How much does AI phone answering cost for a restaurant?

If you’ve started looking into an AI host for your restaurant’s phone, you’ve probably noticed the pricing is all over the place. Some services quote a few dollars a month, others want hundreds, and a few won’t give you a number until you’ve sat through a sales call. Here’s how the pricing actually works, in plain terms, so you can tell a fair deal from an expensive one.

The three pricing models you’ll see

Almost every AI phone service is built on one of these:

• Per-minute or per-call. You pay for each call or each minute the AI spends on the phone. It looks cheap on the brochure, but the bill swings with how busy you are — and your busiest months, when the phone never stops, are exactly when it costs the most.
• Flat monthly. One predictable price, unlimited (or very high) call volume included. Easier to budget, and it doesn’t punish you for being popular.
• Per-cover or per-booking. A cut of every reservation the system takes. Common with booking platforms, and it quietly adds up — a few dollars a cover across a full service is real money.

For most venues, a flat monthly price is the one that won’t surprise you. A busy Friday shouldn’t cost more than a quiet Tuesday just because more people called.

What’s a fair number in Australia?

As a rough 2026 benchmark for a single venue, a capable AI phone host lands somewhere between $80 and $300 a month, depending on features (booking integration, multiple locations, after-hours coverage). Below about $50 you’re usually looking at a generic call bot, not something trained for hospitality. Well above $300 for one venue and you’re paying for enterprise extras you may not need.

For comparison, that’s a fraction of a single casual shift. The honest framing isn’t “how cheap is it” — it’s “what does one missed booking a night cost me instead?”

The fees that hide in the fine print

Before you sign anything, ask about:

• Setup or onboarding fees. Some charge hundreds to get started.
• Per-minute overage. “Unlimited” that quietly caps at a number, then bills per minute after.
• Integration add-ons. Connecting your booking system or POS as a paid extra.
• Lock-in contracts. Month-to-month is a good sign a provider trusts its own product.

A clear, all-in monthly price with no per-call meter is the gold standard.

How to work out if it pays for itself

This is the only sum that matters. Take your missed-call estimate — if you haven’t done it, our guide on what missed calls really cost your restaurant walks you through it in five minutes — and compare it to the monthly fee.

The arithmetic is usually lopsided. If an AI host recovers even one or two bookings a week that would otherwise have rung out, it has almost certainly paid for a whole month. Everything after that is margin you were previously leaving on the table.

Where VoxTable sits

We built VoxTable on the flat-monthly model on purpose: $80/month, no per-call fees, no per-cover cut, with bookings written straight to your diary. It answers every call in a warm Australian voice, 24/7 — and it costs the same whether you take ten calls a day or a hundred. Built, hosted and supported in Sydney.

If you want help running the payback maths for your own venue, have a chat with us — we’ll be honest about whether it’s worth it for you.

Next read: AI receptionist vs answering service vs voicemail: what’s best for a restaurant?