Pricing · Sydney and Greater NSW
How much does an AI receptionist cost in Sydney?
The short answer
There is no fixed price for an AI receptionist in Sydney, because the cost depends on how many calls it handles, how many kinds of call it covers and what it connects to. Durbacti scopes every build on a free strategy call, proves it with a free proof of concept, and quotes a fixed price only after that.
The usual answer to this question is one of two things. A price list, which applies to nobody because it was written before anyone asked about your calls. Or a form that wants your email address before it tells you anything at all.
This page does neither. It sets out what moves the cost of a 24/7 AI phone receptionist up or down, the three ways to pay Durbacti for the work, and a tool that shows what unanswered calls are costing you today, worked out from your own numbers and nothing else.
What decides what an AI receptionist costs?
| Factor | Keeps it down | Pushes it up |
|---|---|---|
| Call volume | A few dozen calls a week, most of them the same three questions. | Hundreds of calls a week, or sharp peaks the receptionist has to take all at once. |
| The kinds of call it handles | One job: take the caller’s details and book a time. | Bookings, quotes, cancellations, after-hours emergencies, and a transfer rule for each. |
| What it connects to | One calendar it can read and write. | A CRM, a booking platform and a phone system that each need their own connection built and tested. |
| Transfer and after-hours rules | One number to transfer to, one set of hours. | Different people by call type, by time of day, or by site. |
| What happens after go-live | A Project: built, handed over, yours to run, no ongoing fee. | A Retainer or Care plan: the receptionist kept tuned, patched and reported on each month, and priced monthly. |
Which of the three plans you take is the one decision that changes the shape of the price rather than the size of it. How we work sets out where each plan starts and where it ends.
Ways to work with us
No lock-in and no surprise invoices. Every engagement is scoped against the return on a free strategy call.
Project
A fixed-scope build
One system, built, integrated and handed over. Best when you know exactly which problem you want solved.
- Scope, outcome and timeline agreed up front
- Integrated with the tools you already use
- Your team trained on the finished system
- Full handover with documentation
Retainer
Ongoing partnership
We keep building, tuning and extending your automation month to month as your business grows.
- A rolling automation roadmap
- New systems shipped in phases
- Monthly performance reporting
- Priority support and strategy sessions
Care plan
Support for live systems
For receptionists, websites and automations in production that need to stay fast and reliable.
- Monitoring with proactive fixes
- Updates when connected tools change
- Guaranteed response times
- A monthly health report
What are missed calls costing you now?
Before anyone talks about what a receptionist costs, it is worth knowing what the phone is costing you already. The estimator below works that out from four numbers only you have, shows every step of the arithmetic, and asks for nothing in return.
How does the number get settled?
A price for your business arrives in three steps, and the first two cost nothing. A free strategy call works through what your calls look like and where they are slipping. A free proof of concept, built on your own call types, shows the receptionist handling them before you decide anything.
Then scope, price and start date are agreed in writing, and only after that is anything built. The figure you get is for your calls, your integrations and your plan, which is the only kind of figure worth having.
What we will not do
- Put a figure on this page. A number written before anyone has asked about your calls applies to nobody, and a number that applies to nobody is a way of getting you onto a call under false pretences.
- Pre-fill the estimator. There is no industry average for unanswered calls that Durbacti would stand behind, so the boxes start empty and the only numbers in the result are yours.
- Ask for your email first. The estimate appears as you type. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere, and there is no form between you and the result.
- Claim a receptionist recovers all of it. Some callers ring back. Some would never have booked. A 24/7 AI phone receptionist recovers part of what unanswered calls cost, and working out which part is what the scope call is for.
What to ask any vendor about price
Take these to anyone quoting you, Durbacti included. A vendor who cannot answer each one in a sentence has a price that is going to move.
- Is the voice platform’s cost inside the monthly fee, or billed on top of it?
- What happens to the price when call volume doubles?
- Who owns the phone number and the platform account after handover?
- What does it cost to leave, and what do you take with you?
- What does the setup price include, and what counts as a change?
Durbacti’s own answers to the third and fourth are on How we work.
Pricing questions
Does the monthly price go up if we get more calls?
On a Retainer or Care plan where the voice platform account sits with Durbacti, the platform’s own charges are inside the monthly price, so a month with more call minutes costs more than a quiet one. On a Project the platform bills you directly in an account you own, and Durbacti charges no ongoing fee at all. Which arrangement you have is agreed on the scope call, not discovered on an invoice.
Is the missed-call estimate a quote?
No. The estimate is arithmetic on four numbers you typed: calls a week, the share unanswered, the share who would have booked, and an average job value. It says what unanswered calls cost you now, by your own reckoning. A quote for a 24/7 AI phone receptionist comes after the free strategy call and the free proof of concept, once the scope is known, and it is fixed before anything is built.
Can the estimator tell me whether an AI receptionist would pay for itself?
Not on its own. The estimator shows what unanswered calls cost you today. Setting that against a quote is the job of the scope call, where Durbacti puts a real figure beside your real number. Two things keep that comparison honest: a receptionist recovers part of the value of a missed call rather than all of it, and a build that would not pay for itself is one Durbacti will tell you not to buy.
Which of the three plans costs the least?
A Project is the only one with no ongoing fee: a fixed price, agreed before the build, and then the receptionist is yours to run with documentation and training behind you. A Retainer and a Care plan are priced monthly, because the work continues each month. Whether a Project or a monthly plan costs less over a year depends on how much the receptionist changes after go-live, and Durbacti will not rank them without a figure in front of it.
What do I pay before go-live?
Nothing until scope, price and start date have been agreed in writing. The strategy call is free, and so is the proof of concept built on your own call types; both happen before any invoice. Once the scope is agreed, the timing of payment is settled at the same time as the price rather than after the work, so the first invoice is never a surprise.
Get a figure for your business
A free 30 minute call. Bring the estimate if you ran it. We work through how your calls run now and whether a receptionist would earn its keep, and you leave knowing whether it is worth a quote.
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