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Resources / Comparisons / AI receptionists
Unibound vs an AI receptionist.
An AI receptionist answers your phone, takes the details and books a slot, from about £49 a month. Unibound does that too, then calls your new enquiries, chases your quotes on every channel and hands the ready ones to your team. Which you need depends on where you lose business.
Channels, flows and people, side by side
Three things set these apart: which channels each covers, whether one flow joins them, and whether your own team can work in it.
| AI receptionists | Unibound | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Sole traders and small firms that miss calls | One person on pay as you go, or a team on a monthly plan |
| AI phone calls | All four answer calls. Only Voco makes outbound calls | In and out. Calls nobody answers are free |
| SMS | A text after the call, reminders and booking links. Ringmere also chats by SMS | Yes: sent by a flow, written by AI, and two-way |
| Jodie, Voco and Ringmere, on some plans | Yes, on your own WhatsApp business account | |
| Jodie and Voco reply. Ringmere drafts a reply for you to send | Yes, from your own domain | |
| Web chat | Jodie and Voco | Yes, a widget for your website |
| A flow across channels | No. Set follow-ups you switch on or off | Yes. Calls, messages, waits and people are steps, and each result has its own next step |
| Your team makes and takes calls in it | No. Calls are transferred to your own phones | Yes: browser calls, a call queue, dialling sessions and calls routed to teams |
| A person takes over from the AI | On messages at Jodie and Voco, which pause when you reply yourself | Yes, in one inbox and one call queue, and can hand back |
| Cost per booking | Not found | Yes. Every flow has a goal and a cost for each contact who reached it |
| How you pay | £49 to £249 a month, by minutes or calls | No monthly fee for one user, or from £500 a month for a team, plus usage |
One call, or everything that follows it
Most leads are not won on the first call. They are won on the text after a missed call, the call back at the time they asked for, the answer to a question two days later. A receptionist handles the call, and the better ones add a set follow-up: Jodie texts every caller, Voco rings back a missed caller and sends one quote reminder. These are switches you turn on or off. None of the four we read lets you draw your own follow-up.
In Unibound every step ends in a result, and each result leads to its own next step, on whichever channel fits. You draw that once and it runs for every contact.
| What happened | What Unibound does next |
|---|---|
| They answer and want to go ahead | Books the appointment and stops the chasing |
| They ask to be called later | Waits until the time they asked for, then rings again |
| Nobody answers | Sends a WhatsApp or text, waits for a reply, and tries again the next morning |
| They reply with a question | The AI answers from your own material, on the channel they used |
| They ask for a person | Puts them in your team's queue with the whole history |
| They say no, or opt out | Stops, on every channel |
The problem you are trying to fix
Most firms looking at these tools have the same few problems. This is what each does about them.
| The problem | With an AI receptionist | With Unibound |
|---|---|---|
| Calls go unanswered out of hours | Solved. This is what a receptionist is for. | Solved. The AI answers, or rings your team first and answers if nobody picks up. |
| Form and ad enquiries wait for a call | Voco rings web-form leads who ask for a call back. The others wait for the phone to ring. | The flow rings each new enquiry within seconds and follows up by WhatsApp, text and email. |
| Quotes go out and nobody chases them | Voco sends one text after two days. Ringmere reminds you, not the customer. | A flow texts, answers their questions, calls if they go quiet, and queues the ready ones for your team. |
| Thousands of old leads sit in a spreadsheet | Voco can call an uploaded list of customers who agreed to hear from you. The others make no outbound calls. | Upload the list and the AI works through it at a pace you set. The warm ones go to your team. |
| Your team needs to pick it up | A transfer to your own phone, or a message. There is no softphone or call queue. | Your team takes over in the same inbox or call queue, with the transcript, and can hand back. |
What each costs
| Published price | |
|---|---|
| Jodie | £49, £99 or £199 a month with unlimited minutes. Enterprise from £500 |
| Voco | 40p a minute pay as you go, or £49 a month for 136 minutes, £99 for 300, £499 for 1,719 |
| Ringmere | £49 a month for 150 minutes, £99 for 240, £249 for 700. Extra minutes 25p, or 20p on the top plan |
| ARROW | £99 a month including 150 minutes |
| Unibound | No monthly fee on pay as you go for one user, or from £500 a month for a team. AI calls 16p a started minute |
Take 100 calls a month at two minutes each. On Unibound's pay as you go that is £32 of minutes and £3 for a number. On a receptionist it is £49 at Jodie, about £62 at Ringmere and about £72 at Voco. The receptionists are quicker to set up and need nothing drawn. Unibound's team plans, from £500 a month, are for firms where several people work the enquiries.
Checked on Prices and features come from each company's own pages, listed under Sources. Prices exclude VAT. Where we say something was not found, we looked on those pages and did not see it; products change, so check before you decide.
Which suits you
AI receptionists are the better choice if
- Answering the phone is the whole job
- You want to be live today with nothing to set up
- You would rather pay a fixed monthly price than by the minute
Unibound is the better choice if
- Most enquiries arrive by form, ad or portal, not by phone
- You send quotes that need chasing more than once
- You have a team that should only talk to people who are ready
- You want to see how many enquiries became bookings, and what each cost
Questions people ask
Is Unibound an AI receptionist?
It can be one: the AI answers calls, takes details, books call-backs and puts callers through. It also makes outbound calls, runs follow-up across every channel and gives your team a place to work, which a receptionist product does not.
Do AI receptionists follow up leads?
Some do a little. Jodie texts every caller after the call. Voco rings back missed callers, calls web-form leads who ask for it, and sends one quote reminder. These are fixed options. A follow-up with several steps, where each result leads somewhere different, is what Unibound's flows are for.
Does Unibound cost more than an AI receptionist?
Not for one person. Pay as you go has no monthly fee and an AI call is 16p a started minute, so 200 minutes a month is £32. The team plans, from £500 a month, cost more because several people work in them and they cover more jobs: calling every new enquiry, chasing quotes, working old lists and routing calls to your team.
Can I start with a receptionist and move later?
Yes. The sign that it is time is when missed calls are fixed and the lost work is in enquiries and quotes nobody followed up.
Sources
- Jodie, pricing. heyjodie.com
- Voco, pricing. vocohq.co.uk
- Voco, outbound calls. vocohq.co.uk
- Ringmere, pricing. ringmere.com
- ARROW, pricing. aiphonecalls.co.uk
- Unibound, pricing. unibound.ai
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