How much does an AI receptionist cost for a restaurant, and is it cheaper than hiring someone?

Most restaurants reach this question the same way: the phone goes during service, nobody can get to it, and somebody says we should get someone in to answer it. Fair enough. Here is what that person actually costs, and what the alternative costs, using the published 2026/27 rates from GOV.UK. You can check every figure against the sources at the bottom.

What does a part-time person cost a restaurant in 2026?

More than the hourly rate. The rate on the rota is where the number starts.

For one person, 20 hours a week, at the National Living Wage of £12.71 an hour:

And that is the floor. It leaves out recruitment, training, uniform, payroll admin and the hours you spend managing somebody.

How much cover does "20 hours a week" really buy?

928 hours a year, not 1,040.

Almost every worker is legally entitled to 5.6 weeks of paid holiday. So you pay for 52 weeks and get 46.4 weeks of someone actually being there.

• 46.4 weeks × 20 hours = 928 hours of cover.

So what does one hour of cover actually cost?

£15.80 an hour.

£14,660.51 divided by 928 hours of cover is £15.80. So a £12.71 hour costs about 24% more than the rate on the rota once National Insurance, pension and holiday are counted.

Work it out for your own rota: hourly rate × weekly hours × 52, then add 15% of everything above £5,000, then add 3% of everything above £6,240. Divide the total by (weekly hours × 46.4).

And what does an AI receptionist cost a restaurant?

Sorino starts at £299 a month, which is £3,588 a year. It is priced per property and the first month is free. The exact figure is confirmed after a conversation, because a twenty-cover dining room and a group are not the same job.

The hours that matters for are the ones you cannot staff: the enquiry at half seven while the pass is full, the Sunday when you are shut, the booking request that arrives at midnight from somebody planning next Friday.

AI receptionist vs a part-time person vs an answering service vs doing it yourself

Is an AI receptionist actually cheaper than hiring?

On cost, yes: £3,588 against £14,660, and it covers every hour rather than 928 of them.

That comparison only holds for the work an agent can actually do, so read it against the job you are trying to fill.

• If the gap is on the floor, recruit. Nothing here carries a plate, reads a table or calms somebody down on a Saturday night.
• If the gap is the reservations line, a new starter is an expensive way to cover it. Your calls do not spread themselves politely across a 20 hour rota. They bunch into the hour before service and the hour after it opens, then keep going long after your team has gone home.
• If the gap is the admin behind a booking, the pre-orders, the dietary requirements, the deposit chase, that is written work in an inbox, and it is the cheapest kind of work to cover this way.

When would we tell a restaurant not to bother?

Four cases where we would tell you not to bother:

• The gap is on the floor, not on the phone. Recruit instead. We would rather tell you that now.
• You barely take calls. If the phone rings four times a week, £299 a month is a poor deal. Do not do it.
• Your menu changes faster than your records do. An agent working from a menu you changed in March will happily describe a dish you have taken off. A confident wrong answer is worse than a voicemail, and on a dietary question it is worse than that.
• Regulars ring because they like getting you. If the chef-patron picking up is part of why people come, that is the product. Protect it.

What does it actually do all day?

One agent, four ways in, all reading from the same knowledge base:

• Voice. Picks up mid-service, checks the covers you have left and takes the booking.
• Chat. Answers the person on your website who is choosing between you and somewhere else tonight.
• Email. Works the inbox, so a party enquiry and a pre-order sheet are not still sitting there on Monday.
• Social. Replies on WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, where a lot of tables now start.
• Knowledge base. Your menus, sittings, hours, policies and availability, feeding all four so a guest gets the same answer whichever way they came in.

It does not guess. Anything outside the knowledge base gets a straight I will find out and a handoff to a person. Dietary answers come from your record or they do not get made. Anybody who asks for a human gets one.

Frequently asked questions

How much does an AI receptionist cost for a small restaurant?

From £299 a month, priced per property, first month free. A twenty-cover dining room and a group are priced differently, so the figure is confirmed after a conversation.

Is it cheaper than putting a part-timer on the reservations line?

On cost, yes: £3,588 a year against £14,660 for a 20 hour week, and it covers every hour instead of 928 of them. It is only a fair comparison for the phone, the inbox and the messages. For hands during service, recruit.

What is the true hourly cost of a minimum wage employee in the UK in 2026?

About £15.80 an hour of actual cover, against a £12.71 headline rate. The difference is 15% employer National Insurance above £5,000, 3% pension above £6,240, and the fact that 5.6 weeks of the year are paid holiday. That £15.80 is our own arithmetic from the published GOV.UK rates, not a published statistic.

Does this replace front of house?

No, and if that is the plan then it is the wrong product. It lifts the calls and messages off the team you already have so they can stay with the guests in the room. In a UKHospitality members' survey, 69% of respondents were operating at or below the capacity they need, so in most restaurants this covers hours that were already going unanswered rather than replacing anybody.

Can it actually book a table, or does it just take a message?

It takes the booking, against the covers you actually have left. That is the difference between something reading your live availability and a message service leaving you a name to ring back tomorrow.

What happens when a guest asks something it has no answer for?

It says so and hands to a person. It does not invent an answer.

Sources

We do not publish a figure unless it is real and attributable. The numbers on this page are:

1. National Living Wage for workers aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour from April 2026. GOV.UK, 2026. gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
2. Employer National Insurance is 15%, with a secondary threshold of £5,000 a year. HM Revenue & Customs, 2026/27. gov.uk/guidance/rates-and-thresholds-for-employers-2026-to-2027
3. Employer minimum pension contribution is 3% of qualifying earnings, £6,240 to £50,270. GOV.UK. gov.uk/workplace-pensions
4. Statutory holiday entitlement is 5.6 weeks. GOV.UK. gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights
5. 69% of respondents were operating at or below 85% of required capacity. UKHospitality members' survey, Q3 2025. ukhospitality.org.uk

The £14,660.51, the 928 hours and the £15.80 an hour are our own arithmetic from the four GOV.UK sources above. The working is shown above so you can check it. They are not published statistics and we are not presenting them as such.