How we compare AI phone answering
We list 5 AI phone answering services sold into Australia, and a published rate card exists for 5 providers. Where a vendor publishes a floor rather than a price, in the "from $X a month" shape used for enterprise tiers, we treat it as a floor and do not build a plan out of it. Inventing the rung above the last published one is how a comparison table ends up quoting a number no buyer was ever given.
Ranking is arithmetic. The calculator costs each vendor's published plans at the calls per month and average call time you enter, picks the cheapest plan whose allowance covers that usage, and adds the vendor's own overage rate where one is published. Commission never moves a provider, we do not sell prominence, and the order is whatever the arithmetic says it is.
The billing basis is recorded per vendor and matters as much as the figure, because a monthly-equivalent price on an annual commitment is not the same offer as a month you can leave. Frontly's basis reads True monthly and Simple Phones' reads True monthly.
Minutes, calls or neither: what AI phone answering actually meters
The most useful thing to know about this category is that the vendors do not agree on what they are selling. Some sell minutes of talk time. Some sell a number of answered calls. At least one sells neither and charges a flat fee however much the phone rings.
Dialzara's included allowance reads: 60 minutes (Business Lite), 220 (Pro), 500 (Plus), 1,000 (Elite). Live talk time only, tracked to the second with partial minutes not rounded up. Frontly's reads: 200 minutes (Answer 10), 400 (Answer 20), 800 (Answer 40). Valory's reads: 100 voice minutes (Intro), 250 (Core), 700 (Premium), each with a separate SMS allowance of 50, 150 and 400 messages, so there are two meters running on that one and the estimate here covers the voice meter only.
Simple Phones prices the other unit entirely. Its allowance reads: Up to 100 calls a month (Basic), 500 (Advanced), 2,500 (Premium). A call counts as a call there whether it lasted twenty seconds or nine minutes. Hey Jodie does neither: Unlimited minutes on every plan, in the vendor's own words: "we don't cap your call volume on any plan".
Those are genuinely different products wearing one category name, and no amount of reading the monthly figures side by side will tell you which suits your phone, because the figures are denominated in different things.
Why your average call length decides what AI phone answering costs
Here is the consequence, and it is the single most important sentence on this page. Hold your call volume constant and change only the average length of a call: the bills of the minute-metered vendors move sharply, and the bills of the call-metered and flat-fee vendors do not move at all.
That works in both directions. Long enquiry calls chew through a minute allowance and tip you into overage or onto a higher plan, while the vendor counting calls charges you exactly the same. Short calls do the opposite: a business fielding a hundred forty-second "are you open today" calls is being overcharged by anyone selling it a per-call tier and well served by a minute allowance it never exhausts.
This is why the calculator asks for calls per month and average call time as two separate inputs rather than one volume number. Minutes are derived from the two, and if you guess the second one you have guessed the answer.
Estimate it rather than guessing:
Read it off your phone records. Most business phone accounts itemise inbound calls with a duration in the online portal. Take a normal week, add the minutes, divide by the number of calls. A week is enough, a month is better, and either beats an impression.
Count only the calls the AI would take. The relevant population is unanswered and after-hours calls from people you do not know, not the supplier who rings your mobile. Averaging the whole call log mixes in conversations no receptionist product was ever going to handle.
Split short and long calls before you average them. A forty-second opening-hours question and a six-minute quote request are two different businesses sharing a phone line, and the mean between them describes neither. If most of your value sits in the long calls, model the long calls.
Check what the vendor counts as a minute. Ringing, hold time and voicemail are not obviously the same thing as talk time, and vendors differ on this. Dialzara states its basis inside the allowance itself: 60 minutes (Business Lite), 220 (Pro), 500 (Plus), 1,000 (Elite). Live talk time only, tracked to the second with partial minutes not rounded up.
Running past your allowance: what AI phone answering does at the limit
Exceeding the allowance is not one behaviour with different prices attached to it. It is three different behaviours, and the difference is worth more than the price gap between the plans.
A charge per extra minute. Frontly's overage reads $0.50 a minute on every plan, with the boundary stated outright: "Additional minutes billed at $0.50 per minute. No interruptions, no limits." Valory's reads $0.90 a minute (Intro), $0.70 (Core), $0.50 (Premium). SMS is a second meter with its own allowance and its own $0.10 a message rate, which this estimate does not cover. Dialzara's reads Charged in US dollars: USD $0.48 a minute (Business Lite), USD $0.45 (Pro), USD $0.40 (Plus), USD $0.35 (Elite). Live talk time only, tracked to the second, with partial minutes not rounded up. Notice the pattern in the last two: the overage rate falls as the plan gets larger, so the marginal minute is dearest on the smallest plan. A business that consistently runs over is usually better off on a bigger plan than on a cheap one plus overage, and that crossover is what the calculator is finding for you.
Nothing to exceed. Hey Jodie's overage row reads None. Unlimited minutes on every plan, "without surprise overage charges". The flat fee is the whole bill, which is worth real money to a business whose call volume is unpredictable, and worth nothing to one whose volume is low and steady.
A cutoff. Simple Phones' row reads None. Exceeding your tier's call count releases your phone numbers, which is a cutoff rather than a charge. Read that one twice before you buy on price. The failure mode there is not a larger invoice at the end of the month, it is calls that stop being answered during your best week of the year.
So size the plan against a busy month, not an average one. On the minute-metered vendors an unusually busy month costs you money you can measure afterwards. On a call-capped one it can cost you the calls themselves.
What AI phone answering does when the caller needs a person
Every one of these will answer a call. What separates them is what happens when the caller wants something the AI cannot finish, and that is a buying decision rather than a feature list: a missed transfer on a job worth several thousand dollars costs more than the whole subscription costs in a year.
Start with transfers. Frontly's transfer row reads Yes, warm transfer on every plan: "Warm Transfer to a Real Person. Nobody repeats themselves. When a caller wants a human, Frontly hands the call over with a summary." Dialzara's reads Yes, blind transfers on every plan; warm transfers on Pro and above, and Simple Phones' reads Yes, "the call transferred to a member of your team", and calls can be routed or escalated to different numbers. Hey Jodie's reads Yes, on Professional and above. Not on Basic., which is the tier-gating trap in miniature: the row says yes, and the entry plan you were pricing does not have it. Valory's reads Not published as an in-call transfer. The vendor says it will "escalate urgent enquiries", and that onboarding configures "routing rules, handoffs, integrations, and escalation paths"., which describes escalation rather than a live handover, and that is a different promise.
Then check whether anyone is actually there. None of these services staff a room of people behind the AI, which is the distinction to hold on to if you are also quoting a traditional answering service. Dialzara's live human backup row reads No vendor-supplied humans. Transfers reach your own team. Frontly's reads No. Valory's reads No vendor-supplied humans, though every plan includes managed onboarding and ongoing tuning by Valory staff, which is support for you rather than cover for the caller. A transfer that rings a mobile nobody picks up is a voicemail with extra steps.
Booking is the other thing worth paying for, because a booked job is worth more than a message about one. Frontly books appointments as Yes, on every plan, Simple Phones as Yes, on every plan, Valory as Yes, booking workflows on every plan, Dialzara as Calendar sync on Pro and above and Hey Jodie as Yes, on Professional and above. Not on Basic..
The broader question to ask of any ladder here is whether the higher tiers sell you volume or capability. Frontly's capability row states it plainly: Appointment booking, warm transfer to a person, a visual workflow builder, cross-call memory, transcripts, concurrent call handling, an unlimited knowledge base and premium voice, on every plan. The vendor states there is "No premium tier. No add-on fees.", so the tier buys minutes only. Simple Phones takes the same approach: Books appointments, takes messages and answers questions on every plan. The tier buys AI agents, languages and phone numbers (1, 5 or 20), not features. Dialzara's ladder sells both: Answers calls and takes messages on every plan. Warm transfers, after-hours escalation, bilingual English and Spanish and calendar sync are on Pro and above; custom prompt engineering and multi-location are on Plus and above. If the tier buys features, the entry price is not the price of the product you were imagining.
Local numbers, hours and the Australian side of AI phone answering
A local number is the first practical test, because a caller who sees an unfamiliar prefix when you ring them back frequently does not answer.
Frontly's local number row reads Yes, one dedicated AU local number (SIP) included on every plan, Valory's reads Yes, AU local numbers included: 1 on Intro and Core, 2 on Premium and Simple Phones' reads Yes, and the vendor publishes its full country list, including the United Kingdom (+44) and Australia (+61). It covers the cost of the line. Hey Jodie takes a different route: No number is provisioned, by design. You forward your existing one: "no porting, no new numbers." Dialzara's reads No Australian local number is published. Only an AU or NZ toll-free number, quoted in US dollars as a range of USD $20 to USD $50 a month depending on the country, and charged on top of the plan. The plan card contradicts the FAQ by listing the number as included. That last one is a running cost on top of the plan, and it is charged in a currency the plan is already charged in.
Which brings up the currency. Frontly's local pricing row reads Yes, a genuine AUD rate card from an Australian vendor, and the tax basis is explicit: every figure is followed by "+ GST", Hey Jodie's reads Yes, a genuine AUD rate card on the vendor's Australian locale path, written with an explicit A$ prefix and Valory's reads Yes, an Australian vendor pricing in Australian dollars, though the page never writes "AUD" and states no GST basis Simple Phones' reads No, US dollars only whatever country you are in. The figure shown here is converted. A US-dollar subscription is a price that moves without the vendor ever announcing a change, and it moves on the same invoice you budgeted from. The GST basis differs too, so check whether the figure you are comparing includes it: an Australian rate card quoted before GST is not directly comparable to one quoted after it.
Hours matter less than you would expect, because round-the-clock coverage is close to standard here. Dialzara lists Yes, 24/7, listed under "All plans include", Frontly Yes, 24/7: "Frontly answers within 3 rings day, night, weekends, and public holidays", Hey Jodie Yes, 24/7: "Start answering your business calls 24/7 with our AI receptionist" and Valory Yes, 24/7 inbound coverage on every plan, with an explicit coverage row on the plan table. Since the coverage is the same, an after-hours-only need does not narrow the field, and you should choose on the meter instead.
Accent and language are worth a look if your callers are not all English speakers. Simple Phones lists English in US, British and Australian accents, among others. The tier buys 1, 5 or 20 languages. and Dialzara lists Bilingual English and Spanish on Pro and above, which is a tier-gated feature rather than an included one.
Setup fees, trials and how easily you can leave AI phone answering
The monthly figure is not the cost of entry. Valory's setup fee reads From $990, one time, which buys a service that is configured and tuned for you rather than by you, and which is real money to recover before the subscription is even the question. Frontly's reads $299 (monthly plan) Hey Jodie's reads None, "no setup fees, no minimum term" Simple Phones' reads Not stated either way, and something not stated either way is worth asking about in writing before you sign.
Trials are how you find out your real average call length, which is the input you could not look up. Simple Phones offers Yes, 14 days, Dialzara Yes, 7 days, Hey Jodie Yes, 7 days: "Try Jodie risk-free for 7 days, no card required" and Frontly Yes in effect: no card is required to activate and the first charge falls 7 days later, though the vendor never calls it a trial. Valory's row reads No. The vendor offers a money-back guarantee instead. Use the trial to read the transcripts and the call durations, not just to hear the voice.
Then read the exit. Hey Jodie's contract row reads None, "no setup fees, no minimum term" Frontly's reads None on monthly, "cancel any time, no commitment". The discounted yearly rate is billed annually on a twelve-month commitment. Simple Phones' reads Monthly. The vendor's own pricing feed publishes no annual term. and Valory's reads Monthly. No annual term is published. A discounted annual rate is a twelve-month bet on a product category that is changing quickly, and monthly terms are the norm here for a reason.
Last, the honest question: work out what a missed call is worth to you before you buy anything. Multiply the calls you currently miss in a month by the chance one of them becomes a job and by what a job is worth. If your trade is one where an unanswered phone means the caller rings the next name on the list, the arithmetic will justify almost any plan on this page. If you miss two calls a week and they mostly ring back, a voicemail and a disciplined callback habit is still a defensible answer, and the money is better spent somewhere else.