From about £45 to £150 a month for a small trade, and £150 to £500 for higher-volume setups. Grip starts at £49, keeps your existing number, and there’s no setup fee. The rest of this page is the maths, and the traps that turn a cheap headline into an expensive bill.
Every plan is that flat price a month. No setup fee, cancel any time, and a 3-day free trial before you pay anything.
Every plan starts with 3 days free. Cancel anytime, nothing is taken until then.
Add calendar bookings to Starter or Pro for £5.99 a month.
Go over your calls and it’s 50p each after that. Spam, wrong numbers and quick hang-ups don’t count. No setup fee, cancel any time.
Several sites or numbers to sort? We’ll price it to your setup on a quick call.
The “50p a call” line only matters if you’re likely to go over, so here’s a real month worked through. Say you’re a plumber on Starter (£49, 75 calls). It’s February, a cold snap, and you take 110 genuine calls, plus the usual 20 spam and hang-ups. The spam doesn’t count, so you’re 35 calls over your 75. That’s 35 × 50p = £17.50 on top. Your bill for a very busy month is £66.50, and you caught every one of those 110 jobs instead of losing the ones that went to voicemail.
If you’re regularly 40-plus calls over, you’re better off on Pro (£99, 175 calls), because the higher allowance costs less than the overage. That’s the honest advice: pick the plan that matches your normal month, not your quietest one.
The number only means something next to the alternative. Here’s the same job, someone answering your phone, priced four ways.
| Option | Real monthly cost | Hours covered | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grip (AI) | £49–£149 | 24/7 | Flat, keeps your number, no setup fee |
| Human answering service | £160–£395+ | 24/7 (often an add-on) | Per-minute, setup fees, minimum terms |
| Part-time receptionist | £1,200–£1,600 | ~20 hrs/week | Plus NI, pension, holiday cover |
| Full-time receptionist | £2,000–£2,700 | 9–5, Mon–Fri | £24,000–£32,000/year in salary alone |
A human answering service like Moneypenny or AnswerConnect is a real option, and if you specifically want a person on the line, pay for one. Just know you’re paying three to five times an AI’s price, on a per-minute meter that costs you most in your busiest month. Hiring your own receptionist only starts to make sense at a size where you’ve got steady 9-to-5 phone traffic and the payroll to match, and even then they go home at five, when half your emergency calls come in.
The cheap headlines in this market usually hide the real number somewhere. Four to check for before you sign anything.
“From £19/month” often means 30 minutes are included and you’re paying by the minute after that. A busy week turns £19 into £90. Grip charges per answered call, not per minute, so a chatty caller doesn’t cost you more.
Some providers charge £150 to £500 to get you going. Grip’s is zero, and you’re live in minutes with a divert code.
A “£19 for the first two months” deal that jumps to £89 on a 12-month contract is a different product to the one advertised. Grip is month-to-month; cancel any time.
This is the quiet one. If wrong numbers, sales calls and three-second hang-ups eat into your allowance, your real cost is higher than the sticker. With Grip they don’t count, full stop.
Here’s the maths that actually decides it. Say your average job is worth £150. On Starter at £49 a month, you break even the moment Grip catches a single job you’d otherwise have lost to voicemail. Catch two and it’s paid for itself twice over, and you’ll catch far more than two, because the calls you miss now are the ones ringing while you’re on the tools.
Put your own number in: whatever one job is worth to you, that’s roughly what a month of Grip costs. Miss one call a week and you’re losing four jobs a month you never even knew rang.