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Moneypenny alternatives for UK businesses

Moneypenny is the benchmark for human call answering in the UK, and if that is what you need, it may be the right answer. This page is for everyone else: businesses that want published pricing, flat software costs, or more channels than the phone. Seven real alternatives, each with its own published pricing linked.

The alternatives at a glance

ProviderTypePublished priceConsider it for
KalvoAI receptionist (disclosure: this is our product)£49/mo for 100 call minutes; £99 for 400; £199 for 1,000. 24/7 includedFlat published pricing, booking on the call, website chatbot and email included
alldayPAHuman answeringPay per call or per minute; quoted per customer, no public rate cardUK human answering with 24/7 cover, if you are comfortable with quotes
AnswerConnectHuman answeringFrom £45/mo; full plan table shown after you register details24/7 human answering with published entry pricing
Face For BusinessHuman answeringFrom £49/mo; inclusive-minutes plans from £115/mo, billed by the secondUK receptionists with by-the-second billing
ReceptionHQHuman answeringFrom £15 to £30/mo by service plus per-call or per-minute fees; 24/7 includedLow-cost message taking with 24/7 included
IONOS AI ReceptionistAI receptionist£39/mo for 30 calls; £69 for 100; £99 unlimited (ex VAT)Budget AI answering with an unlimited-calls top tier
CyberstaffAI receptionistStates plans from £30/mo with 100 to 600 minutes; overage £0.20 to £0.30/minMinute-based AI answering at a low entry price

Prices from each provider's linked public pages, checked 22 July 2026. Kalvo is our product; the disclosure stands in the table.

Choosing between a human service and an AI receptionist

The human services on this list sell judgment and reassurance: a person who can improvise, sense distress, and carry a delicate call. The AI services sell economics and coverage: every call answered at once, at any hour, at a flat price, with bookings made on the call.

Audit a week of your own calls before deciding. If most are bookings, prices, hours and messages, software resolves them and the per-call premium buys little. If a meaningful share genuinely needs a person, pay for the person. Our AI receptionist vs answering service guide works through that decision in full.

How to run a fair trial

Divert your unanswered calls to the candidate service for one normal week; a standard divert-on-no-answer means your own answering habits change nothing. Then read every transcript or message it produced and count three things: calls resolved without you, bookings made, and callers it mishandled.

Price the week honestly too: what would that call volume have cost on each provider's model? A quiet week flatters per-call pricing; a busy one flatters flat pricing. Your own numbers settle the argument faster than any comparison page.

Common questions

Why do people look for a Moneypenny alternative?

Usually one of three reasons: pricing is quoted rather than published, per-need human answering costs more than a flat software price, or they want channels beyond the phone handled by the same service. None of those make Moneypenny a bad service; they make it a particular shape of service.

What is Moneypenny still best at?

Human receptionists at scale, with a brand callers trust and dedicated people who learn your business. Their AI Receptionist, advertised from £25 a month plus a tailored quote, also draws on their own answering history. If a third-party human on your line is the requirement, they remain the benchmark.

Which alternative is cheapest?

Of the published price lists on this page, ReceptionHQ starts lowest for message taking (from £15 a month plus fees) and Cyberstaff states AI plans from £30. Cheapest and best are different questions: check what each price actually includes, especially hours of cover and per-call fees.

Is this page biased towards Kalvo?

Kalvo is our product and is listed first with that disclosure. Everything else on the page is from each provider’s own published pages, linked so you can check them, and Moneypenny’s strengths are stated plainly. The fastest way past anyone’s marketing, including ours, is to trial with real calls.

Related pages

Kalvo vs Moneypenny in fullBest AI receptionist in the UKTelephone answering service costs (UK)AI receptionist vs answering service

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