AI Receptionist Cost in India (2026): Real ₹ Pricing, GST, and the Math at 100 to 1,000 Calls

• ₹2,000–10,000a month, all-in, for most small businesses at 100–300 calls
• ₹4–6per AI minute, the published Indian range in October 2026
• 18%GST on the plan fee and on every per-minute line
• ₹16,932loaded monthly cost of one receptionist at Indeed's India average

An AI receptionist in India costs ₹4 to ₹6 per minute of calls, plus a monthly plan of ₹999 to ₹7,999 depending on what is bundled, plus 18% GST. For a business taking 100 to 300 calls a month of about two minutes each, the bill lands between ₹2,000 and ₹10,000 a month. Those are the numbers Indian vendors publish on their own pricing pages as of October 10, 2026, and they are below.

The comparison most buyers are really making is with a person. A receptionist in India earns an average of ₹14,565 a month on Indeed's aggregate of 649 reported salaries, and costs about ₹16,932 once the employer's PF, EDLI and ESI are added. That is one shift, one call at a time. The arithmetic below shows where per-minute AI beats that and where it stops.

Every Indian vendor uses one of three structures, and the structure matters more than the headline number.

1. Per minute, prepaid

You top up a balance and the vendor deducts a rate per minute of call. VaaniYantra publishes this shape at ₹5 a minute with no monthly fee, and Edesy's pay-as-you-go tier is ₹6 a minute with a ₹500 minimum recharge. Cheap to start, but the rate usually excludes the phone line, and a balance that runs out stops answering calls.

2. Flat monthly plan with included minutes

A subscription that bundles a number, some minutes and the features, then charges a lower per-minute rate beyond the bundle. Edesy's Pro plan is ₹1,499 a month for 300 minutes; Adya's Growth plan is ₹7,999 for 500 minutes and a number. Predictable, but you pay for minutes you may not use.

3. Per call, or per resolution

Rarer in India. Open prices its India receptionist per resolution rather than per minute and does not publish the rate; carrier minutes stay with your existing telephony provider. Per-call pricing rewards short calls and punishes a long one, so ask what counts as one call.

Compare the complete workflow as well as the rate. At a smaller volume, a monthly plan with pay-as-you-go minutes lets you test demand. As usage grows, include the conversations, staff access, booking tools and support your team needs in the comparison.

Every figure below was read from the vendor's own pricing page on October 10, 2026, and the pages are linked in the sources. Where a page does not state a figure, the table says so. Prices are before GST unless the vendor says otherwise.

Two patterns stand out. First, the vendors that publish a rupee rate cluster at ₹4 to ₹6 a minute, and the gap between them is mostly what the rate includes. Edesy's ₹6 is before telephony; Adya's ₹6 is after it. Second, the larger cloud-telephony companies do not publish an AI price at all. Exotel lists contact-centre seats at $70 and $100 and sends AI buyers to sales; MyOperator prices its AI Team plan as custom. A quote is not a price list.

A per-minute rate is the start of the bill, not the bill. These are the lines that appear on the invoice and rarely on the pricing page.

AI receptionist software sold to an Indian business is a service, and services under heading 9983 (other professional, technical and business services) and heading 9984 (telecommunications and information supply services) attract central tax at 9% under Sl. 21(ii) and 22 of Notification 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate). State GST matches it, so the rate you see on the invoice is 18%, or 18% IGST when the vendor is in another state.

It applies to the subscription, the per-minute usage and the number rental alike. Adya's pricing page says prices exclude GST; CallMissed adds taxes at checkout; MyOperator writes GST applicable; Edesy, Caller.Digital and VaaniYantra do not mention tax on their pricing pages, so assume it is extra. If your business is GST-registered you claim the 18% back as input tax credit, which makes the pre-tax number the one to compare.

Start with the person. Indeed's India aggregate, updated May 10, 2026 from 649 reported salaries, puts the average receptionist at ₹14,565 a month, with a typical range of ₹9,457 to ₹22,433. PayScale's smaller sample of 37 profiles gives ₹208,717 a year, about ₹17,400 a month. Use your own city's number if you have one; the method is the point.

Where your establishment is covered, the employer adds EPF at 12% of wages, EDLI at 0.5% and administrative charges at 0.5% under EPFO's published rates, and ESI at 3.25% for wages up to ₹21,000 under ESIC's rates in force since July 1, 2019. On ₹14,565 that is ₹1,748 + ₹73 + ₹73 + ₹473 = ₹2,367, for a loaded cost of ₹16,932 a month. Leave, bonus, a replacement during absence and the hours after 7 pm are not in that figure.

At 100 and 300 calls, the illustrated Adya bill is substantially below the loaded salary benchmark, with coverage available after hours. At 1,000 two-minute calls it is ₹15,398 before GST. These figures compare costs, not identical roles: your receptionist also supports patients or customers in person. Adya can handle routine phone enquiries while your team focuses on work that needs them. Assess recovered bookings and response time alongside the monthly bill.

A complete comparison also counts the time your team spends following up. Adya can answer the enquiry, book a calendar slot and continue the conversation on WhatsApp with the customer’s consent. That gives you a practical outcome to measure beyond the cost of a minute.

Search for AI receptionist pricing and the first page is American. My AI Front Desk, one of the vendors that ranks, publishes $99 a month for 200 minutes and $0.25 a minute beyond that. At ₹85 to ₹95 to the dollar, the overage is ₹21 to ₹24 a minute, four times the Indian rate, and the 200 included minutes cover 100 two-minute calls. UK vendors price in pounds on a different pattern again, per call or flat; our guide to AI phone answering for UK small businesses compares them on a 200-call month.

Three things break the translation. The number: a US vendor issues a US number, and an Indian caller dialling +1 pays international rates or does not call at all. The languages: a page that says 20+ languages rarely means Tamil, Telugu or a caller who switches from Hindi to English mid-sentence, which Indian vendors are built around. The follow-up: a receptionist that texts the caller afterwards is sending a promotional SMS in India, and that needs a DLT-registered header and template. We covered those rules in DLT, DND and TRAI rules for AI calling in India. WhatsApp follow-ups avoid DLT but have their own per-message price; see WhatsApp Business API pricing in India.

Start with the work you want Adya to handle: routine enquiries, bookings, follow-ups or all three. Calls, WhatsApp, website chat and email can share the same agent and knowledge base, so the information customers receive stays consistent as they move between channels.

Start with pay-as-you-go voice. Starter keeps a smaller team's entry cost focused: ₹2,999 a month, a ₹399 Indian number and ₹6 per call minute. Measure the enquiries answered and bookings made alongside the usage bill.

Choose Growth for a busier customer operation.Growth combines 5,000 conversations, more agents and team seats, outbound campaigns and priority support with 500 call minutes and one Indian number. Its value is the capacity to manage more customer conversations across channels, beyond the voice allowance.

Plan around your existing setup. For high call volumes, ask us to assess your expected usage. If you need a specific country number or want to keep an existing telephony provider, confirm number availability and the forwarding path with our team before choosing a plan.

You do not need a demo call in a vendor's office. You need 30 days of your own calls on a monthly plan, and the numbers to judge them.

1. Pick a monthly plan with a number. On Adya, Starter plus one Indian number is ₹3,398 before GST, with voice usage billed separately at ₹6 a minute. Choose monthly billing for a focused first-month pilot.
2. Forward on no-answer only. Set your existing number to forward to the AI number after four rings and after hours. Your team keeps picking up during the day; the AI gets the calls you were missing.
3. Load the ten questions callers actually ask: timings, address, prices, how to book, and what to do in an emergency. Then call it yourself in Hindi and English, and in your customers' language, with traffic noise behind you.
4. Count four things at the end of the month: calls answered, calls handed to a human, bookings or leads captured, and the invoice. The invoice divided by answered calls is your real cost per call; put it next to ₹56 or ₹169 from the table above.
5. Only then widen forwarding to all calls, or move to a plan with included minutes.