Telephone answering service costs UK (2026), real numbers

The short answer

A typical UK human answering service works out at £40–£100+ a month for a small business: usually a base fee plus roughly £1–£1.50 per call or a per-minute rate, with 24/7 cover sometimes priced higher. An AI receptionist like On The Blower is £20 a month with 45 minutes of answered calls included, 24/7 cover in the price and no contract.

A worked example: 40 calls a month

Say you miss 40 calls a month, averaging 2 minutes each.

Typical agency: a plan covering ~40 calls generally lands somewhere around £50–£90/month once base fee and per-call rates are added up.
On The Blower: 40 calls is around 80 minutes, so the Busy plan at £30/month covers it outright — 150 answered minutes, 24/7 included, no per-call fee.

And the AI answers every question you've given it, instead of taking a message about it.

The costs worth checking before you sign

Setup fees, minimum terms, per-message relay charges, out-of-hours rates, holiday surcharges. Our pricing has one extra of any kind: optional texts at 7p each, off unless you turn them on. Everything else is the plan price.

What On The Blower costs

£20/mo45 answered minutes, then 30p

£30/mo150 answered minutes, then 25p

£70/mo400 answered minutes, then 20p

No setup fee, no contract, and it is free to build and ring before you pay. Every plan includes a local number.

Quick questions

Are there any hidden costs?

None. No setup fee, no joining fee. Optional texts at 7p each. That's the entire list.

What if I go over my included minutes?

Extra minutes come out of your prepaid call credit at your plan's rate, 30p a minute on Answer. If you are going over most months we will tell you, because moving up a plan usually works out cheaper than paying by the minute.

What does a telephone answering service cost in the UK?

A worked example: 40 calls a month

The costs worth checking before you sign

What On The Blower costs

Quick questions

Hear yours before you pay a penny.

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