Receptly vs hiring a receptionist
Sixty-two grand a year for someone who is home by five.
A receptionist is a good hire for a lot of reasons. Answering the phone, on its own, is not one of them. Here is the arithmetic.
1300 556 520Ring the number and decide whether that call needed a salary.
The case against us
When you should just hire someone
If what you actually need is an office person, hire an office person. Someone who chases suppliers, runs invoices out the door, keeps the certificates current, handles the customer who turns up at the yard and sorts the mess before it reaches you. That role pays for itself and no software replaces it.
This page is narrower than that. It is about the phone, and only the phone. If the phone is the reason you are thinking about a hire, the numbers below are the ones to look at first.
The catch
What the phone actually costs as a salary
Start at the floor. The Clerks — Private Sector Award Level 1, Year 1 adult rate is $26.97 an hour, or $1,024.86 for a 38-hour week, from the first full pay period on or after 1 July 2026. Over 52 weeks that is $53,293.
Then the on-costs. Superannuation at 12% is $6,395. Annual leave loading at 17.5% on four weeks is $717. Workers compensation is the one that catches people out: in NSW it is priced on your industry, not the job, so a receptionist sitting in a plumbing business is rated as a plumber — an indicative $2,430 rather than the $400-odd a clerical rate would suggest. That is $62,835 before a desk, a computer, a phone system, or the fortnight spent recruiting. It is also before the obvious point that nobody good stays on award minimum.
Now the coverage. Thirty-eight hours is 38 of the 168 hours in a week. Take four weeks of annual leave and ten days of personal leave under the National Employment Standards and you have bought about 1,750 of the 8,760 hours in a year. Call it one hour in five.
So the floor price is around $36 for each hour someone is actually at the desk, and for the other four hours in five you are back to voicemail — including 5pm Friday, when the hot water service goes.
Sources: Fair Work — Clerks — Private Sector Award (MA000002) and the ATO super guarantee. Workers compensation rates are icare NSW industry rates and vary by state, trade and claims history. Check them all before you rely on them; rates change every July. Full line-by-line breakdown in what a receptionist actually costs.
Side by side
Line by line
| Hiring a receptionist | Receptly | |
|---|---|---|
| Hours covered | About 38 a week, less leave | Every hour |
| Year one cost | About $62,835 at award minimum, all on-costs in | $6,483 on Crew, including setup |
| Sick day cover | You, or nobody | Not a thing |
| Calls at once | One | All of them |
| Knows your regulars | Yes, better than us | Reads the record, does not remember the person |
| Chases a supplier, sorts the paperwork | Yes | No |
| Walks into the yard and handles a customer | Yes | No |
| Recruitment and management | Yours | None |
| Notice period | Award and contract | Cancel any month |
Instead
The version most people land on
Put the phone on Receptly first. It is live in a week, it costs less than a month of a salary for a year, and it tells you exactly how many calls you are getting and when.
Six months later you have real numbers instead of a feeling, and you know whether the hire you need is a receptionist or a second van. Most of the businesses we set up find it is the van.
Questions we get
Straight answers
Is this not just a way to avoid employing someone?
If you have the volume and the work to justify a full-time person, employ them. What we see more often is a business with 30 to 60 calls a week trying to justify a $60,000 hire on the strength of the phone alone, and it does not stack up.
What about a part-timer or a VA?
Better maths, same structural problem: they cover the hours they cover, and the urgent calls are outside them. A VA also has to be trained on your jobs, and when they leave you train the next one.
What if I already have a receptionist?
Then use it for after-hours and overflow, which is where most of the losses are. It answers what rings out at 5.30pm and everything that arrives while your person is on another call.
Pricing
A year of it costs about five weeks of a salary
Starts the day it goes live. Nothing charged until it’s answered your calls for a week. Cancel inside the week and you pay nothing, setup included.
A year of it costs about five weeks of a salary.
No surprise bills: go over two months running and we tell you before we move you up. Full pricing and what’s included.
Book a setup callSet up for your trade: plumbers, electricians, air conditioning, roofing, painters, landscaping, pest control, locksmiths, builders. Other comparisons: vs voicemail · vs an answering service · Buying one in Australia.
Do the sums on your own numbers.
Ring the demo, then work out what a week of missed calls is worth.
1300 556 520