- Trades: electricians, plumbers, builders
- Allied health: physio, chiro, osteo, podiatry
- Salons, spas and beauty clinics
- Veterinary practices
- Property managers
On Autopilot’s AI Front Desk is an AI receptionist for Australian service businesses such as trades, clinics, salons and vets. It answers website chat, SMS and email enquiries after hours, books appointments into the calendar you already use, sends reminders and passes anything urgent to a person. It costs $1,500 to set up and $199 a month (AUD, ex GST), and is usually live in 7–10 working days, including a shadow week.
How much does an AI receptionist cost in Australia?
With On Autopilot, an AI receptionist costs $1,500 to set up and $199 a month, ex GST and month to month. That is $3,888 in year one and $2,388 a year after that. The monthly fee covers hosting, Claude API usage, the SMS gateway, monitoring and small updates, so there is no separate AI bill.
| What you pay for | Cost (AUD, ex GST) |
|---|---|
| Setup, one-off: knowledge base, calendar connection, website chat, SMS and email set-up, testing and a tuning month | $1,500 |
| Monthly: hosting, Claude API usage, SMS gateway, monitoring, small updates | $199 a month |
| Year one in total | $3,888 |
| Each year after that | $2,388 |
Your booking software subscription (Cliniko, ServiceM8 and so on) stays on your account and your bill.
What does the AI Front Desk do?
It is one Claude-based assistant working across three channels: a chat window on your website, replies to texts on your business SMS number, and draft or automatic replies to your enquiry email. Because it is one assistant, a customer gets the same answer whichever way they ask.
- Answers questions accurately from a knowledge base we write with you: services, prices or call-out fees, hours, the suburbs you cover, parking, what to bring.
- Books appointments straight into Cliniko, Nookal, ServiceM8, Calendly, Cal.com or Google Calendar, using your booking rules.
- Confirms and reminds by SMS or email, and follows up no-shows with a rebooking link.
- Hands over to a person when something is urgent, unusual or outside what it knows (see below).
What it will not do: take payments, give clinical or professional advice, pretend to be a person, or offer a service you do not provide.
How do we build it?
Most AI Front Desk builds go live in 7–10 working days, and that includes a shadow week. The steps:
- Kick-off call (day 1). Your services, prices, hours, service areas, common questions and booking rules. You give us access to your calendar or practice software.
- Knowledge base and instructions (days 2–3). We write your information into a structured knowledge base and set the system prompt: your tone, what it may and may not say, and when to hand over.
- Shadow week (about five working days). The chat sits on a hidden page and the assistant drafts a reply to each real enquiry without sending anything. Your team reads every draft and tries to trip it up with awkward questions, and test bookings run end to end through your real calendar. We fix every miss.
- Go live (by day 10). Website chat, SMS and email switched on once the drafts read like your front desk on a good day.
- First month. We review conversations weekly and tune anything that is not landing.
Under the hood: Claude through the Anthropic API, your booking system’s API, Twilio or your existing SMS provider, and a small script on your website. You own the code, prompts and settings from day one. While we run an agent it uses our hosting and our Claude API account, and that usage is included in the monthly fee. If you stop, we move it to hosting and an Anthropic account in your name so it keeps running.
When does it hand over to a person?
Knowing when to stop is the most important part of an AI front desk. Ours hands over when:
- The customer asks for a person.
- The message mentions an emergency, an injury, a leak, a fire or anything urgent.
- The question is not covered by the knowledge base.
- The customer is unhappy or making a complaint.
- The conversation goes several turns without being resolved.
It then takes the customer’s name, number and what they need, tells them who will call back, and alerts you by SMS or your chosen channel. It does not bluff. The answers come only from your knowledge base, which is how we keep hallucination out of customer conversations.
What is not included?
- Voice calls. AI Front Desk handles website chat, SMS and email. It does not answer the phone.
- Payments. It never takes card details.
- Advice. No clinical, legal or other professional advice. It books the appointment; your people give the advice.
- Your software subscriptions. Your booking system and website hosting stay on your accounts.
- New channels or a second location. Quoted before we add them.
AI Front Desk vs the alternatives
| Option | Year-one cost (AUD) | Covers nights and weekends? | Who keeps it working |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voicemail and next-morning replies | $0 | No | Nobody |
| A do-it-yourself chatbot app | A monthly subscription, plus your setup time | Yes, if set up well | You |
| A receptionist on the award minimum, full time | From about $65,200 including super | No, only their hours | You |
| On Autopilot AI Front Desk | $3,888 | Yes, on chat, SMS and email | Us |
The receptionist figure is a full-time Level 2 clerk under the Clerks (Private Sector) Award: $1,119.10 a week from 1 July 2026 (Fair Work pay guide), plus 12% super, before payroll tax, workers’ compensation and leave cover. It is a modelled comparison as at October 2026. An AI front desk is not a like-for-like replacement for a person: it covers the hours and the routine questions so your team can handle the rest.
Who is it for, and who is it not for?
It suits service businesses where enquiries arrive when nobody can answer them: trades on the tools all day, clinics with phones unattended before 8am or after 5pm, salons and vets with busy front counters, and property managers fielding tenant messages. If you take bookings, you get the most from it.
It is probably not worth it if you receive a handful of enquiries a week; a one-off Quick Start build at $497 may be enough. And if your customers only ever phone, you need a phone answering solution, which this is not.
What rules apply in Australia?
- Privacy. Your privacy policy should say how enquiry details are handled, including that an AI service processes them overseas. The Australian Privacy Principles set the rules; we document the data flow for you.
- SMS. Booking confirmations and reminders are part of the service the customer asked for. Anything promotional needs consent, a clear sender and an unsubscribe option under the Spam Act 2003 (see the ACMA’s guidance). We set reminders up to stay on the right side of that line.
- Health practices. For AHPRA-registered practitioners, the assistant sticks to admin (bookings, fees, directions) and passes any clinical question to your practitioners. It makes no claims about treatment, which the AHPRA advertising rules restrict.
Where does this come from?
AI Front Desk is built from the same parts as the systems we run in our own businesses, such as the lead pipeline that receives and sorts every enquiry to DotVA, our virtual assistant agency. If you want the front desk and other agents run for you over time, see managed AI. Every price is on the pricing page.