Every AI receptionist I have priced this year advertises one number and bills on two.
The plan fee is the one on the pricing page. The second line is metered: minutes, messages, conversations, depending on the vendor. That second line is where the money goes, and almost nobody puts it in the headline.
Upfront, so you can weigh what follows. We make booking software for pet businesses, so we sell into this problem. We do not sell an AI receptionist today. Our own one, the Grazi AI Booster, is a published closed beta and you cannot switch it on. Everything below is what other people charge, with the date I checked it.
The two lines
Ask any vendor for both before you compare anything.
- The plan fee. Per month, usually capped by staff or location.
- The usage charge. Per minute of call time, per message, or per conversation, and what happens when you pass the included amount.
A plan with no included usage is not cheaper than one that bundles it. It is the same product with the second line moved off the headline.
What Australian vendors publish
Prices verified on the dates shown. All of these move, so check them yourself before you sign anything.
Synarii, priced 16 September 2026
Synarii sells Mia, an AI receptionist aimed specifically at grooming, and they are the closest thing to a direct comparison for a pet business. Their published plans, in AUD and stated by them as plus GST:
| Plan | Per month, ex GST | Inc GST | Cap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo Groomer / Stylist | $29 | $31.90 | Just you |
| Team | $69 | $75.90 | Up to 5 staff |
| Empire | $99 | $108.90 | Up to 50 staff, up to 5 locations |
Then the second line. Mia's Message Packs are $79 a month for 500 messages ($86.90 inc GST), with $35 per additional 250 ($38.50 inc GST), added automatically when you reach the limit. Their pricing section says no plan includes messages and that Mia's conversations, reminders and follow-ups all consume them.
So a solo groomer who wants Mia answering the phone pays $29 plus $79, which is $118.80 a month including GST, and the message pack is 73% of that. There is no smaller pack.
Their page also carries a "from $4.50/day" line, which works out to about $135 a month. Both figures are published on the same page. I am not going to characterise the gap, and I am not going to guess how fast a salon burns 500 messages, because they do not publish whether a message means a segment, a turn or a whole conversation. Ask them.
Our own numbers, since we are in this table too. Every Business plan on Petboost includes a monthly SMS allowance, and if you go past it the Power-Up packs run from $15 for 100 up to $79 for 1,000. We buy at wholesale Australian carrier rates, which is how the top pack lands under 8 cents a text. The same $79 that buys 500 messages with Synarii buys 1,000 with us, and ours tops up an allowance you already have rather than switching the product on. One honest qualifier on our side: credits are counted per carrier segment, so a long message uses more than one, and their basis for a "message" is unpublished. Our packs are listed on the pricing page; theirs are quoted ex GST.
Valory AI, priced on their own site 6 September 2026
A general Australian AI receptionist, not pet-specific. Published monthly: Intro $149, Core $299, Premium $499, Enterprise from $1,299. Setup from $990. Extra voice minutes $0.30 to $0.90 a minute depending on tier, SMS $0.10 a message.
The setup fee is the part that catches people. It is not unusual at the managed end of this market and it does not appear in anyone's monthly comparison.
What a human costs, for the same job
Worth knowing, because the AI pitch is always framed against it.
An Australian answering service. Virtual Headquarters publishes, in AUD plus GST, as at 17 September 2026:
| Plan | Per month | Included | Then |
|---|---|---|---|
| Message Express | $25 | pay as you go | $2.50 per call |
| Message Express 25 | $70 | 25 calls | $2.45 per call |
| Virtual Receptionist 20 | $80 | 20 calls | $3.99 per call |
| Virtual Receptionist 50 | $185 | 50 calls | $3.99 per call |
| MyDiary 50 | $175 | 50 minutes | $2.99 per minute |
Note the same two-line shape. A salon taking 150 calls a month on Virtual Receptionist 50 pays $185 plus 100 calls at $3.99, which is $584 ex GST, or $642.40 including GST.
Hiring someone. Under the Clerks Private Sector Award (MA000002), from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026, Level 1 Year 1 is $26.97 an hour for a full-time or part-time employee and $33.71 an hour casual, which already includes the 25% loading. Superannuation is 12%.
Twenty hours a week at Level 1 Year 1, with super, is about $2,618 a month. Ten hours a week casual is about $1,636. Neither figure includes the time you spend training them, and neither covers a Sunday.
The comparison nobody runs
Put the three side by side for a salon taking 150 calls a month and you get roughly $119 to $500 for an AI, $642 for an answering service, and $1,636 for ten casual hours a week that do not cover evenings.
That looks decisive until you ask what each one is actually answering.
The answering service takes a message. The employee knows that Mrs Patterson's cavoodle gets the 8am slot because he screams in the crate. The AI does whatever it has been configured to do, which is the whole question and the reason the price range is so wide.
I have written the honest version of that question in its own post, because "what can it actually do" turns out to be a longer answer than "what does it cost".
The five questions to ask before you pay
Send these to the vendor in writing.
What counts as a message or a minute? A booking is a conversation, not one message. If they meter per message, ask whether a message is a segment, a turn, or an exchange. The answer changes your bill by a multiple.
What is the setup fee, and is it refundable? $990 is real money to a two-groomer salon and it is usually invisible until the contract.
Are the prices inc or ex GST? Quoting business-to-business prices ex GST is normal and legitimate, and you claim the credit back if you are registered. It still makes every headline comparison wrong by 10% unless you convert both sides first.
What happens at the cap? Automatically topped up, throttled, or does it stop answering? Each of those is a different product.
What does it do when it does not know? Take a message, transfer, or invent an answer. Get this in writing. A booking system that confidently promises a Saturday slot you do not have costs more than the subscription.
The option that is not on the list
You can also reduce the number of calls.
Over half of appointments on Petboost are booked by the customer, and around 70% of those arrive outside opening hours. Those are bookings that never became a phone call, so nothing answered them and nothing metered them. That is not an argument against buying an AI receptionist. It is an argument for knowing how many of your calls are really just someone trying to book, because that number decides whether you are buying a receptionist or a booking page.
Count them for a fortnight first. Here is how, and what to do with the answer.
Sources
- Synarii pricing section,
www.synarii.com/landing/view.html, read 16 September 2026. - Valory AI pricing,
valory.com.au, provider snapshot dated 12 July 2026 and rechecked by them 6 September 2026. - Virtual Headquarters call answering pricing,
virtualheadquarters.com.au, read 17 September 2026. - Clerks Private Sector Award MA000002 pay rates effective 1 July 2026, Fair Work Ombudsman pay guide.
- Superannuation Guarantee rate for 2026-27, Australian Taxation Office.
- Petboost plan allowances and SMS Power-Up pack tiers, petboost.com.au/business/pricing, read live from Stripe.
See how bookings arrive without a phone call · Compare Petboost and Synarii