Compare Your Options
AI Receptionist vs In-House Receptionist vs Offshore Call Centre
Three real ways an Australian trade business can stop missing calls. Here is an honest look at what each one costs, what it covers, and where each of them falls over.
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The Decision
You have three options, and only one of them is free
Every growing trade business hits the same wall. The phone rings more than one person can answer, and the person it rings for is up a ladder. Doing nothing is the fourth option, and the most expensive one, because that cost never lands on an invoice.
So there are three real choices. Hire someone. Outsource it to a call centre. Or put a managed AI receptionist on the line. Optiphone builds one of them, so read this with that in mind. We have tried hard to be fair about the two we do not sell.
One thing up front. If you already have a good office person, this page is not an argument for getting rid of them. The comparison below is aimed at the business where nobody is answering the phone, or where the owner answers it between jobs.
What a missed call actually costs
It helps to know what you are comparing these options against. A missed call does not wait in a queue. Most callers never leave a message, and most never ring back.
80%
of callers sent to voicemail hang up without leaving a message
85%
of those callers never call back
62%
have already called your competitor by the time you see the missed call
Side By Side
The three options compared
Optiphone prices are the published ones. The receptionist salary band is the going Australian rate before super and leave. We have not put a dollar figure on the call centre column, because that pricing varies enormously by provider and volume, and we are not going to make one up.
| What matters | In-house receptionist | Offshore call centre | Optiphone AI receptionist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per year | $57,000 to $65,000 before super and leave entitlements | Usually per-call or per-minute fees, so the bill climbs with your call volume and is hard to forecast | Solo is $99 a month. Tradesman is $349 a month, which is $4,188 a year, plus a one-time $1,495 tailored setup in the first year |
| Hours covered | Business hours, less breaks, annual leave and sick days | Contracted hours. Extended cover is available from most providers, at a higher rate | 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, at the same price |
| After hours and weekends | Overtime, a second hire, or nobody | Normally an add-on or a higher out-of-hours rate | Standard on every plan. There is no separate after-hours product |
| ServiceM8 job capture | Manual entry. As good as the person doing it, and it still has to be done | Varies by provider. A direct connection to ServiceM8 is not standard, so details usually arrive as a message you re-key | Native two-way ServiceM8 sync. Callers matched to existing clients, jobs created from the call |
| Knowledge of your business | The deepest of the three once they have been with you a while | A script, worked across many clients at once | Tailored to your trade, service area, pricing and qualifying questions on Tradesman, with monthly tuning |
| Ramp-up time | Weeks to hire, then weeks to train, and you carry the cost while they learn | Days to weeks of onboarding and script writing | Most businesses are live within 24 hours |
| Sick days and turnover | Real, and the phone is unanswered on those days unless someone covers it | Agent churn is the provider's problem, but it shows up in your call quality | None. It does not call in sick or resign |
| Scalability | A busy season means a second hire, or the calls queue | Scales well, but the cost scales with it | Capacity is not the constraint. Plans scale on included minutes, not on headcount |
Full plan detail is on the plans and pricing page.
Option One
Hiring an in-house receptionist
This is the option the other two get measured against, and for good reason. A great office person is one of the best hires a trade business ever makes. They know the regulars, they know which customer needs a heads up before you turn up, and they chase the invoices nobody else wants to chase. The catch is that answering the phone is the smallest part of what they do, and the phone rings for 168 hours a week while they work about 38 of them.
Where it wins
- A person who knows your customers by name and your business inside out.
- Handles what a phone system cannot: the supplier at the counter, the walk-in, the awkward call with an unhappy customer.
- Judgement. A good office person makes the call you would have made, without asking.
- The role grows: quoting help, scheduling, ordering, invoicing, chasing debtors.
Where it costs you
- $57,000 to $65,000 a year before super and leave, plus a desk and your time managing them.
- One person covers roughly 38 hours out of the 168 in a week.
- Single point of failure. Leave, sick days and resignations all land on the phone.
- Weeks to hire and weeks to train, and the wage starts before the value does.
If you already have a good office person, keep them
This needs saying plainly, because it is the thing owners worry about when AI comes up. Optiphone is not a redundancy plan. Plenty of established trade businesses run Optiphone alongside the admin team they already have, using it for overflow and after-hours cover so the team can get on with debtors, scheduling and the work that actually needs a person.
The comparison on this page is for the business with nobody on the phone at all, or with an owner answering it mid-job. If that is not you, the honest recommendation is to use an AI receptionist for the hours your team is not there.
Option Two
Using an offshore call centre
An offshore answering service puts real people on your phone for a fraction of an Australian wage. The provider handles the hiring and the rostering, you write a script, and messages come back to you. Where it gets uncomfortable is the pricing model and the local knowledge. Most providers charge per call or per minute, so the month you are flat out is the month the invoice jumps. And a homeowner describing a tripped safety switch in a suburb the agent has never heard of is a call that can go sideways quickly.
Where it wins
- Cheaper per hour than an Australian hire, which is the whole reason the model exists.
- Real people, so an unusual call gets human judgement rather than a script running out of road.
- Extended hours are usually available if you pay for them.
- No recruitment, no rostering, no HR. The provider staffs it.
Where it costs you
- Per-call or per-minute pricing means a busy month costs more, exactly when a surprise invoice hurts.
- Local knowledge is thin. A caller naming a suburb or a fitting the agent has never heard of is a rough call.
- Agents work across many clients, so they are not steeped in your trade.
- A direct connection to your job software is not standard, so details land as a message someone re-keys.
- Agent churn is invisible to you until the call quality drops.
To be fair to the model: at high volume, with complex conversations that change often, a staffed centre full of people who can think on their feet is a genuine answer. It is a worse fit for a small trade business that wants the job in ServiceM8 without anyone re-typing it.
Option Three
Running a managed AI receptionist
Your existing business number forwards to an Optiphone agent. It answers in 3 seconds in an Australian voice, works out who is calling and what they want, triages urgency against rules you set, captures the job, and either books it or holds it for your approval. Booking is off until you turn it on.
On the Tradesman plan it is done for you. Our team builds the agent for your trade, service area, pricing and qualifying questions, connects ServiceM8 and your calendar, and tunes it every month. You are not handed a blank configuration screen.
Where it wins
- Answers in 3 seconds, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, including the 9 pm burst pipe.
- Your existing number forwards to it, so nothing changes for your customers or your signage.
- Native ServiceM8, Xero, Google Calendar and Outlook connections, so the job lands where you work.
- Booking is off by default. Nothing enters your diary unless you switch it on.
- Urgent calls transfer to your own on-call number, under rules you write.
- Done for you on Tradesman: we build it, connect the tools and tune it monthly.
Where it costs you
- It is not a person. It will not meet a customer at the counter or chase a debtor.
- There is no human call centre behind it. Urgent calls and callers who ask for a person go to your own team, on the number you nominate.
- It is only as good as what you tell it. Out-of-date pricing in, out-of-date pricing out.
- It connects to ServiceM8, Xero, Google Calendar and Outlook. Run Simpro, Tradify or AroFlo and it still captures the full job and texts and emails it to you, but you enter the job yourself.
- Solo is self-serve on a pre-built template agent. The tailored build is the Tradesman plan.
The bit most AI receptionist companies do not say out loud
There is no human call centre sitting behind Optiphone. Nobody at our end picks up when the AI gets stuck. Urgent calls and callers who ask for a person go to your own team, on the number you nominate, under rules you write. When the AI is unsure, it does not invent an answer. It takes a message and flags the call for you with the full transcript, so you can add the answer for next time.
If what you want is a human on the end of every call, an in-house hire or a staffed answering service is the honest recommendation, not us.
More detail on the job software side is on the ServiceM8 integration page.
The Verdict
Which one is right for you
There is no single winner here, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something. It depends on how much of the work is actually the phone, how many hours you need covered, and whether the job has to end up in software or in somebody's head.
Hire in-house when
- The work is genuinely more than the phone: debtors, ordering, scheduling, walk-ins, quoting support.
- You need someone physically present at a shop, yard or office.
- The volume and margin justify a full-time wage, and you are ready to manage a staff member.
Use an offshore call centre when
- Call volume is high and the conversations change often enough that a human needs to think on their feet.
- You are comfortable with a bill that moves with volume.
- Job software integration is not part of what you need from them.
Use a managed AI receptionist when
- Nobody is answering right now, or the owner is answering between jobs.
- The calls you lose are after hours, on weekends, and while you are on the tools.
- You run ServiceM8 and want the enquiry to land there without anyone re-typing it.
- You want the phone covered without adding a wage or managing another person.
Run both when
- You already have a good office person. Keep them.
- Optiphone takes the overflow and the after-hours calls so your admin team can get on with the work that actually needs a person.
For most trade businesses we talk to, the real comparison is not AI against a receptionist. It is AI against nothing, because the wage was never realistic and the call centre quote came back per minute.
Common Questions
Comparing the options: common questions
Is an AI receptionist cheaper than hiring a receptionist?
On the numbers, yes. A full-time receptionist in Australia costs $57,000 to $65,000 a year before super and leave. Optiphone's Tradesman plan is $349 a month, which is $4,188 a year, plus a one-time $1,495 tailored setup in the first year. Solo is $99 a month. But they are not the same job, and if the phone is only part of what you need done, the wage may still be the right call.
Will an AI receptionist replace my office admin?
No, and that is not what it is built for. If you already have a good office person, Optiphone is their after-hours and overflow cover, picking up the calls that arrive while they are on another line, on leave or at home for the night. Plenty of established trade businesses run both on purpose.
Is there a human call centre behind Optiphone?
No. Optiphone is an AI receptionist, not a human answering service with AI in front of it. Urgent calls, and callers who ask for a person, transfer to your own on-call number under rules you set. When the AI is unsure it does not guess: it takes a message and flags the call for you with the full transcript.
What happens when a call is a genuine emergency?
The agent triages it against the escalation rules you write, then transfers the caller straight to whoever is on call. You decide which situations count as urgent and which number they reach. The AI never gives repair advice, and if a caller describes a genuine threat to life it tells them to hang up and call 000. That line is not configurable.
Does an offshore call centre put jobs into ServiceM8?
That depends on the provider, and a direct ServiceM8 connection is not standard. In most cases the agent takes a message and someone on your side still enters the job. Optiphone connects natively to ServiceM8, so the caller is matched against your existing contacts and the job is created from the call itself.
Do I keep my existing business number?
Yes. Most customers keep the number they already advertise and forward it to Optiphone, so nothing changes for your customers or your signage. If you would rather we supplied a number, that is $29 a month for the first and $10 a month for each additional one. Bringing a number from another provider is free.
More answers are on the full FAQ, and every plan inclusion is listed on the plans page.
Hear one of the options answer a call about your own business
Two minutes, no credit card. Put in your website, we build you a demo agent that knows your trade, then you ring it and hear what your customers would hear. Compare that against the quotes in front of you.