Published answering-service prices in New Zealand start at about $43 a month for basic call handling and run to roughly $400 a month for higher-volume flat-rate plans. A managed front desk — where the enquiry is not just answered but qualified, booked and followed up — starts higher, from $497 a month plus a setup fee. All figures on this page are in New Zealand dollars. Per-call and per-minute services advertise the lowest headline rates and vary the most once you are busy. Below are the actual published figures, including the options cheaper than ours.
A note on where these numbers come from
Every figure here comes from a provider’s own published pricing page, checked in August 2026. Some providers in this market publish openly and some quote only on request, so this is not a complete market survey — it is what is publicly verifiable. Prices change without notice, so confirm anything you are about to act on.
We are including competitors who are cheaper than us, because a cost guide that quietly omits the cheaper option is not a cost guide.
What the different models cost
Per-call and per-minute
The cheapest to get into and the hardest to predict. Private Box lists phone answering from $43 a month, with extra calls beyond your plan at $2.43 each (ex GST) and call transfers charged separately at 20–25c a minute depending on whether you are forwarding to a landline or mobile.
That is a genuinely low entry price. The trade-off is that a busy week can move your bill substantially, and after-hours cover is usually an add-on again.
Flat-rate missed-call and virtual receptionist services
Built around a single monthly number instead of a running meter.
Call Catcher publishes $99 a month for roughly 90 calls and $149 a month for roughly 140, with no setup fee, overage at 18c per segment, no lock-in, and an integration with Fergus. It is trade-specific and includes evening and weekend triage.
Talkify publishes $129 a month for the first three months, moving to $199 standard, with 100 minutes included and no setup fee or lock-in. Overage runs 10c a minute during the introductory period and 20c once the standard rate applies.
Hey Jodie lists $99, $199 and $399 tiers on its own site, each claiming unlimited minutes.
For a trade business taking a moderate number of calls, this is the most predictable part of the market, and for a lot of sole operators it is genuinely enough.
Not published
CallCare, a long-standing human-staffed service with trade-specific plans, does not publish pricing and quotes on request. That is common enough in this market that it is worth asking directly rather than assuming.
Managed front desk
This is where you stop paying for a line to be answered and start paying for the job to get booked — capture, respond, qualify, book, follow up, run as one process rather than a message-taking service you still have to chase.
Our own pricing: Front Desk Starter from $1,500 setup + $497/month, Booked Jobs System from $2,500 setup + $1,200/month, and Managed Growth System from $4,000 setup + $2,000/month plus ad spend. All in New Zealand dollars and excluding GST. Higher than a bare answering line, because it is doing considerably more than answering.
Hiring someone
Worth comparing properly before committing to any outsourced option. Hiring a receptionist versus outsourcing has the real numbers, including KiwiSaver, ACC, leave cover and recruitment costs.
What pushes the price up or down
Five things move the number more than anything else:
- Call volume. The single biggest driver on per-call and per-minute plans, and the thing most likely to make an advertised price misleading.
- After-hours and weekend cover. Almost always charged on top of business-hours pricing.
- Whether it books the job or takes a message. A message you still have to action is a different product to a booking in your calendar.
- Contract terms. Month-to-month usually costs more per month than a twelve-month commitment.
- Trade-specific setup. A service that can ask the right qualifying questions for a burst pipe takes more setting up than one reading a generic script.
What is usually not included
Read past the headline before comparing two “$99 a month” plans as though they are the same thing. Setup and onboarding fees are common and rarely in the headline figure — though notably Call Catcher and Talkify both advertise none. Calendar integration is frequently a separate tier. Customer-facing SMS or email confirmations can be extra. After-hours is almost never in the base rate. And overage — per call, per minute, or a jump to the next tier — is where advertised prices and real invoices part company.
How to compare quotes properly
Ask every provider the same four questions:
- What is the all-in monthly cost at my call volume, not your example volume?
- What happens after hours and at weekends, and is it extra?
- Does the price include booking the job, or only taking a message?
- Is there a setup fee or a lock-in?
Expect GST on top unless a provider states otherwise, and confirm rather than assume — not every pricing page makes it clear.
When the cheaper option is the right one
If you are a sole operator taking a handful of calls a week, you do not need a $1,200-a-month managed system, and we would rather say so than sell you one. A $99 flat-rate plan, or even a straightforward forwarding-and-voicemail setup around $43 a month, can be enough to stop calls falling through without paying for qualification and follow-up you are not yet busy enough to need.
The honest test is not “what is the best system available”. It is “how many jobs am I actually losing right now, and what are they worth”. Whether a tradie needs an answering service at all walks through that properly, including the case for spending nothing.
Where a managed front desk earns its cost
Once missed calls and unchased quotes are costing real jobs — not hypothetically, but weeks where you know work went to whoever picked up first — the question changes from “cheapest line” to “what actually books the work”.
That is the gap between an answering service and a managed front desk. One takes a message. The other captures the enquiry, qualifies it against your rules, books it, and follows up when the customer goes quiet. Whether that gap is worth the difference in price depends entirely on your volume and what a job is worth to you.
Full details of what is included at each tier are on our pricing page, and the guide to handling trade enquiries covers the whole process a front desk is meant to run.