Most businesses ask the same question before they switch on an AI receptionist: what will it cost us each month? The answer depends on how the provider charges, so it helps to know the common pricing models first.
This guide covers how AI receptionist pricing usually works, then exactly what BaseCloud charges for each call.
How AI receptionists are priced
AI receptionist pricing comes in a handful of shapes, and each one suits a different call pattern. A heating company with a winter rush and a quiet summer needs a different model from a clinic with steady bookings all year.
Per minute
You pay for the minutes the AI spends talking. Busy months cost more and quiet months cost less, so the bill follows your call volume.
Per call
Each answered call has a set price, short or long. This suits businesses with lots of brief calls, such as appointment confirmations.
Monthly plans
A monthly fee covers a bundle of minutes or calls, with an overage rate past the bundle. You pay the fee in quiet months too, so it suits steady call volumes.
Whichever model you compare, check two more things. Find out what the phone line itself costs, and where the AI sits: inside your own phone system, or as a separate service you forward calls to.
What BaseCloud’s AI receptionist costs
BaseCloud’s AI receptionist is included on every plan and paid by usage from prepaid credit after each call. AI Voice costs R0.60$0.085 per 1,000 tokens, which works out at about R1.98$0.28 a minute at typical talk.
Tokens are small pieces of speech, and a minute of talking uses a few thousand of them. The call itself is charged at the normal call rate of R1.06$0.14 a minute, as every BaseCloud call is.
So a minute with the AI receptionist costs about R1.98$0.28 for the AI plus R1.06$0.14 for the call. The AI Voice charge runs while the assistant is on the call, so once it puts a caller through to your team, the rest of that call is billed at the call rate.
A worked example for a heating company
A heating company’s AI receptionist answers 120 calls in a month, and the average call lasts three minutes. That makes 360 minutes of talk with the assistant.
The AI part is 360 minutes at about R1.98$0.28 a minute. The call part is 360 minutes at R1.06$0.14 a minute.
Multiply each rate by 360 and add the two for the month’s total. A slower month with 60 calls of the same length costs half as much, and a night with no calls costs nothing.
Where to see every AI Voice charge
Each call is its own AI Voice line in Settings > Billing > Credits > Transactions, showing the minutes and tokens it used. Billing > Overview shows AI Voice as its own usage bar, so you see at a glance how much of your credit went to the receptionist.
Credit is prepaid and topped up in Settings > Billing > Credits, by hand or with auto top-up. In South Africa, credit top-ups add 15% VAT, shown before you pay.
How BaseCloud compares with an answering service
BaseCloud’s AI receptionist runs inside the same phone system as your numbers and ring groups. Its cost sits on the same credit as your calls and texts, itemized call by call.
It replaces a separate answering service or after-hours call center. It books real appointments and Dispatch jobs while the caller is on the line, and puts callers through to your team whenever they want a person.
Every rate is listed on our pricing page. See what the assistant does on each call on the receptionist page, or book a demo and we will show you the AI Voice lines on a live account.
