Should You Hire a Receptionist or Use an Answering Service?

Published October 18, 2026 · by David Kohlani, founder of ApexSmartAI

If you run a small HVAC, plumbing, electrical or roofing company, there comes a point where you can no longer answer every call yourself. You are under a house, on a roof, or driving between jobs, and the phone keeps ringing. The usual next step is one of two things: hire someone to answer the phone, or pay a service to do it.

Both can work. Both can also be the wrong choice for your situation. This guide walks through the real trade-offs so you can decide, whether or not you ever talk to us.

Start with the question that actually matters

Before comparing costs, write down what you need the phone person to do. For most small trade businesses the list looks something like this:

1. Answer every call, including evenings, weekends and nights.
2. Get the caller’s name, number, address and the problem.
3. Tell you about it fast, so you can call back while the customer is still waiting.
4. Speak Spanish, if a share of your callers do.

Now ask whether you also need someone to:

5. Build and adjust the daily schedule and dispatch techs.
6. Order parts, chase invoices, handle permits and paperwork.
7. Greet customers who walk into an office.

If your list stops at 1–4, you are mainly looking for call coverage. If 5–7 are a big part of the job, you are really looking for an office manager, and an answering service will not replace that person.

What a receptionist really costs

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median pay for receptionists was $18.27 an hour, or $38,010 a year, based on May 2025 data (BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook). Pay in your area may be higher or lower.

That wage is only part of the cost. On top of it you have payroll taxes, workers’ comp, any benefits you offer, paid time off, a desk, a computer and a phone line. You also spend your own time recruiting, training and managing.

Then there is coverage. A week has 168 hours; one full-time employee covers about 40 of them. Your customers’ AC does not only fail between 8 and 5, and pipes do not only burst on weekdays. To cover nights and weekends with people, you need more than one person — or you need the owner to take those calls, which is usually how things are today.

And if that one person is sick, on vacation, or quits, the phone goes back to you overnight.

What an answering service really costs

Answering services come in two broad kinds:

• Live (human) services, where agents in a call center answer for many businesses. Pricing is often per minute or per call, and it varies widely between providers. Ask for the full price at your expected call volume, including any setup fees, holiday surcharges and minimum terms.
• AI answering services, where a voice agent answers. These are usually a flat monthly price with an allowance of minutes.

With either kind, check three things before you sign:

1. What exactly do you get after each call? A text? An email? How fast?
2. Is there a contract? Month-to-month is easier to walk away from if it does not work.
3. Can you hear it before you buy? Call the provider’s demo line, or ask for a trial on your own number.

Where a receptionist is the better choice

Be honest with yourself here. Hiring a person is often the right call when:

• You have an office customers visit. A service cannot greet someone at the counter.
• The job is mostly back-office. If most of the role is scheduling, invoicing and parts, you need a person, and answering calls is just part of their day.
• You have steady daytime volume that justifies a full-time seat, and you are fine handling nights yourself or with an on-call rotation.
• You want someone who knows your customers by name, your techs’ habits and your price book, and can make judgment calls.

Where an answering service is the better choice

A service tends to make more sense when:

• Calls come at all hours, and the expensive ones (no heat, water everywhere, power out) often come at night and on weekends.
• Your daytime volume is too low to keep a full-time person busy.
• You cannot afford gaps. A service does not take sick days or quit with a week’s notice.
• You get Spanish-speaking callers and do not have a bilingual person on staff.
• You are not ready to be an employer, with payroll, HR and management on top of running jobs.

Many shops do both

This is not always either/or. A common setup is:

• A part-time or full-time office person during business hours who handles scheduling and paperwork, and answers when they can.
• An answering service that picks up when the office person is on another line, at lunch, after hours, on weekends and on holidays.

That way the person you pay spends time on work that needs a human, and the phone is still covered the rest of the time. If your office person just left, we wrote about that situation in When the Person Who Answers Your Phone Leaves.

How to decide in one afternoon

1. Count your calls. Look at your phone bill or call log for the last 30 days. How many came in, and how many came outside business hours?
2. Count the ones you missed. Most business phone systems show missed calls. Note how many you never called back, or called back too late.
3. List the tasks from the first section. Circle the ones only a person in your office could do.
4. Price both options for your real numbers, not for a “typical” business.
5. Test before you commit. Call a few demo lines at 10 PM and see how they sound to you as a customer.

If the circled list is long, hire. If it is short and most of your problem is calls you cannot pick up, start with a service. Revisit it in six months; your answer can change as the company grows.

If you want to hear how an AI receptionist sounds

ApexSmartAI is a fully managed AI answering service built for home-service businesses. It answers your line 24/7 in English and Spanish, takes the job details, and texts and emails them to you right after the call. Pricing is $385 a month flat, including 500 call minutes, with $0 setup, then 43¢ a minute beyond that. Month-to-month, and the first 7 days are free, starting the day your line goes live.

Don’t take my word for it — call Maya and hear it yourself.