Last Updated on August 28, 2026 by Ewen Finser
Managing a team of only a handful of people (think 5-50 people in total) can be tough when responsibilities and duties can overlap considerably for each person, including your receptionist. Thankfully, finding the best virtual receptionist for a small business can help with this.
The receptionist is the face of your company and typically the very first interaction that a client or customer has. As such, you want that first impression to speak volumes and be effective, or you could run into a problem of discouraging that person from ever wanting to do business with you.
The best virtual receptionist for your small business is a valuable and, most importantly, cost-effective way to have a reliable customer experience without needing to overload your other workers.
Bottom Line Up Front
At the end of the day, my personal recommendation is the Aircall AI voice agent, as it’s one of the most affordable options without sacrificing any of the features or quality.
It is understandable if you don’t have an IT person on your small team that can set up a complicated system, and you don’t have to with this one. Aircall integrates with the CRM system you already have, and it fully incorporates into your already existing phone system; it doesn’t replace it. This makes it extremely easy to use for any type of small business, while still alleviating the workload for your team.
At a Glance: Best Virtual Receptionist
There are many different types of virtual receptionists: there are AI-powered ones, live ones with real people, and more hybrid-style models that feature a mix of both of these. It can be a bit overwhelming trying to dive into this arena, so you can find a quick glance at some of the best options and who they work the most for below.
Virtual Receptionist | Price/Month | Best for |
$30 (Core) + $15 AI Voice Agent Add-on | Affordability, quick and simple CRM integration, information handling | |
$20 (Core), $39 (AI Receptionist) | Decent integration | |
$25 (Starter), $99 (AI Voice Agents) | Information automation | |
$79 (Per Agent) | Businesses with only one phone | |
$65 (No Receptionist Minutes), $130 (50 Receptionist Minutes) | High-end businesses | |
$250 (50 Receptionist Minutes) | Businesses with large-scale expansion plans | |
$350 (200 Minutes) | Businesses that need a lot of live support | |
$95/month (AI), $292.50 (Live Human) | Businesses that want both AI and live human support |
There are a lot of options for you to choose from, so just looking at a quick list is only going to get you so far. Check further below for great insight into what options will work best for your particular small business.
What Are the Differences Between AI and Live Virtual Receptionists?
To start off, it’s essential to understand the different options that are available to you. A live virtual receptionist is the first option, which is exactly what it sounds like: you get a real human being that will act as your receptionist for your business without physically being located in your actual office.
An AI-powered service like Aircall AI voice agent is completely powered by artificial intelligence. The customer will speak with this AI, which won’t be an actual human but is more natural than the typical automated operators you are used to when calling on the phone. A huge benefit of an AI voice agent is they are available 24/7 and can be dedicated to your business without being distracted by other clients.
Then there are the live receptionists like Posh will certainly give you the more natural, human approach to customer service, but it is worth noting that the workers at these services are juggling work across multiple clients, not just yours.
Finally, there is the hybrid-style system. This is a bit of a mix between the two, where you have both AI and humans helping out with your receptionist. This is a very flexible style of approach, but you also come with a bit of inconsistency at the same time. And they can be quite expensive for some services to have both compared to just picking one.
It is worth weighing these pros and cons when deciding what type of service works best for you.
Best Virtual AI Receptionist Options
Starting out with the virtual AI receptionist options, in my opinion the strongest of these is the AI voice agent from Aircall. This option is great for being quite affordable. Even if you include the base $30 core plan for Aircall and its $15 add-on for the AI voice agent, you are looking at $45 a month per license, which is significantly lower than most options.
The affordability isn’t even the best part, as the actual service that Aircall AI voice agent offers is great. It integrates with more than 250 of the most popular CRM platforms – think ZenDesk, HubSpot, Salesforce, etc – so you’ll likely be able to immediately use Aircall with whatever CRM you’re currently using.
Then there is the fact that Aircall has all of the expected features that make an AI voice agent worth using, such as live supervising. If you are concerned about the quality of the calls as an office manager or operations lead, you can hop in at any time and supervise exactly what is happening while it is live.
Plus, there are warm transfers, data collection and handling, escalation logic, and tasks that the AI is able to complete on your behalf. For instance, if you run a law office, the AI can schedule and manage appointments and consultations for you.
Other examples include if your customer has a basic question about how long it takes to ship one of your classic cars to their particular state, the AI can answer that for you. Or, if someone wants to know what hours your phone repair business is open on the weekends, it can let them know.
All of this can free your team up to focus on what really matters: getting the product or service to the client in the best way possible. Some of the other possible AI-powered options include RingCentral, which has solid integration, CloudTalk for its decent information automation, and Goodcall for another low-budget option.
Best Live Virtual Receptionist Platforms
The best live virtual receptionist service for small businesses that should be considered is Posh. There are other options like Ruby, which is more for higher-end businesses or larger-scale corporations, and AnswerConnect, which is great for bilingual support, but Posh is the better all-around option for this category.
For one, Posh is the easiest to integrate out of the live virtual options. It has a mobile app that you can use to start incorporating a human being to help out with your front desk services. It is pretty intuitive, which can be great for small businesses that have little to no IT teams or dedicated backend professionals.
The benefit of Posh is the fact that you get a real human being that is talking to your customers. This is going to replicate much of what you’re going to get if you had a real receptionist sitting at your front desk. This leads to a more personable and relatable experience for your customers.
Posh and other live virtual receptionists, in particular, can make a situation where a customer is frustrated about not receiving their package at the estimated date a bit easier to manage. The person can directly try to calm and manage the situation while also deciding if they need to escalate it to one of the operation managers for a full solution.
Best Hybrid Receptionist Setups
Then there’s the hybrid setup. Some services like Smith AI offer the ability for your business to have access to both an AI receptionist and more than 500 live agents that can speak to your customers. This is the strongest overall option for a hybrid setup because it is one of the more affordable options.
Smith AI benefits from elements of both options. You get the AI assistance, but you also have a real person that is available to speak to customers whenever necessary. That said, this jack-of-all-trades approach isn’t always the best, as it means your customers will never know what to expect.
In addition, these hybrid services, such as the one that Ruby has, are going to more often than not cost much more than if you went with a dedicated AI or live agent service. This higher cost can be harder to justify for a smaller business, plus the inconsistency can be frustrating at times for your clients.
Taking a look at Smith AI, which is, sadly, one of the cheaper options, you are looking at $95 a month for just the AI portion plus at least $292.50 to also have the live human element. So that is nearly $400 just to have this hybrid setup a month, which might not be the most lucrative for a smaller business of only a dozen to 50 people.
Final Thoughts
Your small business is most effective when you can simply provide your service or product to customers with zero distractions like unnecessary budgeting and frustrations. A receptionist can cost you thousands every month, but there is an alternative solution with a virtual receptionist.
A virtual receptionist, either AI or live, can be a massive solution that will literally save you thousands of dollars a month on a salary. At the same time, the best AI-powered virtual receptionist for your business, such as Aircall, will still ensure that you get the right assistance to your customers 24/7.
And when your customers still need you, your office managers and ops leads are still there to assist. This is a massive switch to make, but thankfully, integration is quite easy and swift so that you can get back to focusing on what you do best.