When a small business gets busy enough that the owner is answering enquiries between jobs, the first instinct is to hire someone. The second, lately, is to wonder whether software could do it for a fraction of the price.
Both instincts skip a step. Comparing a receptionist's salary with a monthly subscription is not a real comparison, because the two do different jobs. A person can greet a delivery driver, calm a distressed patient and notice the printer is out of toner. A website assistant can answer the same pricing question at 2am for the fortieth time without sighing.
So before deciding whether to hire a receptionist or use software, it is worth being precise about the work, and about the full cost on each side.
The cost of a hire, counted properly
Salary is the visible number. The rest tends to get forgotten until the first year's accounts. A realistic tally includes:
- On-costs: employer taxes, pension contributions and any benefits.
- Cover: holidays, sickness and training days, when someone else has to do the job or it does not get done.
- Recruitment: advertising, time spent interviewing, and the chance the first hire does not work out.
- Onboarding: weeks of a colleague's time while the new person learns your services and systems.
- Equipment and space: desk, computer, phone, software licences.
Here is a worked example with placeholder figures. Replace every number with your own.
| Item | Example annual figure |
|---|---|
| Salary | 25,000 |
| On-costs at an assumed 15% | 3,750 |
| Recruitment and onboarding time | 2,000 |
| Equipment and licences | 1,000 |
| Total | 31,750 |
That example hire covers roughly 37 or 38 hours a week, minus holidays. Evenings and weekends are still uncovered. None of this means hiring is a bad decision. It means the comparison should start from the full figure, not the salary line.
What a person does that software cannot
This list matters more than the cost table, because if these tasks are the bulk of the role, software is not an option.
- Anything physical: greeting visitors, signing for parcels, handling post, keeping the waiting area in order.
- The phone: a website assistant answers typed questions on your site. SpideyChat, for example, does not take calls.
- Reading people: noticing someone is frightened, confused or about to complain, and adjusting.
- Unwritten knowledge: knowing that Mrs Patel always books the late slot, or that the van is in the garage this week.
- Office glue: chasing an invoice, reminding the owner about an appointment, ordering supplies.
If your ideal receptionist spends most of the day on that list, hire a person.
Where software is simply better
There are also tasks where a person is at a genuine disadvantage, not through any fault of their own.
- Identical answers. A website assistant grounded in your content gives the same price, policy and area coverage every time. People misremember and improvise.
- Any hour. It answers the 10pm enquiry immediately and captures details for the morning. A receptionist cannot, and should not have to.
- Several conversations at once. Ten visitors asking questions at the same moment is no harder than one.
- A complete log. Every question is recorded, and anything it could not answer shows up as a knowledge gap you can fix.
- Language. It replies in the language the visitor writes in, which a single receptionist may not.
These are exactly the tasks a busy receptionist finds most tedious, which is worth remembering.
Software has its own costs, and it would be unfair to leave them out. Someone has to set it up, check its answers against real enquiries and spend a little time each week filling the gaps it records. Content has to be kept current, because an assistant will repeat an old price as confidently as a new one if the old one is still on your site. And captured leads still need a person to follow them up. Budget an hour or two a week of someone's attention, and more in the first month.
A day on the front desk, before and after
A quick way to picture the difference is to follow one ordinary weekday. This is an illustration, not a measurement.
| Time | Receptionist only | Receptionist plus website assistant |
|---|---|---|
| 8:00 | Clears 11 overnight emails asking about prices and availability | Reviews 11 captured leads, already with details attached |
| 10:30 | Answers the phone while a visitor waits at the desk | Answers the phone, visitor greeted properly |
| 13:00 | Desk closed for lunch, website enquiries wait | Assistant answers website questions over lunch |
| 17:30 | Leaves, evening enquiries wait until tomorrow | Assistant handles evening questions and captures booking requests |
The middle option most businesses end up with
For a lot of small firms, the answer is not either/or. A part-time or full-time person looks after the building, the phone and the office, while a website assistant takes online enquiries, especially outside hours, and hands over to that person when needed.
This changes the hiring question. Instead of needing someone to cover every channel all day, you may need fewer hours, or a person freed up for more valuable work. AI employee vs a part-time admin compares that split in more detail, and introducing an AI receptionist to staff covers how to explain it to a team that may feel uneasy.
On the software side of the ledger, flat plans run from free to $59 a month for SpideyChat's Pro tier; the pricing page lists the message allowance for each.
Questions that settle it
Answer these honestly and the decision usually makes itself:
| If this is true | Lean towards |
|---|---|
| Most contact is in person or by phone | Hiring |
| Most contact is through your website | Software first |
| Many enquiries arrive evenings and weekends | Software, at least for those hours |
| The role involves lots of office admin | Hiring |
| The same dozen questions make up most enquiries | Software |
| Customers are often upset or vulnerable | Hiring, with software for routine questions |
What to do before you advertise the job
Keep a simple log for two weeks. Every time someone contacts the business, note the channel, the time and whether it needed a human decision.
If most of the log is website questions with repeat answers, test a website assistant for a month before committing to a salary. If most of it is phone calls, visitors and judgement calls, write the job description and hire. And if the log is split, you now know exactly how many hours the person needs to cover, which is a better starting point than a guess. Calculating chatbot ROI can help put numbers on the software half.