How much does an AI receptionist cost a small business in Canada?
$149 CAD a month.
As an add-on to the $388 a month Hosting + SEO + AI Agents plan, with 300 voice minutes included. So the phone answered around the clock, plus the website, hosting, SEO and the AI front desk it runs on, is $537 a month. With a custom build from $499 one-time, year one is $499 + (12 × $537) = $6,943 all-in.
Elsewhere the published range runs from $14 a month for 60 minutes to a few hundred, in US dollars, with overage at about a quarter a minute. Below is what two vendors actually publish, what a human receptionist costs in Ottawa according to the federal wage data, and the part every plan on the market shares and few explain: the minute cap.
Updated 2026-09-30 · every price read off its source on that date
On this page
AI receptionist pricing, side by side.
Our add-on next to two US competitors. Their prices are in US dollars as published on 2026-08-28, so the per-minute column converts everything to Canadian dollars to compare like for like.
- 300 minutes for $149 CAD: about 50¢ a minute, against about 69¢ on every competitor plan with 200 minutes or more.
- Billed in Canadian dollars, so the price does not move with the exchange rate.
- No automatic per-minute overage. Past 300 minutes, you top up as you need.
| Who | Plan | Monthly | Minutes | Per minute, in CAD | Past the cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Us | VelogicsAI Receptionist add-on | $149CAD | 300 | $0.50 | No overage rate. Top up as you need. |
| Competitor | My AI Front DeskBasic | $20USD | None (does not answer calls) | n/a | $0.25 USD / min |
| Competitor | My AI Front DeskBusiness-in-a-Box | $99USD | 200 | $0.69 | $0.25 USD / min |
| Competitor | AI-Receptionist.comEssential | $14USD | 60 | $0.32 | $0.25 USD / min |
| Competitor | AI-Receptionist.comStarter | $39USD | 60 | $0.90 | $0.25 USD / min |
| Competitor | AI-Receptionist.comSolopreneur | $99USD | 200 | $0.69 | $0.25 USD / min |
| Competitor | AI-Receptionist.comBusiness | $199USD | 400 | $0.69 | $0.25 USD / min |
Per-minute cost is the monthly price divided by the included minutes, with US prices converted at the Bank of Canada’s rate of 1.3861 on 2026-08-27. The 60-minute Essential plan is cheaper per minute than ours; it also covers a fifth of the calls.
The price is not the minutes
The market’s price for 200 minutes is about $99 USD, which is about $137 CAD at the Bank of Canada’s rate of 1.3861 on 2026-08-27. Ours is $149 CAD for 300 minutes, so by the minute it is the cheaper of the two.
The catch is that ours is not a standalone line; it runs on top of the AI front desk, the website and the calendar and CRM connections in the $388 plan, and answers from the same knowledge base the website chat uses. If you already have all of that elsewhere, a $99 plan is the cheaper way to get a phone answered, and we would say so on the call.
The overage column
Every published plan we read charges by the minute past the cap. We do not have an overage rate: if you need more than 300 minutes in a month, you top up as you need.
The minute cap is the real price.
Two hundred minutes is not two hundred calls. If a call averages three minutes, which is an illustration and not a measurement of your business, the cap is about 66 answered calls a month, or two or three a day.
A trade that gets ten calls a day is past that cap by the second week, and on a $0.25 overage plan the bill for the rest of the month is the real price of the product.
So the question to ask any vendor, us included, is not “how much a month” but three things. A vendor that answers all three in writing is selling a product. One that only answers the first is selling a minimum.
Ask any vendor, in writing
- 1
How many minutes are included, and what counts against them. On our plan it is time spent on connected calls, and the figure on the invoice is the one on the pricing page.
- 2
What happens in the minute after the cap. A published rate, or an agreement.
- 3
Whether the minutes are yours or shared. A plan priced per business can still pool capacity; ask.
An AI receptionist against a human receptionist.
Job Bank, the Government of Canada’s labour market site, lists receptionist wages for the Ottawa Region at $17.60 low, $20.00 median and $28.62 high per hour, last updated 2025-11-19 on a 2023 to 2024 reference period.
At the median, a full-time receptionist on 37.5 hours a week costs about $20.00 × 162.5 hours = $3,250 a month in wages, before the employer’s CPP and EI contributions, vacation pay and any benefits. That figure is wages only, and it buys roughly 40 hours a week of a person who does far more than answer a phone.
The two are not the same product, and the arithmetic should not be read as one replacing the other. A person covers business hours and everything a front desk does. The agent covers every hour including the ones a person is not paid for, answers in seconds, books into your calendar, transfers the urgent calls to you with a whispered briefing first, and does nothing else.
The comparison that holds is coverage: what it costs to have the calls at 7 p.m., on a Sunday, and mid-job answered at all, when the alternative is voicemail.
Receptionist, Ottawa Region, NOC 14101
- Low, per hour
- $17.60
- Median, per hour
- $20.00
- High, per hour
- $28.62
- Median × 162.5 hours a month, wages only
- $3,250
- AI Receptionist add-on, 300 minutes
- $149
Job Bank wages updated 2025-11-19, reference period 2023 to 2024. The monthly figure is 37.5 hours × 52 weeks ÷ 12, at the median, before employer contributions. Different products; the row is here for the arithmetic, not as a substitution.
Two things move an AI receptionist’s cost. Nothing else does.
The product detail, including what counts against the minutes and which calendars it books into, is on the product page. This is the money half.
Whether you want it at all
It is an add-on, not part of the $388 plan. A voice minute has a real cost per minute and a chat message does not, and pricing it inside the plan would mean quiet businesses subsidising busy ones. The full argument is on the product page.
Minutes beyond 300
You top up as you need. Top-up options are listed at velogics.ai/pricing.
Nothing else
Not how busy your trade is, how many staff you have, or which industry you are in. There is no separate setup fee for it; the only one-time line we publish anywhere is the website build. The AI portion of every plan is month to month.
What it does not do
- Take payments. We do not claim it will
- Book into anything other than Google Calendar and Outlook natively; anything else is a custom integration we scope and quote
- Run without the AI front desk, so it is not sold to a business that is not on the $388 plan
- Replace the person who runs your front desk for the forty hours she is there. It answers the calls she is not
What it does, every call
- Answers 24/7 in your business name, from the knowledge base your website chat uses
- Offers real open slots and books into Google Calendar or Outlook, with a confirmation texted
- Transfers urgent calls to you with a whispered briefing first
- Leaves a transcript and recording in your dashboard
The product in full, with its own questions answered, is on the AI Receptionist page; every plan is on pricing.
The money questions the product page leaves to this one.
1How does a Canadian AI receptionist compare with the US plans I found?
Per minute, ours is cheaper; in total, it depends on what you already have. The $99 USD plans in the table are about $137 CAD at the 2026-08-27 Bank of Canada rate for 200 minutes, roughly 69 cents a minute. Ours is $149 CAD for 300 minutes, roughly 50 cents.
But ours is not standalone: it runs on the AI front desk, the calendar and CRM connections, and the knowledge base in the $388 plan. If you already have a website, a chatbot and a booking system you are happy with, a standalone plan is the cheaper way to get calls answered, and we will say so.
2Why does every AI receptionist vendor price by the minute?
Because a phone call is carried, transcribed and spoken back in real time, and each of those has a cost per minute to the vendor that a chat message does not. That is also why the agent is not inside our $388 plan.
Per-minute pricing done properly is a cap you can see and a rule for what happens past it. Done badly, it is a low headline price and a rate you find on the invoice.
3Is the $149 a month in Canadian dollars?
Yes. Every price on this site is in Canadian dollars, including the $388 plan the receptionist sits on and the $499 build. The vendor prices in the table above are in US dollars, which is why each row is marked, and why the conversion in the first answer uses the Bank of Canada's published rate rather than a round number.
4How many calls do 300 minutes actually cover?
It depends on how long your calls run, so the answer is arithmetic you can do with your own call log. At three minutes a call it is 100 calls; at five, 60. Count last month's inbound calls, multiply by the average length, and you have your number before you talk to anyone.
A trade taking ten three-minute calls a working day is past a 300-minute cap by the end of the second week, and on a per-minute plan the rest of the month is the real price.
5What should I ask before signing up with any AI receptionist?
Five things, in writing. The minutes included and what counts against them. The rate or the rule past the cap. Which calendar it books into natively and whether yours is one. What happens to a call it cannot handle, and whether you hear who is calling before you are connected.
And whether the price is in your currency. Our answers to all five are on the product page; if a vendor cannot put theirs in writing, that is your answer.
This page states a human wage, a currency conversion and two vendors' prices, and each is a claim that goes stale. The government rows below are the sources for the first two, dated; the vendor pages are named so their figures can be re-read on the day you compare them.
- Job Bank, Government of Canada, Receptionist in the Ottawa Region, Wages (NOC 14101)
Read 2026-08-28. Source of the Ottawa Region hourly wages for receptionists: $17.60 low, $20.00 median, $28.62 high, updated 2025-11-19 on a 2023 to 2024 reference period. The monthly figure on the page is the median multiplied by 162.5 hours, wages only.
- Bank of Canada, Daily exchange rates
Read 2026-08-28. Source of the US dollar to Canadian dollar rate of 1.3861 on 2026-08-27, used once, to state a $99 USD plan as about $137 CAD.
- Two US vendors' published pricing pages
myaifrontdesk.com/pricing and ai-receptionist.com/pricing, both read 2026-08-28, both USD, figures as published that day. Not linked, because this site does not link competitors' sales pages; the URLs are here so you can check them, and prices move.
- Our own pricing and product pages
/pricing and /ai/receptionist, read 2026-09-30. $149 CAD a month on the $388 plan, 300 voice minutes, no overage rate. The year-one sum is $499 + (12 x $537) = $6,943.
Do the minute arithmetic first. Then call.
Count last month’s inbound calls and their average length. Bring that number and Ana, our AI receptionist, will book the call; she is the product, answering its own line.
The rest of the plain-English write-ups are in the guides.