cyberstaff

The best ReceptionHQ alternatives for UK businesses in 2026.

ReceptionHQ greets your callers with real people and folds 24/7 into the plan — yet only weekday daytime sits with a UK team, while evenings, weekends and overflow travel overseas, and one receptionist can still only hold one caller at a time. To help you feel confident that nobody slips through, we weighed the leading alternatives on coverage, handling several callers at once and genuine review scores, so the right fit for the way your phone actually rings becomes easy to see.

John Oberlin-Harris

Written by John Oberlin-Harris

CRO, Cyberstaff

Last updated 25 June 2026

The quick verdict

When easy-going, pay-as-you-go human cover at a gentle entry price is what you are after, ReceptionHQ will serve you perfectly well. But if your real worry is a missed call — and you want every ring, day or night, weekend or rush hour, picked up by one UK service that never leaves a caller waiting — that peace of mind is exactly what an AI receptionist is made to give you. For most UK trades and SMBs that reassurance is Cyberstaff, from £30 a month with 24/7 built in, UK around the clock, and as many callers as ring at once all answered together.

Why businesses look beyond ReceptionHQ

Easy-going cover, with one quiet catch: the UK promise clocks off at 5:30pm.

Only weekday daytime is UK-based

Once evening, the weekend or a busy spell arrives, your calls pass to Australian and US teams, so out-of-hours callers are met by overseas accents.

One human, one call at a time

A single receptionist can only hold one caller at once, so when calls bunch up the rest are left queuing or sent through to voicemail.

Per-call overage on top

Any call past your bundle adds roughly £1.20, and several of the features you would lean on are charged as extras.

Add-ons stack up

Call diversion, voicemail-to-email and IVR each sit at around £10 a month on top of whatever plan you are on.

Lower review scores

ReceptionHQ trails its peers on Trustpilot, with billing and cancellation the worries customers raise most.

What to look for in an alternative

Reassurances worth pinning down before you move.

  1. 1

    UK cover around the clock. Every hour kept at home, not just the daytime with the rest sent overseas.

  2. 2

    Unlimited simultaneous calls. Nobody left holding when a handful of callers ring at the very same moment.

  3. 3

    Flat, predictable pricing. No per-call surprises and no monthly add-ons quietly piling up.

  4. 4

    Clean billing and easy cancellation. The two things ReceptionHQ customers wish had gone more smoothly.

At a glance

ReceptionHQ and six alternatives, side by side.

Provider From Overage 24/7 Setup Min term Rating Notes
Cyberstaff Customisable AI £30/mo £0.30/min ✓ Included Free Rolling monthly 4.6 Trustpilot
Reception HQ Virtual Receptionist £99/mo £1.10/min ✓ Included From £20 Rolling monthly 3.4 Trustpilot
Moneypenny Customisable AI £99/mo £1.80/call ✓ Included £250 4 months 4.8 Trustpilot Changes @ £150/hr
Moneypenny Virtual Receptionist £282/mo £2.35/min +£75/mo Included 4 months 4.8 Trustpilot
AnswerConnect Virtual Receptionist £168.75 £1.75/min ✓ Included £49.99 Rolling monthly 4.9 Trustpilot Transcripts @ +£30/mo, Transfer @ +£30/mo

Based on 100 minutes/50 calls minimum using cheapest published/quoted plan. As of June 2026. Trustpilot ratings used where found, otherwise first ranking independent review site from Google search with ≥5 reviews.

The alternatives, ranked

Six ReceptionHQ alternatives, with a fair, honest word on each.

1

Cyberstaff AI

Best for: UK trades and SMBs wanting 24/7 AI at a flat price

From £30/mo

100 mins, 24/7, no setup

A British AI receptionist that picks up in your company name day or night, slots jobs straight into your diary and texts the particulars over to you. One flat, predictable monthly figure, and live in under 60 seconds.

Flat pricing, 24/7 included on every plan

Answers unlimited calls at once, no queue

Reads your website and is live in under 60 seconds

No setup fee, cancel anytime

Newer brand than the incumbents

Built for inbound, not large outbound campaigns

4.6 Trustpilot

Customers single out the swift setup and the way calls become booked jobs; a handful would welcome more native integrations.

2

Moneypenny Human + AI

Best for: Businesses wanting a polished, named human PA

From £99/mo

+£75/mo for 24/7

One of the best-known UK answering services, with a strong name and a decent app. But 24/7 costs extra, the included minutes are stingy, and you pay per minute over your bundle on a multi-month deal.

Well-known UK brand with a polished app

Option of a named, dedicated receptionist

High 4.6 Trustpilot score

24/7 costs around £75/mo extra

Per-minute overage of £1.65 to £1.85

Three to six month contracts

4.6 Trustpilot

People rate the professional UK receptionists. The usual grumbles are cost, add-ons and the contract length.

3

AnswerConnect Human

Best for: Businesses wanting human receptionists with 24/7 included

From £168.75/mo

100 mins, +£1.75/min

A long-standing human answering service that bundles round-the-clock and bilingual cover as standard, and carries the highest Trustpilot score in this field. The catch is per-minute pricing that mounts as volume grows.

24/7 human cover included as standard

Excellent 4.9 Trustpilot from over 200 reviews

Bilingual cover, app and integrations

Per-minute overage gets expensive at volume

Over 5 times the price of leading AI agent options

Extensive use of Add On Pricing and set up fees

4.9 Trustpilot

Reviewers applaud the dependable round-the-clock human cover and obliging account managers; the odd grumble surfaces over billing and message accuracy.

4

AllDayPA Human

Best for: UK firms wanting a human team and willing to commit

From £90/mo

£210/mo for 150 mins

A Manchester outfit that has been at it since 1999. The UK receptionists are genuinely warm, but you are tied to a 30-day minimum plus 30-day notice, and the pricing only surfaces once you fill in a quote form.

UK-based human receptionists

Strong 4.7 Trustpilot for staff friendliness

Handles email and web chat too

30-day minimum plus 30-day notice

Pricing sits behind a quote form

Lower on Google (3.7) and Indeed (2.5)

4.7 Trustpilot

Warmly received on Trustpilot for its UK staff, though weaker on Google, where contract and notice-period gripes tend to cluster.

5

Smith.ai AI + human

Best for: Professional services needing CRM-deep AI plus human backup

From ~£230/mo

Per-call charges apply

A hybrid arrangement in which AI fields the routine calls and humans step in for the knotty ones, backed by 30+ native CRM integrations. It is US-based, so the UK hours and per-call costs are worth scrutinising.

Hybrid AI plus human agents

30+ native CRM integrations

Strong lead qualification

Per-call charges add up

US-based, UK timezone and pricing vary

Human tiers get pricey

4.0 G2

Valued for its CRM integrations and lead capture; per-call charges and US hours are the criticisms UK users return to.

6

Synthflow AI AI (DIY)

Best for: DIY teams happy to build their own voice agent

From ~£23/mo

No-code, you build it

A no-code platform for assembling your own AI voice agent. The most affordable way in here, but the setup, the tuning and the call flows are all yours to own, rather than a receptionist handed to you ready to go.

Lowest entry price

True no-code builder

Templates for common use cases

You build and maintain the agent

Minute caps on lower tiers

Not a managed UK service

Limited G2

The early verdict praises the no-code builder; just bear in mind the setup and ongoing tuning fall to you, not a done-for-you service.

Head to head

Cyberstaff vs ReceptionHQ, feature by feature.

Feature Cyberstaff ReceptionHQ
24/7 cover ✓ Included free +£75/mo add-on
Pricing model Flat monthly + low overage Base + per-minute
Starting price From £30/mo From £99/mo
Included minutes 100 to 600 mins/mo Variable, with premium overages
Per-minute overage 20p to 30p/min, same as contract rate £1.10 to £2.35/min
Setup fee (inbound) £0 Up to £250
Minimum contract Rolling monthly 4 months with some providers
Calls at once ✓ Unlimited parallel Limited by staffing
Calendar and CRM booking ✓ Built in Mostly message taking
Call transcripts ✓ Included Often an additional charge
Time to go live Under 60 seconds Days to weeks

Pricing in the real world

What you actually pay once the add-ons are in.

ReceptionHQ opens at a gentle price, but appointment booking, voicemail-to-email and call diversion each come as paid extras, and calls are counted one by one. The figures below fold in the everyday add-ons that Cyberstaff simply gives you as standard.

Monthly mins/callsCyberstaff (AI)ReceptionHQ (calls + add-ons)AnswerConnect (best published plan)
100 mins (c. 50 calls) £30/mo +£0.30/min~£75£168.75/mo +£1.75/min
300 mins (c. 150 calls) £75 +£0.25/min~£150£332.50/mo +£1.75/min
600 mins (c. 300 calls) £120/mo +£0.20/min~£305£692.50/mo +£1.75/min
Additional fees Simple pricing+£30/mo transcriptions +£30/mo transfers

Illustrative: ReceptionHQ worked from its published call bundles, £1.20/call overage and ~£20/mo of everyday add-ons (booking, voicemail, diversion) that come built into Cyberstaff. Please re-verify rates before publishing.

The honest take

When ReceptionHQ is genuinely the kinder choice.

No comparison is worth your time if it pretends one tool wins every time. ReceptionHQ is the right answer when:

You want low-cost, flexible human cover. Its pay-as-you-go bundles at a gentle entry price sit comfortably with light or seasonal call volume.

You only need weekday daytime cover. When after-hours calls are a rarity for you, that overseas overflow hardly ever comes into view.

You want a real person to take messages. Friendly human message-taking with no lock-in and a light, low commitment.

You value granular per-call billing. The per-call and per-second options can suit very low, spiky volumes nicely.

Switching from ReceptionHQ

Move across without losing a single caller.

  1. 1

    Start free, no card needed

    Open your account and a new Cyberstaff AI number is waiting for you right away — and your existing number stays yours too. It quietly reads your website to learn your services and your area.

  2. 2

    Keep your number

    Point conditional forwarding from your existing business number over to Cyberstaff. Your customers keep dialling the number they already trust.

  3. 3

    Run both in parallel

    Leave ReceptionHQ running for 7 to 14 days while you listen in on calls and gently fine-tune the script and call flows until they feel right.

  4. 4

    Cancel when ready

    ReceptionHQ is month-to-month, so there is no long contract holding you back — once you are happy, switch over and cancel at your own pace.

How to choose

Pick by how your business actually takes calls.

Choose Cyberstaff

You want the calm of every call cared for in the UK 24/7, as many callers as ring at once all answered together, and a flat price with booking and transcripts already included.

Choose a human service

ReceptionHQ, AllDayPA or AnswerConnect feel right when every caller must reach a real person and your volume is light or seasonal.

Choose Smith.ai

You want trained human agents on the complex calls and deep US CRM workflows, and US hours sit fine with you.

Choose Synthflow

You are technical and happy to build and look after your own AI voice agent on a tight budget.

FAQ

ReceptionHQ vs Cyberstaff, answered.

Make the switch in under 60 seconds.

Start free and keep your number. Your AI receptionist is answering as your business in about 60 seconds.