Hire vs AI, priced with sources
Before hiring a receptionist, run these numbers.
A good receptionist is worth every dollar for the right business. But if the problem you're solving is missed calls, hiring a receptionist is the most expensive fix on the market. Here's the full NZ cost of hiring, working shown, next to what an AI receptionist costs.
The real cost of a hired receptionist in NZ, working shown
These aren't marketing numbers. The wage figure is Indeed's NZ average for receptionists; the minimum wage, KiwiSaver and ACC figures are official rates. Every line shows its arithmetic.
| Full-time wages (Indeed NZ average $28.19/hr)$28.19 × 40 hrs × 52 weeks | ≈ $58,600/yr |
| Part-time wages (20 hrs/wk, same rate)weekday cover only | ≈ $29,300/yr |
| Legal floor: adult minimum wage from 1 April 2026$23.95 × 40 × 52, full-time | ≈ $49,816/yr |
| Employer KiwiSaver, 3.5% from 1 April 2026on the average full-time wage | + ≈ $2,052/yr |
| ACC work levy (average ~$0.66 per $100, 2025/26) | + ≈ $390/yr |
| Loaded full-time costbefore recruitment, equipment or leave cover | ≈ $61,100/yr |
| TradieCall, any plan, billed monthly$129–$449/mo NZD incl GST | $1,548–$5,388/yr |
It gets worse for trade businesses specifically. SEEK's NZ salary data (fetched August 2026) puts receptionist salaries at $47,437 to $57,755 depending on industry, and Trades & Services is the highest-paying industry for receptionists in the country. If you run a trade business, you're not hiring at the bottom of that band. You're competing at the top of it.
And the loaded figure above is still generous to the hire. It doesn't count job ads, interview time, a desk, a computer, software licences, training weeks where the phone still gets missed, or the cost of covering four weeks of annual leave and sick days. A receptionist on the average wage costs roughly $235 for every working day. TradieCall's Starter plan costs about that much for a month, and the top of the range, at $5,388 a year, is under nine percent of the loaded cost of the hire. The full breakdown of every answering option is on our virtual receptionist cost guide.
Receptionist vs AI receptionist, row by row
This isn't a rigged scorecard. A human wins several rows outright, and we've marked them. The question is which rows you're actually paying for.
| Hired receptionist | TradieCall | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical cost per yearfull-time hire vs any TradieCall plan | ≈ $61,100 loaded | $1,548–$5,388 |
| Hours covered | 40 hrs, Mon–Fri | 24/7/365 |
| Answers nights, weekends and public holidays | ||
| Never off sick, never on annual leaveleave cover is your problem to solve, and pay for | ||
| Handles every call the same way, every time | ||
| Takes two calls at once | ||
| Text + email job sheet within a minute of each call | ||
| Transcript and recording of every call | ||
| Books jobs into your diaryTradieCall on Pro plans and up | ||
| Judgement on complex or sensitive callsAI flags urgency and can transfer live on Pro; a person reads the room better | ||
| Invoicing, quotes and admin beyond the phone | ||
| Greets walk-ins and handles in-person work |
Where a human receptionist wins outright
Being straight about this matters, because the rows a human wins are real. A person brings judgement. When a long-standing customer rings up angry about a job, or someone's phoning about work on a house they've just inherited, a good receptionist reads the situation and handles it with care no script can match. TradieCall captures the details, flags urgency and can transfer the call to you live on Pro, but it doesn't replace human judgement on a genuinely delicate call.
A person also works beyond the phone. Invoicing, chasing overdue accounts, ordering materials, tidying the job pipeline, greeting whoever walks into the yard: none of that is phone answering, and no phone answering product does it. If those tasks are piling up, the phone is not your real problem.
What a person can't do is be there at 9pm on a Sunday when a hot water cylinder lets go, or answer two calls at once on a Monday morning, or work through their own sick days. Coverage is where the comparison flips, and coverage is what most tradies are actually short of. That's the case for a phone answering service built for trades rather than a salary.
When you should hire the human
Hire a receptionist when the phone is the smaller part of the role. The honest test: write down what they'd do in a week. If it's mostly invoicing, quote follow-ups, supplier calls, scheduling a crew and dealing with walk-in customers, with the phone ringing around all that, hire the person. That's an office administrator role, it pays for itself, and an AI can't do it.
If the list is mostly "answer the phone so we stop losing jobs", don't spend $61,100 to fix a $129 problem. And note what the salary still doesn't buy: the person clocks off at five, which is when a big share of plumbing and electrical emergencies start.
There's a middle case too: you want reception cover but can't justify full-time. Part-time helps with cost, not coverage. A 20-hour receptionist at around $29,300 a year covers half of business hours and none of the evenings or weekends, and you still carry KiwiSaver, leave, and finding cover when they're sick. Every hour they aren't rostered, you're back to being your own receptionist from up a ladder.
Bigger outfits usually land on a hybrid. The receptionist owns office hours and the admin; TradieCall catches overflow when both lines are going, plus everything after hours, on weekends and on public holidays. The Trade Team plan is built for exactly this, and because you keep your number and just dial a forwarding code, the AI only picks up calls your receptionist doesn't. No missed calls, no second salary.
Straight answers on hiring vs AI
Run the trial before you run a job ad
Set up TradieCall in about 10 minutes, ring your own number, and judge the answering for yourself. 7-day trial, no lock-in. If you still need the human, hire them for the admin and keep the AI on nights.
Start the 7-day trial