Telephone answering service
A telephone answering service that never clocks off.
Sayora answers your business calls when you can't: every hour, every day, in a real, warm British voice. She captures the caller's details, screens cold sales, and texts you the lead the moment the call ends, for one flat £49 a month.
No per-minute billing. No contract. Keep your existing number.
Who answers your phone right now?
When you can't pick up, one of three things happens, and none of them wins you the job.
Voicemail
Plenty of callers hang up rather than talk to a machine, and ring the next business on the list. The job goes to whoever picks up first.
Ringing out
You're on the tools, up a ladder, or with a customer. The phone rings out in the van, and you never find out who it was or what it was worth.
Answering everything yourself
Picking up mid-job interrupts the work in front of you, and half the calls are cold sales anyway. Neither customer gets your best.
A call answering service exists to end that: every call picked up in your business name, the details captured, the job passed to you. The question is who answers, what it costs, and what happens to the lead. Here's how Sayora does it.
Live in about a day. Answering forever.
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Divert your calls
Point your existing number at Sayora for the calls you can't take: after three rings, out of hours, or all the time. Setup takes roughly an afternoon.
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Every call gets answered
In a real, warm British voice, in your business name, around the clock. She tells callers she's AI and gets on with helping them.
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She does the receptionist work
Answers questions from your knowledge base, screens cold sales, takes job details, and books appointments straight into your diary.
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The lead lands on your phone
A structured SMS with name, number, job and urgency arrives within seconds of the call ending, with the recording a tap away.
Per-minute billing punishes a busy month.
Traditional call answering services bill by the minute or the call. The entry tiers look cheap: published UK plans start around £35–45 a month, but that buys a small bundle of minutes, and the meter runs from there. AnswerConnect's published UK plans, for example, run £45 a month for 25 minutes and £205 a month for 150, with overage at £1.75–£1.85 a minute.
Across the established services, a small business with real call volume typically lands between £150 and £400 a month, and round-the-clock cover is often an add-on. The month your phone finally gets busy is the month your bill jumps: exactly backwards.
Sayora charges one flat £49 a month with unlimited minutes and 24/7 included. Your busiest month costs the same as your quietest one.
Figures are from published plans and independent reviews as of June 2026; quote-only providers vary by quote. The full breakdown, provider by provider, is in our answering service cost guide, and the named comparisons live on our alternatives pages. If the AI model is new to you, here's what an AI receptionist is.
No add-ons. No surcharges.
Everything below is part of the flat monthly price, including the out-of-hours cover other services sell as an extra.
24/7 and bank holidays
Round-the-clock cover as standard. The out-of-hours emergency call is the one you can least afford to miss.
Out-of-hours emergencies flagged
A 2am burst pipe reads differently from a quote request. Urgency is captured on the call and flagged in your text.
Cold-call screening
Sales and spam calls are turned away politely, by your policy, before they cost you a minute.
Diary booking
She sees your real availability, books the job mid-call, and texts the customer a confirmation.
Instant SMS lead summaries
Every answered call becomes a structured text: who, what, where, and how urgent.
Recordings and transcripts
Hear any call back word for word before you return it. Nothing relies on a scribbled message.
Call answering, answered.
How much does a telephone answering service cost in the UK?
Traditional services bill per minute or per call. Published entry plans start around £35–45 a month for a small bundle of minutes, and realistic usage typically lands between £150 and £400 a month, with overage at £1.75–£1.85 a minute on published UK plans. Sayora is £49 a month flat, with unlimited minutes and 24/7 cover included.
Do I have to change my phone number?
No. You keep your number and divert calls to Sayora whenever you can't pick up: when busy, after hours, or around the clock. She also comes with her own dedicated UK number if you'd rather hand that out.
Is 24/7 answering extra?
No. Nights, weekends and bank holidays are included in the flat monthly price. Several traditional services charge an add-on for round-the-clock cover; with Sayora it comes as standard.
Who actually answers my calls?
Sayora, an AI receptionist trained on your business, and she tells every caller she's AI at the start of the call. If you specifically want human receptionists, an established human service will suit you better; our comparison pages lay out the trade-offs honestly.
What happens after each call?
You get a structured SMS with the caller's name, number, what they wanted, and how urgent it is, within seconds of hang-up. Every call is also recorded and transcribed, so you can hear it back before you return the call.
Is there a contract or minimum term?
No. Sayora is month-to-month: one email and you're done. Some traditional answering services carry minimum terms and notice periods, so leaving can take a month or two.
Does it work for trades?
Trades are home turf. Sayora is built for plumbers, electricians, roofers and other UK trades: she asks the questions you would ask, flags emergencies, and texts you the lead so you can ring back from the van.
Stop losing jobs to a ringing phone.
Fifteen minutes with Jacob. We'll set Sayora up on a real call from a business like yours, and you decide whether she earns the job.
£49/mo. Unlimited minutes. Cancel anytime.