We make Remi, so this comparison has an author with an interest, like almost every "best AI receptionist" article you will find. What we can do is show our working. Every price below comes from the provider's own pricing page, checked on 3 October 2026, excluding VAT. Where a rival is cheaper or a better fit, we say so. And where Remi does something the others do not, we say that too.
The most useful thing to know before you compare: answering the phone is the easy part. Every product here can pick up a call. What separates them is what happens next: whether the booking lands in your real diary, whether anyone helps you set it up for the way your business actually works, and whether it keeps doing jobs after the caller hangs up.
The short answer
- Set up with you, and doing more than answering: Remi. £89 a month for 500 minutes, then 15p. Guided setup on your own line, books into Google Calendar, Cliniko or Acuity, answers WhatsApp and email, and sends reminders and takes deposits. Waitlist fill and invoice chasing are available on top.
- Lowest bill for a busy line, set up yourself: IONOS Premium or Hey Jodie Professional, both £99 a month, unlimited within their terms.
- Cheapest for a quiet line: RingCentral, £32 a month for 100 minutes.
- A human for the hard calls: Moneypenny, priced on a quote.
- UK-built with WhatsApp, self-serve: Ringmere, from £49 a month, WhatsApp from £99.
- You have developers and want to build your own: Retell or Synthflow.
What to look for (and why price alone misleads)
1. Who sets it up. Self-serve tools are quick: Hey Jodie says most businesses are live in under ten minutes. That is genuinely useful when your business fits the template. Most businesses have something that does not: a booking system the tool cannot reach, a rule about which calls go to which person, a service that needs a question asked first. With a self-serve tool, those gaps are yours to work around. With guided setup, someone closes them before your callers find them.
2. Where the booking lands. "Books appointments" can mean anything from writing straight into your practice software to emailing you a note to action later. Check your own system by name.
3. Whether it gets to know your business. An AI receptionist is only as good as what it knows. Look for one that starts from your own information, remembers returning customers, and gets better as you add to it, rather than one you configure once and forget.
4. What it does after the call. Reminders, deposits, filling a cancelled slot, chasing an unpaid invoice. These are where missed calls turn into lost money, and most receptionists stop at the call.
5. What it costs at your volume, not on the pricing page. We do that maths below.
How they compare
| Remi | Hey Jodie | IONOS | Ringmere | RingCentral | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Setup | Guided, with you, on your own line | Self-serve, "under 10 minutes" | Self-serve, minutes | Not stated | Self-serve |
| Books on the entry plan | Yes (£89) | No (from £99) | No (from £69) | Yes (£49) | Yes |
| Where bookings go | Google Calendar, Cliniko, Acuity; or texts your own booking link | Calendar list on Enterprise page (from £500) | Google, Outlook, Cal.com, Calendly | Your calendar | Calendar integration |
| WhatsApp and email | Both, including booking by WhatsApp | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page | WhatsApp from £99 | Not on pricing page |
| Reminders, deposits, waitlist fill | Yes (waitlist fill on Complete) | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page |
| Chases unpaid invoices | Yes (PaidUp add-on from £19, or Complete) | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page | Not on pricing page |
| Remembers returning callers | Yes, by name and past bookings | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Hands over to a person | Puts the call through and tells them who and why first | Transfers from £99 | Call forwarding | Escalates urgent calls | Call routing |
| Price model | £89 for 500 min, then 15p/min | £49 to £199, unlimited minutes (1,000-call fair use) | £39 to £99, per call or unlimited | £49 to £249 + 20p to 25p/min | £32 + 40p/min |
Moneypenny is left out of this table because its pricing and features are quoted individually; see its paragraph below. "Not on pricing page" means we could not find it on the provider's published pricing or product page on 3 October 2026, not that it can never be arranged. Ask them.
Where Remi is different
We set it up with you, and close the gaps personally. Remi is not left for you to configure alone. We go through your services, prices, opening hours and rules with you, you hear it on your own line before your customers do, and when something about your business does not fit, we fix it. One example: a salon we work with takes its bookings in a system Remi did not connect to. Rather than tell them to change systems, we built Remi a way to send callers straight to that salon's own booking page, and then made it a setting every business can switch on. That is the difference between a tool and a service.
It gets to know your business, and your customers. Remi starts from your own website at setup. It recognises returning callers by name, remembers what they have booked before, and can suggest the follow-up that makes sense. Every answer you add in the dashboard, or that we add with you after listening back to its calls, becomes part of what it knows. And it never makes up an answer it has not been given: it takes a message or puts the call through instead.
It keeps working after the call. The booking goes into your real diary, live, while the caller is on the line. Then Remi sends WhatsApp confirmations and reminders at 48 hours, 24 hours and 2 hours, takes a deposit on the services you choose, offers a cancelled slot to the next person on your waitlist, and chases unpaid invoices politely until they are paid. You get a morning brief of the day ahead and a monthly report of the money it brought back. Answering, booking, WhatsApp, reminders, deposits and the morning brief are all on the £89 Lite plan. Waitlist fill, win-backs and review requests come with our Complete plan, and invoice chasing with Complete or as the PaidUp add-on from £19 a month.
It is built for UK businesses. A UK company, a Data Processing Agreement under UK GDPR, and your data stored on secure EU-hosted infrastructure.
Where Remi is not the right pick. If your only goal is the lowest possible invoice for a very busy line and you are happy to set it up yourself, IONOS and Hey Jodie are cheaper (see below). If you want to be live in ten minutes without talking to anyone, a self-serve tool suits you better. And Remi books directly into Google Calendar, Cliniko and Acuity; on other systems it sends your booking link or takes a message rather than writing the booking in.
What it costs at your call volume
We used a three-minute average call and 22 working days a month, and picked the cheapest plan on each that can book appointments at that volume.
| Monthly volume | Remi | Hey Jodie | IONOS | Ringmere | RingCentral |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sole trader: 440 min (~147 calls) | £89 | £99 | £87 | £122 | £168 |
| Small clinic or salon: 1,320 min (~440 calls) | £212 | £99 | £99 | £342 | £520 |
| Busy practice: 3,300 min (~1,100 calls) | £509 | £99, but over its 1,000-call fair use* | £99 | £769 | £1,312 |
*Hey Jodie's terms cap "unlimited" at 1,000 call events per 30 days, counting spam, silent and wrong-number calls. Above that it may meter or rate-limit for the rest of the month, and repeated overuse can mean a move to Enterprise, which starts at £500 a month.
Read this table for what it is: the price of having the phone answered and a booking made. On that measure Remi is the cheapest for a sole trader, far cheaper than the per-minute services, and dearer than the two unlimited plans once your line is busy. What the table cannot show is the rest of the job: a person setting it up around your business, bookings in your practice software, WhatsApp, reminders and deposits, all included in that Remi price. If you need those, compare Remi against the cost of the extra tools and time it would take to add them. If you do not, the unlimited plans are the cheaper buy.
(How we worked it out: Remi £89 + 15p per minute over 500. IONOS Professional £69 + 39p per call over 100, or Premium £99 unlimited, whichever is lower. Ringmere's cheapest of Starter £49 + 25p over 150, Growth £99 + 25p over 240, or Pro £249 + 20p over 700. RingCentral £32 + 40p over 100. Hey Jodie Professional £99.)
The small print behind "unlimited"
Unlimited plans work because most customers use far less than the limit, and the terms protect the provider from the ones who do not. Both are worth reading before you sign.
- Hey Jodie: unlimited minutes, not unlimited calls. The pricing FAQ says "we don't cap your call volume on any plan". Section 22 of its Terms of Service (updated 2 September 2026) sets fair use at 1,000 "Call Events" per 30 days, and counts every call the same way "regardless of duration, origin, content or outcome", spam and silent calls included. The same terms say call audio and transcripts are processed in Ireland and the United States, with no option to keep data in one region, and liability is capped at the greater of a year's fees or £100.
- IONOS: a reseller, and the price has already moved. IONOS's own special terms say it provides the AI Receptionist "as a reseller", and the technology comes from Newo.ai, announced as its partner in January 2026. Newo's own pricing is US$299 a month for 200 units (roughly one call each), then US$1.50 a unit. IONOS launched in the UK in April 2026 at £9, £19 and £29 a month; the same tiers now cost £39, £69 and £99. Its terms allow price changes on 30 days' notice, and state that AI errors, including "hallucinations", are not in themselves a defect in the service.
None of this makes either a bad product. It means "unlimited" is a promise about typical use, and the price you sign up at is not guaranteed to be the price you pay next year. Remi's model is the opposite trade: a fixed allowance and a published rate beyond it, so a busy month costs more but never gets throttled.
Each one in a paragraph
Remi. An AI receptionist and back office for clinics, salons and trades, set up with you rather than left to you. It answers calls, WhatsApp and email, books live into Google Calendar, Cliniko or Acuity, remembers returning callers, and keeps working after the call with reminders and deposits, plus waitlist fill and invoice chasing if you want them. £89 a month for 500 minutes, then 15p, with a free week. Best for: appointment businesses that want it to fit how they actually work, and that lose money to no-shows and unpaid invoices as well as unanswered calls. See how a call goes, or the page for your trade: dentists, vets, physios, plumbers and more.
Hey Jodie. A UK company with prices in pounds and unlimited minutes on every plan, a genuinely strong offer for a busy line. The catches: the £49 Basic plan has no bookings and no call transfers, so the real starting price for most businesses is £99; "unlimited" has a fair-use limit of 1,000 calls a month; Zapier integrations start at £199, and its list of calendar connections sits on the Enterprise page, from £500. Data is processed in Ireland and the US. Best for: busy businesses that mainly need calls answered and are happy to set it up themselves.
IONOS. The hosting company's AI receptionist, resold from Newo.ai, bills per call rather than per minute, which is excellent value for long calls. The £39 Starter cannot book; £69 can, with 100 calls; £99 is unlimited. It books into Google Calendar, Outlook, Cal.com or Calendly, and prices have risen sharply since the April 2026 launch. Best for: businesses already on IONOS, or with long calls and a busy line.
Ringmere. UK-built, with in-call calendar booking from £49 for 150 minutes and two-way WhatsApp from £99. Minutes run out quickly at clinic volume, at 25p a minute after the allowance. Best for: lighter call volumes that want WhatsApp from a UK provider.
RingCentral. A big phone-system company with an AI receptionist at £32 for 100 minutes, then 40p a minute. Cheap to start, expensive once busy. Best for: very quiet lines, or businesses already on RingCentral's phone system.
Moneypenny. The best-known UK answering service, now with an AI receptionist and live receptionists behind it. Pricing is quoted rather than published. Best for: professional services where a human voice on difficult calls is worth paying for.
Smith.ai. A US service mixing AI and human receptionists, priced in dollars per call. Best for: businesses with US operations; check UK number support with them.
Retell and Synthflow. Platforms for building your own voice agent rather than finished receptionists. Retell is pay-as-you-go per minute for developers; Synthflow sells enterprise contracts from US$30,000 a year. Best for: companies with engineers and unusual requirements.
Six questions to ask any of them
- Will someone set it up with me, test it on my line, and fix what does not fit my business?
- Can the plan I am buying book appointments, or only take messages?
- Does it write into my actual booking system, or a separate calendar I have to copy from?
- What does it do after the call: reminders, deposits, cancellations, unpaid invoices?
- How many minutes or calls does my plan include, and what does the next one cost?
- Do you sign a UK GDPR Data Processing Agreement, and where is the data stored?
For the deeper pricing maths, see AI receptionist billing: per minute vs per call vs unlimited. For one-to-one comparisons, see Remi vs Hey Jodie, IONOS, RingCentral and Moneypenny.