A virtual receptionist answers your phone without sitting in your office. Traditionally that meant paying a remote team by the minute. Amernet does the same job with an AI receptionist — every call, day or night, at a flat cost.
It answers from your own material, books appointments into your calendar during the call, and hands over to a person when a caller needs one.
Keep your existing number, and start on the free plan before you decide anything.
Someone — or something — answering your phone from elsewhere.
A virtual receptionist answers calls on your behalf without being on your premises. They greet callers in your company’s name, answer the routine questions, take messages and book appointments, then pass on anything that needs you.
For years that meant a remote team, shared across many businesses, billed per minute or per call. It works, and for some businesses it is still the right answer.
It has well-known limits. The person answering is covering several companies at once, so they work from a script and a short brief rather than real knowledge of your business. Costs rise with call volume, which punishes you exactly when things are going well. And busy periods still queue.
An AI receptionist is the same job done differently: it answers every call at once, knows whatever you have given it, and costs the same in a quiet month as a busy one.
And what an AI one does differently.
An honest read, because it is not the same answer for everyone.
A human virtual receptionist still wins when calls are few, long and delicate — bereavement services, sensitive legal work, anything where a caller in distress needs a person immediately. Judgement and warmth are hard to replace, and at low volume the per-minute cost is small.
Choose that if your calls are rare and every one is unusual.
An AI receptionist wins when most calls are the same handful of questions and booking requests, when you lose calls after hours or during busy periods, and when you want cost to stay flat as volume grows.
That describes most clinics, trades, salons, restaurants and professional firms. If you are unsure, the free plan settles it faster than any argument — put it on a real line and listen to what it does.
What people ask before handing over the phone.
Traditionally yes — a remote team answering for several businesses. Amernet’s is an AI receptionist doing the same job: it holds a normal conversation, answers from your own material and books appointments, without a queue or per-minute billing.
Many will work it out, and most do not mind — being answered immediately and getting an actual answer matters more than who gave it. Anyone who wants a person can be put through to one.
Human services typically bill per minute or per call, so the bill rises with your call volume. Amernet has a free plan to start, and the AI receptionist is $49/month standalone or $29/month bundled with a unified-communications seat. See pricing.
No. Keep the number you already advertise — connect it, port it across, or leave your phone system as it is and add the receptionist as an extension behind it. See SIP extensions.
That is the main difference from voicemail or a basic service. It answers the caller’s actual question, books the appointment during the call, and only escalates what genuinely needs a person.
An answering service usually answers and takes a message; a virtual receptionist is expected to handle the call. For a direct comparison with answering services and voicemail, see AI receptionist vs answering service.
Where to go next, depending on what you run.
The free plan answers the question faster than a demo does.
Start free, point a line at it, and ring it yourself with the questions your callers actually ask. That tells you more in ten minutes than any comparison table.
