Ryku.Ai

Blogs · July 2026

What does an AI agent cost a trades firm, and how does it compare?

£299 a month, live in two to six weeks. Here is the honest comparison against an answering service, a part-time admin, and the cheaper AI receptionists, including where they beat us.

The short answer: £299 a month, first month free, and most firms are live in two to six weeks. That is more than a basic AI receptionist and less than a person. Whether it is good value depends entirely on what you need answering, so below is the honest comparison, including the cases where you should buy something else.

What you are actually comparing it against

There are four ways a trades firm solves this problem, and they cost wildly different amounts because they do wildly different things.

OptionTypical UK costWhat it actually does
Basic AI receptionistFrom £25 a month (Moneypenny), or £15 a month bundled into ServiceM8Answers the phone. Voice only
Human answering serviceFrom £49 to £75 a month entry (Face For Business, Moneypenny, Pocket Receptionist), then per callA real person takes a message and emails it to you
Part-time office adminAbout £1,400 a month, once employer National Insurance is on topEverything, three days a week
Ryku for Trades£299 a monthPhone, inbox, web chat and social, quoting from your price list, booking, invoice chasing, out of hours

Sources for every figure are at the bottom. We read the vendors' own pricing pages rather than a listicle.

Let us be blunt about the cheap end

You can get a phone answered for less than £299. Moneypenny's AI receptionist starts at £25 a month. If you already use ServiceM8, its AI phone answering is £15 a month on top of the plan you are paying for anyway. Those are real products at real prices, and they will answer your phone.

What they do not do is your inbox, your web chat, your Facebook messages, your quotes, your bookings or your invoice chasing. They answer the voice channel and stop.

So the honest test is simple: if all you need is the phone picked up, buy the cheap one. We would rather tell you that now than lose you in three months.

Where £299 starts to make sense

When the phone is not actually your only problem.

A trades firm does not lose money in one place. It loses it in the enquiry that came in on Facebook at 9pm, the quote that went out three weeks ago and was never chased, the invoice sitting unpaid because nobody had time to ring about it, and the call that went to voicemail while you were under a floor. More than half of people (54%) will not leave a voicemail if they cannot get through, and 38% would go elsewhere after a poor experience on the phone.

Ryku covers all of it from one knowledge base: your services, your patch, your rates, your availability. One system, one set of answers, every channel.

The volume maths, which nobody else will show you

Human answering services look cheap at the entry plan and stop looking cheap quickly, because they charge per call.

  • Pocket Receptionist: £75 a month covers 30 calls. Extra calls are £2.99 each. At 130 calls a month you are paying about £320.
  • Answer.co.uk charges £2.20 per call plus VAT, so about £2.64. At 113 calls a month, that is £298.

In other words, at roughly 115 to 130 calls a month, a human answering service already costs more than we do, and it never sent a quote or chased a single invoice. Below that, it is cheaper than us. Above it, it is not. Count your calls and you will know which side of the line you are on.

The comparison that actually matters

Not the AI. The person.

A part-time office administrator, three days a week, costs roughly £1,400 a month once employer National Insurance is added on top of the salary. A full-timer is over £2,400 a month, before pension, holiday cover, sick cover, a desk and a laptop.

Ryku is £299 a month, and it covers all seven days, including the 7am boiler call and the Sunday enquiry.

We are not going to tell you £299 replaces a full-time administrator. It does not, and you would not believe us. What it does is cover the hours nobody is there, on every channel, for about a fifth of what a part-timer costs.

One recovered job a month covers it.

What we are not

We are not a job-management system. Tradify, ServiceM8, Commusoft, Powered Now and Simpro do scheduling, timesheets, purchase orders, certificates and job costing, and they do it well. Ryku sits alongside them, it does not replace them. If someone tells you an AI agent replaces your job software, they are selling you something that does not exist.

We are also not a human. A trained UK person on an answering service can handle an angry customer, an awkward call, or something that has gone badly wrong, using judgement. We escalate those to you, quickly, with the details already captured. That is a design decision, not a fudge.

The objection you are already thinking

*"Three hundred quid a month to answer my phone? Moneypenny will do it with a real person for fifty-five."*

That objection is fair, and it is correct on the facts. Here is the honest answer:

  1. It is not a phone answerer. It is the phone, the inbox, the web chat, the social messages, the quote from your price list, the booking in your diary, and the invoice chase. The £25 AI does one of those seven.
  2. Do the volume maths. Above about 120 calls a month, the £75 answering service already costs more, and it still only takes messages.
  3. Compare it to the person, not the machine. The job is currently being done by a part-timer at £1,400 a month, or by you at 9pm.
  4. If you take twenty calls a month and want nothing else, buy the answering service. Genuinely.

What the two to six weeks are spent on

An initial chat. What is ringing that nobody answers, what is slipping, and what systems the agent has to work alongside.

We tailor it. The real work. Your services, patch, rates, availability and rules, pulled into one knowledge base and checked by you. If your prices live in your head and a notebook in the van, this is the week that surfaces it.

Switch on one channel. Usually voice, because that is where the pain is. It answers real calls from day one, with you setting what it handles and what comes straight to you.

Refine. We watch the logs with you and tune it.

What we will not claim

You will see suppliers put a precise figure on what missed calls cost you, or how many hours a week trades lose to admin. We went looking for an honest UK source for both. There isn't one. So we are not going to invent one, and you should be wary of anyone who does.

The number that matters is yours. Your phone records will tell you how many calls went unanswered last month. Start there.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Ryku for Trades cost?

£299 a month, with the first month free. The right plan depends on your call volumes and which channels you switch on, and we confirm the figure after a first conversation.

Why is it more than a £25 AI receptionist?

Because a £25 AI receptionist answers the phone and nothing else. Ryku also covers your inbox, web chat and social messages, quotes from your own price list, books into your diary and chases your invoices. If you only need the phone answered, buy the cheaper one.

Is it cheaper than an answering service?

Above roughly 115 to 130 calls a month, yes, because most answering services charge per call. Below that, no. Count your calls.

Does it replace Tradify or ServiceM8?

No. It sits alongside your job software. Nothing to rip out.

How quickly can we go live?

Most firms are live in two to six weeks, starting with one channel.

Sources

Pricing checked on each vendor's own page on 14 July 2026. Prices change, so check before you decide.

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