Advertised prices are where the bill starts, not where it ends. We worked out what 200 minutes of answered calls actually costs on every NZ AI receptionist's published pricing, setup fees, GST exclusions, overage rates and launch-price asterisks included. Where a provider doesn't publish something, we say so instead of guessing.
200 minutes is roughly 60 to 80 answered calls, a normal month for a busy trade or clinic. Sorted cheapest first at that volume, note how the order changes once overage, platform fees, GST and setup fees join the party. Two providers sit outside the sort: reception.ai bills in US dollars, and Easy AI Agents publishes no minute allowance or overage rate, so a busy month cannot be modelled from their pricing page at all.
| Provider | Advertised from | Included | Real cost · 200 min/mo | Setup fee | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TalkifyThat's us | NZ$129/mo founding | 100 min | $139 | $0 | Founding rate locked for your first 3 months, then $199. Overage from just 10c/min, the lowest in this table. |
| BizzyBoss | NZ$147/mo | Minutes not published | ~$197 | $250 | Usage billed at "approx. 25c per minute" on top of the subscription, their wording. Chat widget is a separate $97/month product. |
| AI for Trades NZ | NZ$199/mo per seat | n/p | $199+ | $299 (currently waived) | Per-seat pricing scales with your team, not your call volume, and included minutes aren't published. Inbound only, with no outbound calling published. |
| Waboom | NZ$1/min | Pay as you go | $330 | None stated | Every tier carries a $130 +GST/month platform fee on top of the minutes, which is not in the advertised per-minute price. Their monthly plans start at $990 +GST for 1,165 minutes. |
| Tamaki AI | NZ$350/mo | 150 min | $384.50 | $300 | Overage is $0.69/min on the entry plan. Language support is not published on that plan; multilingual answering is listed from $497/month. Not GST registered, so no GST on top. |
| FirstVoice AI | From NZ$497/mo | n/p | $497+ | n/p | No published detail on minutes, integrations or contract terms beyond the from-price. |
| reception.ai (ElevenLabs) | US$22/mo | 60 min | US$78 | None stated | Billed in US dollars with no NZ GST invoice, so this figure is not directly comparable with the NZD rows above. Phone numbers are US-only, so an NZ business cannot put an 09 or 03 number on it. The entry plan handles one call at a time, and every minute past the included 60 is US$0.40. |
| Easy AI Agents | NZ$59/mo +GST | Not published | n/p | None stated | The closest direct comparison to Talkify: also NZ-built, also aimed at trades and clinics, and cheaper on the sticker. Neither included minutes nor overage rates are published on either plan, so a busy month cannot be modelled before you sign. Their managed tier starts at $250/mo +GST. |
All figures from each provider's own published pricing, August 2026. Real cost = entry plan plus published overage for 200 minutes in one month; one-off setup fees are shown separately, not included in the monthly figure. GST treatment varies and is noted where the provider states it. BizzyBoss usage is billed at "approx. 25c per minute" (their wording). Something changed? Tell us and we'll fix it.
A cross means not offered; "n/p" means the provider doesn't publish it, and the silences are worth reading too. SMS summaries, mobile apps, te reo, NZ data residency: count the ticks per column.
| Feature | Talkify | Waboom | BizzyBoss | Tamaki AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Real NZ / AU voices | ✓ NZ & AU voices | ✓ "Native Kiwi" | ◐ "Choose the voice" | n/p |
| Te reo Māori + languages | ✓ 32, incl. te reo | n/p | n/p | ◐ EN/Mandarin/Korean from the $497 plan |
| Overage per minute | ✓ From 10c | ✕ $1 every minute | ◐ ~25c, their wording | ✕ 69c |
| Answers 24/7 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Calls answered at once | ✓ Unlimited | ✓ Unlimited | n/p | n/p |
| Vertical business systems (Xero, GymMaster, MechanicDesk, Zenoti) | ✓ | n/p | n/p | n/p |
| Booking & scheduling tools | ✓ Google, Outlook, Calendly | ◐ Calendly, Acuity | n/p | ◐ Cal.com |
| CRM sync (HubSpot, GoHighLevel) | ✓ | ✓ HubSpot, Pipedrive | n/p | ◐ Premium tier only |
| Website chat widget | ✓ $49/mo, voice + text | ✕ | ◐ Separate $97/mo product | n/p |
| Outbound / outgoing calls | ✓ | ✓ | n/p | n/p |
| SMS summary after every call | ✓ | ◐ Booking confirmations only | ◐ Follow-up texts | ◐ 49c/text add-on |
| iOS & Android mobile apps | ✓ Both, on every plan | n/p | n/p | n/p |
| NZ data residency, stated in writing | ✓ | ◐ "In-region" (ANZ) | n/p | n/p |
| Setup fee | ✓ $0 | ✓ None stated | ✕ $250 | ✕ $300 |
| Lock-in | ✓ None | ✓ None | ✓ None | ✓ None |
| Try before you buy | ✓ Live line: 03 242 1183 | ◐ Paid trial, $500 | ✕ Demo call only | ✓ 2-week trial |
✓ published and offered ◐ partial or limited ✕ not offered n/p not published by the provider. AI for Trades and FirstVoice are priced in the cost table above but publish too little feature detail to compare fairly here. Sourced from each provider's public pages, August 2026.
Not marketing spin: these are the rows above where no NZ competitor can print a tick.
Plenty claim a Kiwi accent. We're the only one with a 24/7 public line where you can check: 03 242 1183. No form, no sales call, no card.
Not one NZ competitor publishes a te reo capability. Talkify greets in te reo and switches between 32 languages mid-call when the caller does.
Audio, transcripts and call metadata stored in NZ data centres, stated publicly. Nobody else in this comparison publishes that.
The same agent answers your phone, runs a voice-and-text chat widget on your site for $49/month, and reports to proper iOS and Android apps, transcripts, summaries and alerts in your pocket. No NZ rival publishes a mobile app at all.
Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, Calendly, Zenoti, GymMaster, MechanicDesk, HubSpot, GoHighLevel, Pipedrive, Xero, Trello, iTrade, Tradify, Zapier, REST API & webhooks and Custom MCP, on every plan, not a custom-priced add-on.
$0 setup, GST-stated pricing, a flat 10c overage, and no "launch rate" that quietly rises later. The founding rate runs for your first 3 months and the standard rate after it is published right here, so there is nothing to discover on invoice four.
The other thing buyers weigh Talkify against is the traditional NZ virtual receptionist: a person in a call centre answering in your name. Different model, different bill shape.
Entry plans advertise from $19 to $50 a month, then bill every answered call or minute on top. At 60 to 80 calls a month, expect $200 to $500, and the bill peaks in your busiest weeks.
After-hours and weekend cover is typically a premium add-on, staffed thinner. The 128 hours a week outside nine-to-five are exactly where most missed-call revenue hides.
The standard deliverable is a name and number to ring back. Talkify books the job into your live calendar while the caller is still on the line. The full human-vs-AI comparison is on the virtual receptionist page.
Everything above compares what an inbound answering service costs. This compares how much of your phone problem each provider actually solves, because most of this market sells one product and stops there.
| Talkify | Easy AI Agents | reception.ai | KiwiAgent | Waboom | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answers inbound calls | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Outbound calling campaigns | ✓ Win-backs, reminders, follow-ups | – | – | – | ✓ |
| Phone surveys with reporting | ✓ Question sets, live results | – | – | – | – |
| Chases overdue invoices | ✓ Driven from your own Xero | – | – | – | – |
| Website chat on the same brain | ✓ $49/mo, voice + text | – | • Separate web chat minutes | – | – |
| Multi-line call centre | ✓ 5, 10 or 15 lines | • Up to 10 at once | • 1 call at once on entry plan | ✓ Unlimited concurrent | ✓ Unlimited |
| Personal assistant for one mobile | ✓ Shortwave, from $89/mo | – | – | – | – |
| iOS and Android apps | ✓ Both, every plan | – | – | – | – |
A dash means the provider does not publish that service on their own website, not that they refuse to do it. Taken from each provider's public pages in August 2026. Waboom, CallKyzen, Automate AI and EnvokeAI all publish outbound calling; AI for Trades states it is inbound only. Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and we will correct it.
Aircall and 3CX come up in this search, so they are worth explaining rather than ignoring. Neither is really an alternative to Talkify: they are the phone system your calls run through, and Talkify is what answers when nobody picks up. Plenty of businesses run both, with the phone system diverting to a Talkify agent on busy or no-answer.
Priced per licence in US dollars, from US$30 a licence a month on annual billing with a three-licence minimum, so it is built for sales and support teams rather than a sole trader. It does sell an autonomous AI Voice Agent add-on, charged separately at US$0.49 a minute. If your team already lives in Aircall, keep it and point the overflow at Talkify.
Licensed per system by simultaneous calls rather than per user, billed annually in US dollars, and deployed by an IT team on your own server or cloud. It brings no phone numbers of its own; you supply your own NZ SIP trunk. Its self-hosting option is a genuinely good data-residency story if you have the people to run it.
3CX's AI Receptionist requires you to bring your own OpenAI account and API key, so those call costs land on a separate bill you meter yourself, and 3CX publishes a maximum call length of three minutes. That is enough to screen and route a call. It is not enough to take a booking, quote a job or work through an emergency.
Aircall and 3CX pricing read from their own published pricing pages in August 2026. Both are billed in US dollars; neither publishes NZD pricing. We have deliberately kept them out of the cost table above, because comparing a per-seat or per-system licence against a flat monthly answering service produces a number that flatters whoever builds the table.
An honest comparison cuts both ways.
If your call volume is wildly unpredictable and you'd rather no subscription at all, Waboom's $0.80/minute with no retainer is the purest PAYG in the market.
If you want bespoke AI tooling assembled around your exact workflow and you're happy paying setup plus usage, BizzyBoss custom-builds for Canterbury tradies.
If you'd rather hand the whole thing to an agency with white-glove onboarding and a budget north of $500/month, FirstVoice positions itself exactly there.
Nine of the questions we hear most. If yours isn't here, ring our live demo agent on 03 242 1183, it'll either answer or queue a callback from a human.