The five calls a branch can't afford to miss
An estate or letting agency's phone carries five kinds of call that cost money or cause harm when nobody answers. They're valuation requests, viewing requests, applicants chasing a portal listing, tenants reporting a repair, and emergencies. Judge any receptionist you're offered, human or AI, on how it handles each one. We wrote this guide and build AI receptionists ourselves; our option is in the comparison below, marked as ours.
A valuation request
A homeowner thinking of selling or letting. The receptionist should book the valuation into a valuer's diary on the call. Failing that, it should take the address and a time and alert the branch straight away. A message read the next morning may already be a booking with the agent down the road.
A viewing request
Best booked into the right negotiator's diary against the right property, with the applicant's position checked first: chain, mortgage in principle, move date.
An applicant ringing about a listing
Someone who saw a property on Rightmove, Zoopla or OnTheMarket. To help, the receptionist has to know which property they mean and whether it's still available, so it needs your live listings.
A tenant reporting a repair
For managed lets, take the address, the fault and when the tenant is in. Then pass it to your property management team or repair platform the same day.
An emergency
A gas smell, a flood, a break-in. These need a rule written in advance, covered below, not a message.
Our AI receptionist handles all five on your existing number, booking into your diaries and writing to your CRM where its software allows. So do some of the options below, at very different prices.
If missed valuation calls are the problem you recognise, book a free call and we'll go through which of these options suits your branch.
Four ways to get your calls answered
There are four ways to cover an agency's phones. You can use the call handler built into your CRM, a general AI receptionist plan, a human answering service, or a custom-built AI receptionist. They differ less in voice quality than in what they connect to.
| Option | Example and published price | Connects to | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your CRM's own call handler | Apex27 Agent AI, £150 a month plus 20p a minute. Street's call handler, no price published | The CRM it comes with | Only on that CRM; Apex27 says each one needs a lot of setup |
| General AI receptionist plan | Fasthosts, £39 to £99 a month | Calendars; HubSpot, Salesforce and Zendesk on the top plan | Doesn't know your listings or your estate agency CRM |
| Human answering service | Face For Business, from £49 a month, or from £115 with appointment booking | Messages to your inbox or its portal and app | 90-day minimum term; cost rises with call time |
| Custom-built AI receptionist | Softomate, from £2,000 plus from £99 a month. Logica (ours), £695 setup and £149 a month | Your diaries, your rules, and your CRM where it has an API | Costs more up front than a plan; worth it only when the fit matters |
Prices from each provider's own page, checked 26 October 2026, before usage. Softomate's exclude VAT; Apex27 and Face For Business don't say, and Fasthosts' VAT wording is unclear.
The prices come from Apex27, Fasthosts, Face For Business and Softomate. Ours are from our own published price list, with 500 call minutes a month included and any beyond that passed through at cost. Our limit is scope: we build the receptionist around the CRM you already run, so if you want to change CRM, do that first.
Does your CRM already answer the phone?
Going by their own pages on 26 October 2026, two of the big UK estate agency CRMs now answer calls themselves. One connects to a third-party product that does, and one lists nothing.
Apex27
Agent AI answers calls, prequalifies viewing applicants and logs valuation requests in Apex27. It passes maintenance issues to your property management team and puts emergencies straight through to staff. It costs £150 a month plus 20p a minute, cancel any time. Apex27 is frank that each receptionist takes a significant amount of setup.
Street
Street's AI includes a call handler that answers when the team can't or the office is closed. It records and transcribes each call and logs it against the right contact. Street publishes no price and says its AI tools need no extra subscription.
Alto
Alto Intelligence, Alto's own AI, lists no call handling. Its marketplace has third-party options. Nesti answers inbound calls, WhatsApp and web chat around the clock, syncs your listings and logs each conversation in Alto as a file note. Bridge Ai works over WhatsApp and email only. Neither publishes a price.
Reapit
Reapit's AI page describes a chatbot for questions about the platform and says it is working on AI agents. It lists no call answering.
If you're on Apex27 or Street, try the built-in handler before paying anyone else, and on Alto, look at Nesti. It already sits inside the system that holds your contacts and diaries, and connecting to that is the hard part of every other option. Our guide to AI partners for estate agents covers what else these CRMs now do with AI.
First-year cost for one branch, worked through
A monthly price hides the setup fee and the usage. Here is a first year on each option's published entry price, before call minutes or calls over the allowance, with VAT as each provider shows it.
General AI plan
Fasthosts Plus: £69 × 12 = £828, for 100 calls a month, then 39p a call.
Human answering service
Face For Business Inclusive Minutes: from £115 × 12 = £1,380, with a 90-day minimum term.
Your CRM's own handler
Apex27 Agent AI: £150 × 12 = £1,800, plus 20p a minute and your Apex27 subscription.
Our custom build
£695 + £149 × 12 = £2,483, with 500 call minutes a month included; any beyond that at cost.
Another London builder
Softomate: £2,000 + £99 × 12 = £3,188 plus usage, its own first-year figure.
Usage can change that order. Plans that charge by the minute or the call cost more in a busy month, and so does ours past its 500 included minutes, which we pass through at cost. Price each option on your own call log before you compare them.
Then set the year's cost against what one instruction is worth to your branch. If a single valuation won back would pay for a year, price shouldn't decide this. What the receptionist does with the call should.
Emergencies need a rule, not a message
A tenant who smells gas should be told at once to ring the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999, free and open 24 hours. Your on-call contact should be alerted in the same moment. A receptionist that takes a polite message for the morning is the wrong design here, whoever supplies it.
Write the rule down before go-live. Decide which words count as an emergency (gas, flooding, no heat, a break-in), who gets alerted and how, and what the caller hears. Then test it with a call of your own from a noisy room. Apex27 says its handler forwards emergencies to staff immediately; with any option, hear it happen before a tenant does.
What callers need to hear about recording
The ICO's guidance on the right to be informed says you must give people privacy information at the time you collect their data. That covers why you're using it, how long you keep it and who it's shared with. It applies whenever the receptionist records calls or takes personal details. On a phone line, that means a short line at the start of the call. Add a link to your privacy notice in any text that follows.
Ask every supplier where recordings and transcripts are stored and whether they're used to train its models. Softomate, for one, says on its estate agents guide that client call data isn't used for training. Get the same answer in writing from whoever you choose.
Which option fits your agency?
You're on Apex27, Street or Alto
Start with the CRM's own call handler, or Nesti on Alto, and test it on your emergency rule before relying on it.
You mainly miss calls at lunch and after six
A general AI plan, or a missed-call text-back from £295 that texts every caller you miss in your agency's name.
Callers expect a person
A human answering service, or an AI plan with people behind it, for complaints, chains about to break and anything sensitive.
You run sales and lettings on a CRM with no call handler
A custom build that books valuations and viewings into the right diary and sends repairs to your property team. Our pages for estate agents and property managers show what else connects to it.
For the same options priced for every kind of business, with the full hiring sum, see our AI receptionist cost guide.
Questions to put to any provider
- Can it book a valuation into a named valuer's diary on the call, or does it only take a message?
- Does it read our live listings, so it knows a property is let or under offer?
- What exactly does it create in our CRM: a contact, an applicant, a valuation, a note?
- What happens when a caller reports a gas smell or a flood?
- How does it tell callers about recording, and where are recordings kept?
- What counts as usage, and what would our busiest month cost?
- Can we hear test calls on our own line before it answers buyers and tenants?
- How do we leave, and do we keep our number?