AI receptionist vs hiring a receptionist: the full cost breakdown

A full-time receptionist earns a median of $38,010 a year in wages alone, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and covers about 40 of the 168 hours in a week. Benefits and payroll taxes come on top of that wage. Forge Voice plans start at $297 a month and answer around the clock. A person still handles some calls better, and we say which.

We sell an AI receptionist, so read this with that in mind. Every number below comes from a public source we link, or from our own pricing page. Where a line has no reliable public number, we name the cost and leave the figure to you.

What a human receptionist costs

Start with the wage. The median annual wage for receptionists nationally was $38,010 in May 2025, or $18.27 an hour. In Georgia, the median for the same occupation was $36,100.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Receptionists and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics: Georgia, checked September 26, 2026.

The wage is not the whole bill. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also tracks what employers spend on each part of pay. For office and administrative support workers in private industry, wages and salaries were 68.7 percent of the employer's cost in June 2026, and benefits were the other 31.3 percent. Put another way, the paycheck is a bit over two thirds of what that seat costs the business.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, Table 4, June 2026, checked September 26, 2026.

Those benefits include paid leave, supplemental pay, insurance, retirement contributions and the costs the law requires: Social Security, Medicare, federal and state unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation (BLS technical note). The payroll tax part is fixed by law. The employer pays 6.2 percent of wages for Social Security and 1.45 percent for Medicare, matching what is withheld from the employee's check, according to IRS Topic 751.

Then come the costs no government table measures for you:

• Hiring. Job posts, interviews and the calls that go unanswered while the seat is empty.
• Training. Your hours, teaching prices, service area and which calls go to whom.
• Equipment. A desk, a phone and a computer.
• Managing the role. Scheduling, covering lunch and approving time off.
• Doing it again. If the person leaves, you pay for hiring and training a second time.

These vary too much by business for us to price them. Write your own figure next to each line.

Now the coverage. One full-time person works about 40 hours a week, which is 24 percent of the 168 hours in a week. Lunch, sick days and vacation come out of those 40. A call at 7 PM, on a Saturday or on Thanksgiving goes wherever it went before you hired.

What an AI receptionist costs

Our side has fewer lines. You pay a monthly plan, plus any minutes past what the plan includes. Every price is on our pricing page:

No setup fee. No per-caller or per-transfer fees. You pay your plan price plus any minutes past your plan. Each call counts as at least 1 minute. We round each call up to the next full minute. Unused minutes do not carry over.

For a year, the cost is twelve months of the plan you pick, plus extra minutes in any month you go over. There is no benefits line, no payroll tax and no desk, because there is no employee.

What every plan includes: answering 24/7, including nights, weekends and holidays; a new number, or your main line forwarded when you are busy or closed; a voice you choose from a large library of natural voices; every call recorded; and a script our team writes with you and tunes for your first 30 days.

What our team sets up on request: a written summary of each call sent to your inbox; the caller's name, number and job pulled out of each call; answers from your own price sheet, service area and policies; appointment requests that your team confirms; live transfer to your cell for urgent calls; and English and Spanish, or any of 31 languages, switched to automatically.

One honest limit: We work to answer every call sent to your agent. Outages at our phone, voice or AI providers can stop calls from being answered. We promise no uptime unless a signed contract says so.

The two options side by side

Where a person is still the better choice

An AI receptionist is the wrong tool for some calls. We would rather tell you that here than have you find out on a bad call.

• Funeral homes and bereavement. A family calling at 11 PM about a parent who just died needs a human voice. Tone and silence carry that call.
• Practices covered by HIPAA. Forge Voice is not for practices covered by HIPAA today. We do not sign business associate agreements (BAAs). If HIPAA covers your practice, do not use Forge Voice for patient calls.
• High-judgment legal intake. A custody dispute or an immigration emergency needs someone who can hear what is not being said and route the call.
• Long relationships. If your best customers expect the same voice they have heard for ten years, software will not replace her.
• Office knowledge. "Is Sarah back from lunch?" The agent knows the policies you give it. It does not know Sarah's car was in the shop this morning.

For businesses where those calls are a big share of the phone, a human receptionist or a human answering service is worth the higher cost.

Where an AI receptionist does better

For routine calls, the comparison is lopsided:

• Hours. 168 hours a week against about 40.
• No shifts to cover. No lunch break, vacation or sick day to plan around.
• Languages. English and Spanish, or any of 31 languages, set up by our team on request. Hiring a bilingual receptionist narrows the pool of people you can hire.
• Consistency. The script is the same on the hundredth call as on the first. For the first 30 days we go through your calls and fix what we hear, usually the same day. After that, script changes are still included in your plan.
• A record of every call. Every call is recorded, so you can hear what the caller said instead of reading a scribbled note.
• A cost you can plan. The plan price is set. The one thing that moves is minutes past your plan, and those are on the pricing page.

The middle path: a person during the day, the agent for the rest

You do not have to pick one. Your receptionist or office manager answers during business hours. When they are on another call, at lunch or gone for the night, your main line forwards to the agent instead of voicemail. Urgent calls can be transferred live to your cell, which our team sets up on request.

A part-time person costs less than a full-time one. At the national median of $18.27 an hour, 15 to 20 hours a week is a real but smaller payroll line, with benefits and payroll tax on top. Add twelve months of the plan that fits your call volume and you have a person for the calls that need judgment and an answer for everything else.

Our missed-calls calculator shows what your unanswered calls are worth, using your own ticket size and call count. We also wrote about staffing for your busiest hours, which is where a single hire falls short first.

Which one should you pick?

• Most of your calls are routine (can you come out, when are you open, what do you charge for a service call): an AI receptionist can carry them on its own. Many trades and appointment-based shops look like this.
• Many of your calls need judgment or care: go with the middle path, or keep a person on the phone and use the agent only after hours.
• You already have an office manager who answers: keep them. Add the agent for nights, weekends and the calls that come in while they are on another line.
• Your phone rings all day: a full-time person plus the agent for overflow and after hours covers more ground than a second hire.

The option we would steer most owners away from is one full-time hire as the whole answer. The median wage alone is more than twelve months of our largest plan's monthly price, and that one hire still leaves about three quarters of the week to voicemail.

If you want to try ours, every plan starts with a free trial. Your first 7 days are free and include up to 100 minutes of answered calls. You add a card to start, and we do not charge it during the trial. If you do not cancel, we charge your plan's monthly price when the trial ends, then on that date each month. Cancel before the trial ends and you pay nothing. The full terms sit next to each plan on the pricing page, and you can hear the agent first.