After hours
Customers call at 7pm, hear voicemail and ring the next business on the list. Your receptionist answers, helps, and takes a message you see in the morning.
AI receptionist for small and growing businesses
5 Product Hunt #5 Product of the Day
The AI receptionist that answers every call, so you never miss a customer.
Your Chat Thing bot answers the phone 24/7 from your own website and docs. It puts callers through when they need a person and takes a message when nobody can pick up. Nothing goes to voicemail, and you can be live this afternoon.
- Answers 24/7 in your business name
- Transfers to your team, takes a message if not
- Hear it first on the free test line
Loved by 10,000+ users
Try it live. Ask about the AI receptionist
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Missed calls are missed customers
An AI phone answering service for the calls you miss
Your team cannot be on the phone every hour of the day. An AI answering service covers the calls they would otherwise miss, and brings them in when a caller needs a person.
Busy with a customer
You are on a job, in a treatment room or on another call. The receptionist handles the enquiry and only rings you when the caller really needs a person.
The same five questions
Opening hours, prices, directions, do you do X, when can you come. Answered instantly from your website and docs, without interrupting your day.
Hear how it handles your calls
Pick your industry. Hear the call.
The routine question, the urgent one and the one that arrives at 9pm. Here is what your callers hear, and what lands with your team afterwards.
Kestrel Electrical
Trades: half the house has no power
Voices: Willow and StoneListen to the call
AI receptionist Kestrel Electrical, you're through to the AI assistant. How can I help?
Caller Hiya. Um, half the sockets in my house have just gone dead, and the switch in the fuse box won't stay up.
AI receptionist Okay. Leave that switch down for now rather than resetting it. What's your postcode, so I can check we cover you?
Caller M E thirteen. It's Faversham.
AI receptionist Yes, we cover Faversham. This needs an electrician rather than me, so I'm putting you through to Sam, who's on call today. Bear with me.
Rings the on-call mobile. Sam hears that a caller is being transferred and presses a key to accept.
AI receptionist Sam's on the line now. I'll leave you both to it.
After the call
- Coverage checked from the service area page before anyone was disturbed
- Voicemail could not take the call, because accepting needs a key press
- Sam can read what the caller said before he joined
Scripted example calls with invented businesses, showing what the phone channel does today. Both sides are spoken by the real Chat Thing call voices, not recorded from live calls. Your receptionist answers from your own content and follows the prompt you give it.
On the call
An AI virtual receptionist that already knows your business
No script to write and no second knowledge base to maintain. The phone is one more place your Chat Thing bot shows up.
Answers from your own content
It already knows your website, help docs, Notion pages and files. Fix an answer once and it is fixed on the phone, in web chat and on WhatsApp.
Puts callers through to you
When a caller asks for a person, the receptionist rings your team. Whoever answers hears who is calling and presses a key to accept, so voicemail never grabs the call.
Takes a message when you cannot answer
Name, number and what they need, confirmed back to the caller and delivered by email, Notion, Zapier or your own API through power-ups.
Can remember repeat callers
By default each call starts a fresh conversation. Switch the channel to continue the previous one and a number that calls back gets a receptionist that knows the earlier conversation, so nobody explains their problem twice.
Protects your minutes
Limits on simultaneous calls and calls per caller, withheld-number rejection and a block list, all switched on by default.
Always says it is an AI
Every call opens with a clear AI disclosure, and the receptionist never claims a person has joined until someone really has.
Phone is a channel, not a separate product
One assistant on the phone, your website, WhatsApp and email
Phone-only AI receptionists give you one more tool to keep in sync. Chat Thing gives the assistant you already have a phone number.
| Chat Thing | Phone-only AI receptionists | |
|---|---|---|
| What it knows | Your website, docs, Notion and files, already synced for your chat bot. | A script, FAQ list or website scrape you maintain separately. |
| Channels | Phone, website chat, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, Telegram, email and API. One assistant. | Phone first. Chat or SMS is a separate add-on, if offered. |
| Handoff | Live transfer with press-to-accept, message taking if nobody answers, transcript in the same inbox as your chats. | Transfer or an SMS summary. Call history lives in its own tool. |
| Pricing | A Standard plan, plus $10 for 60 minutes a month and $5 per number. No overage charges, and the plan covers every other channel too. | $29 to $349 tiers with minute caps, then $0.20 to $0.48 a minute over. |
| Try before you buy | 10 free test minutes a month on the shared test line. No number needed. | Trials vary; many need a card or an onboarding call. |
Competitor pricing ranges from published plans of small-business AI receptionists, September 2026. Vendors change pricing often.
Simple to set up
Live in an afternoon, not after an onboarding call
No telephony to configure and nothing to install. If you can set up call forwarding on your phone, you can set this up.
- 1
Create a bot and point it at your website
Add your site, docs or files as data sources. Most businesses are done in a few minutes. Already have a Chat Thing bot? Use that one.
- 2
Turn on the phone channel and call the test line
Get a PIN, dial the shared test line and talk to your receptionist. Tune the greeting, voice and prompt until it sounds right. Free.
- 3
Get a number, or forward the one you have
Rent a US or UK number in one click, or forward your existing business line so customers keep dialling the number they know.
- 4
Add your team's number for transfers
Callers who ask for a person get put through. Set how long to ring and what to do if nobody answers.
You stay in control
You choose when the receptionist picks up
Keep the number your customers already know and use your phone provider's call forwarding to decide how much the receptionist takes on. Start small and widen it when you trust it.
After hours only
Forward your line when you close. Evenings and weekends are covered and nothing changes during the day.
When you cannot pick up
Forward on busy or no answer. You take the calls you can, and the receptionist catches the rest.
Every call
Publish your Chat Thing number, or forward everything. The receptionist answers first and only rings you when a caller needs a person.
Careful with the calls that matter
Fast for routine calls. A person is never more than one ask away.
The worry with any AI on the phone is that it gets between your customer and someone who can help. This one is built so it never does.
A person is always within reach
Callers can ask for your team at any point in the call, and the receptionist puts them through. If nobody picks up, it takes a message instead of leaving them stuck, and the whole conversation is waiting for you as a transcript.
It says so when it does not know
It answers from content you approve, not the open internet. Ask it something outside that and it takes a message or transfers rather than making something up. Your prompt decides which situations always go to a person.
Your callers' data stays yours
Every call opens with a clear AI disclosure. Calls are saved as text transcripts in your own inbox, with no audio recording, and Chat Thing never uses your data to train AI models.
How your data is handled in full: privacy policy.
Pricing
AI receptionist pricing: flat monthly packs, no per-minute maths
Two parts: a Chat Thing plan, Standard or above, and a voice add-on for the minutes and the number. Buy the minutes you need, share them across every bot and channel, and never get an overage bill.
- 60 minutes per pack, shared by your whole team across phone and web voice
- Stack packs as you grow; change them at any renewal
- No overage charges. Out of minutes? Chat keeps working and callers are asked to try again later
- 10 free test minutes a month before you buy any voice minutes
Start with 60 minutes
- Chat Thing Standard plan Your assistant on web chat, WhatsApp, email and phone
- $49/mo
- 1 voice pack (60 minutes)
- $10/mo
- 1 phone number (US or UK)
- $5/mo
- Total, all in
- $64/mo
Launch offer: save $5 on your first voice invoice. That's $59 for the first month, then $64/month. Once per eligible team; phone numbers are not discounted.
Add another 60 minutes for $10/month. One pack size, with minutes shared across phone and website calls.
Already on Standard or above? You only add the $15 for voice. Plan price shown monthly; paying yearly is cheaper. Call time includes pauses while the receptionist looks things up, and looking things up uses your plan's normal message tokens. Human transfers also use minutes. Prices exclude applicable taxes and your existing carrier's forwarding charges. See full pricing.
Let website visitors talk to the same agentGood to know
The honest small print
- Numbers are available in the United States and the United Kingdom today. Forwarding from other countries works if your provider allows international forwarding.
- Transfers stay in the same country as your Chat Thing number, and premium-rate destinations are blocked.
- Calls are saved as text transcripts. Chat Thing does not record audio.
- The receptionist attempts one transfer per call. If your team does not pick up, it takes a message rather than bouncing the caller around.
- The phone channel does not send SMS or make outbound calls. Messages reach you through power-ups such as Send email, Notion or Zapier.
- The phone channel is part of the Standard plan and above, like WhatsApp and email. Voice minutes and numbers are a monthly add-on on top, shared by every bot on your team, on the phone and in web chat.
Questions
AI receptionist questions, answered
- What is an AI receptionist?
- An AI receptionist is software that answers your business phone, understands what the caller wants, answers their questions and passes them to a person when needed. Chat Thing's AI receptionist is the same assistant that powers your website chat, so it answers from your own content and keeps a transcript of every call alongside your other conversations.
- How much does an AI receptionist cost with Chat Thing?
- You need a Chat Thing plan plus the voice add-on. The phone channel is included from the Standard plan up, which is $49 a month. Voice is a monthly add-on on top: $10 a month for a pack of 60 minutes shared by your whole team, plus $5 a month for each phone number. Start with one pack and one number, so $64 a month all in, which also covers your website chat, WhatsApp and email assistant. There are no overage charges: when minutes run out, new calls are politely declined until your next renewal.
- Can I keep my existing business phone number?
- Yes. Rent a Chat Thing number and forward your existing line to it from your phone provider's settings. Many businesses forward only unanswered or out-of-hours calls, so the receptionist steps in exactly when the team cannot. Number porting is not available yet.
- Will callers know they are talking to an AI?
- Yes, always. The receptionist opens every call with an AI disclosure, even if your greeting does not mention it, and it never tells a caller a person has joined until someone on your team has actually accepted the transfer.
- What happens when a caller asks for a person?
- The receptionist rings the team number you set. Whoever answers hears who is calling and presses any key to accept, so voicemail cannot take the call by mistake. If nobody accepts within the time you choose, the receptionist apologises, takes a message and delivers it through your power-ups.
- Does it answer calls after hours and at weekends?
- Yes. The receptionist answers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Limits on simultaneous calls and calls per caller per day protect your minutes overnight, and every call is waiting for you as a transcript in the morning.
- Is there a free trial?
- Every team on the Standard plan or above gets 10 free test minutes a month on the shared test line. Enter your mobile number, get a PIN and call your bot without renting a number or buying minutes. When you are happy with how it sounds, add a voice pack and a number.
- What happens if nobody on my team is available?
- The receptionist rings your team number for as long as you set. If nobody accepts, it tells the caller honestly that the team is not free, takes a message with their name, number and what they need, and confirms it back to them. The message and the full transcript arrive through your power-ups, so nothing depends on someone remembering a voicemail.
- What happens when it does not know the answer?
- It answers only from the content you have given it. When a caller asks something outside that, it says it does not have the information and offers to take a message or put them through, rather than guessing. You can also write into its prompt which topics or situations should always go straight to a person.
- Is call data used to train AI models?
- No. Chat Thing never uses your data, including call transcripts, to train AI models, and the voice provider is instructed not to store the call. Calls are kept as text transcripts in your conversations, where you can read or delete them. Chat Thing does not record audio.
- How can I review what happened on a call?
- Every call appears in your conversations as a transcript, marked with a phone icon and the caller's number, next to your web and WhatsApp chats. The phone settings page also lists recent calls with how each one ended: completed, transferred, no answer or rejected. Choose whether a repeat caller starts a new conversation or continues the previous one, so you can keep the whole thread together if you prefer.
- Is there an AI receptionist for UK businesses?
- Yes. Chat Thing rents UK mobile numbers (which need a registered business address) as well as US local numbers with your choice of area code, and transfers stay in the same country as your number. Most AI receptionist software is US-only, so UK small businesses are a first-class case here. More countries will follow.
Every setting, limit and troubleshooting tip is in the phone channel docs.