How much does a phone answering service cost in Australia?

On the Australian plans we checked in August 2026, entry-level answering plans start around $25 to $49 a month plus GST. That buys the account, not the calls. Answered calls are then charged at roughly $2.60 to $4.00 each, and going over your plan costs about $2.45 to $3.99 per call on top.

So a tradie taking 50 calls a month on a $29 plan is not paying $29. At $2.60 a call that is $130 a month; at $4.00 it is $200 — for messages, not booked work. The monthly fee is the smallest number on the invoice.

Flat-rate services exist and price differently: you pay one monthly figure for an allowance of call time rather than per call. Giday is one of those, from $49 a month including GST. The comparison that matters is not plan against plan, it is what 50 calls actually cost you under each model.

Call answering service costs in Australia come in four shapes, and which one you are on matters far more than the headline price.

Per answered call. The most common Australian model. You pay a small monthly fee plus a fee for every call answered — typically $2.60 to $4.00. Simple to understand, and it means a busy month is an expensive month. A spam call that gets answered is usually a billable call.

Per minute. Used for the things that take longer than a message, especially calendar bookings — around $2.99 a minute on the plans we checked. A booking that takes two and a half minutes is roughly $7.50 in metering before the per-call fee. This is the charge people are most often surprised by.

Monthly allowance. One price for a block of call time or a number of calls, with overage beyond it. Easier to budget because the bill only moves when you cross the line.

Pay as you go. No monthly commitment, higher per-call rate. Genuinely sensible if your phone rings a handful of times a month — the maths stops working somewhere around 15 to 20 calls, past which a plan is almost always cheaper. If you are searching for pay-as-you-go specifically, do the sum on your real call volume first; most people who want PAYG are better off on a small plan.

After hours. Several Australian services answer 8am to 6pm weekdays as standard, and 24/7 is an opt-in at an extra charge — on the plans we checked, the amount was not published. Since roughly one call in five comes in outside business hours, this is a real cost rather than an edge case.

Booking into your calendar. Often a separate product rather than part of answering, with its own monthly fee from about $49, its own $50 to $99 setup, and per-minute metering on top.

Setup. Between $0 and $99 on the plans we checked.

Overage. Nearly always per call, and nearly always in the FAQs rather than on the pricing table.

None of that is sharp practice — staffed minutes genuinely cost money, and a human service has to charge for them. It does mean the advertised price and the invoice are different numbers, and it is worth asking for both before you sign.

Say 50 answered calls. Ten of them are after hours. Eight become bookings in your diary, averaging two and a half minutes each.

On a per-call service: 50 calls at $2.60 to $4.00 is $130 to $200. The eight bookings at $2.99 a minute add about $60. The booking product itself is another $49. After-hours sits on top at a rate that was not published. Before setup, the month is comfortably past $240, and those 50 calls produced messages you still have to action.

On a flat plan with booking included, the same month is the plan price. That is the whole argument for flat pricing, and it is also why flat-rate services cap call time — somebody has to carry the cost of a busy month, and a plan with no cap is a plan with a surprise in it somewhere.

Plans run $49 to $399 a month, GST included, with the call allowance published on each one. Booking into your calendar is included on every plan, including the cheapest. There is no setup fee, no after-hours surcharge, and no per-call charge — the midnight call costs the same as the midday one. The first week is free, including 60 minutes of call time, and there is no lock-in. Full detail is on the pricing page.

Being straight about where it is not the answer: if your phone rings five times a month, a plan is poor value and pay-as-you-go or voicemail will serve you better. If every call needs genuine judgement rather than answering, qualifying and booking, you want a person. And an AI receptionist is not a human receptionist — it answers, asks, books and takes messages well, and it will put an urgent caller through to you, but it is not going to chase a debtor or soothe an angry client the way a good receptionist does.