smith.ai's human tier starts at $292.50 for just 30 calls, with additional calls at $9.75 each. A busy contractor getting 150 calls per month would pay significantly more than the base rate.
The other issue is quality. Live answering services share their agents across dozens of businesses. The person answering your call doesn't know your business, hasn't met you, and is working from a generic script. For a plumber who needs callers to feel confident about booking, that matters.
At $179/month, Dolfyn costs $2,148 per year — about 4.7% of what a full-time receptionist costs. It answers every call instantly, works 24 hours a day seven days a week, handles unlimited simultaneous calls, and gets reviewed daily to catch and fix any problems.
The coverage difference is significant too. A human receptionist works 2,080 hours per year (40 hours per week, 52 weeks). An AI receptionist works 8,760 hours per year. The additional 6,680 hours of coverage includes every evening, every weekend, every holiday, and every minute the human receptionist was on break, at lunch, or on vacation.
There are situations where a human receptionist is genuinely worth the cost. A business where most calls are complex, emotionally sensitive, or require judgment and relationship-building. A high-volume commercial operation where the quality of every first interaction meaningfully affects contract values. A practice where regulatory or compliance considerations make AI use complicated.
For a residential plumbing company, an HVAC contractor, a pest control business, or a general contractor who primarily gets estimate requests and service calls — the routine call volume that AI handles well covers the vast majority of what a receptionist would actually do. The calls that genuinely need a human can be routed there.
Dolfyn starts at $179/month. Custom-built for your business, reviewed daily, live in a day or two. 2-week free trial, no credit card.
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