01What a part-time receptionist costs
The one salary figure we can stand behind is the legal floor. Government Decision 146/2026 sets Romania's minimum gross wage at 4,325 lei a month from 1 July 2026. StartupCafe, reporting on 1 July 2026, puts the total employer cost at 4,418 lei a month, up from 4,134 lei. As plain arithmetic, not a quote: a half-time contract at that minimum, simply halved, comes to about 2,209 lei a month for the employer. Whether your receptionist earns the minimum or more depends on the role and the city. We did not source a market salary, so read local job ads before you plug in a number. Either way the salary is fixed: it is the same in a week with ten calls and a week with a hundred.
- The floor from 1 July 2026: 4,325 lei gross, about 4,418 lei total employer cost (HG 146/2026, as reported by StartupCafe)
- Half-time at that minimum, simply halved: about 2,209 lei a month (our arithmetic, not a market rate)
- Not in the figure: pay above the minimum, cover for leave, training, hiring again when someone leaves
- What the salary buys: someone who also greets visitors, takes the parcel and hears the mood of a caller
02What a voice assistant costs
A voice assistant has no salary, so its cost has three parts. The first is the build: the call flow, your answers, the calendar link and the handoff to a person. PROOF48 builds a standalone voice assistant as a custom job and prices it on request, so we quote no figure. The second is usage. On the one pricing page we opened, Retell's, calls are billed per minute: it lists $0.07 to $0.31 a minute for AI voice agents, depending on the model and voice you pick, with phone numbers and add-ons on top. We name it as a price reference, not as what we build on. At 300 call minutes a month, an illustration only, that range is about $21 to $93. Retell's own component table lists some combinations above that range. The third part is upkeep: someone reads the calls every week and fixes what the assistant got wrong.
- Build: a one-off custom job, priced on request by PROOF48
- Usage: Retell bills per minute and lists $0.07 to $0.31 a minute (page opened 17 October 2026, USD, platform fees only)
- Upkeep: a weekly review of the calls and fixes to the answers
- Not in AUTOMATE: phone sits outside the 2,997 EUR a month plan
03Where the two costs actually cross
The usual mistake is to set the whole salary against the whole assistant bill. A receptionist is paid for hours, and only part of those hours goes on routine calls. The rest is the desk, the door and the caller who needs a person. An assistant is paid per minute of calls, covers every hour including nights and holidays, and does none of the desk work. So the fair comparison is the share of the salary that goes on routine calls against the assistant's monthly total. We publish no break-even figure because we have not measured one, and it would differ for every business. Our post on when an AI assistant replaces a hire covers the general question. This one is only about the phone.
- Count calls and minutes for four weeks, split by hour of the day
- Mark the calls that need a person: upset callers, quotes, anything legal or medical
- Price the assistant: minutes times the rate, plus the build spread over a year, plus review time
- Price the receptionist: the share of the salary spent on routine calls, not the whole salary
04Where PROOF48 is the wrong choice
We are the wrong choice in four cases. If the phone rings a handful of times a day, a person, or a voicemail you check twice a day, costs less than any build. If most callers are upset, ask for quotes or raise something legal or medical, the assistant would hand nearly every call to a person and you would be paying for a filter. If you want a ready-made tool you switch on yourself, buy one directly, because our route is a custom build. And if you want phone inside AUTOMATE, it is not there: the plan, at 2,997 EUR a month, covers site chat, DM and email, booking and a CRM. We also have no published case study of a phone assistant yet, and our post on whether AI can answer business phone calls says so plainly.
- A handful of calls a day: a person or a checked voicemail costs less
- Mostly upset, legal, medical or quote calls: the assistant would only pass them on
- A ready-made tool you set up yourself: buy it from the vendor, not from us
- Phone inside AUTOMATE: not included, a standalone voice assistant is priced on request
Three published phone lines, no phone assistant
Santorini Hotel's website publishes the reception, restaurant and complaints phone lines, on the page and in structured data. That is all its case study says about calls. It does not say how many come in or who answers them, so we have no call volume to price against and no client phone-assistant result to show. What carries over is the first step of any comparison: count your lines and who picks up each one before you set a salary against a bill.
See the build: Santorini HotelQuestions, answered
Is a voice assistant cheaper than a part-time receptionist?
Not by default. It depends on how many call minutes you have and how much of the receptionist's time goes on routine calls. We have no measured break-even figure, so count your own calls for four weeks and price both sides.
Does the AUTOMATE plan answer phone calls?
No. AUTOMATE, at 2,997 EUR a month, covers site chat, DM and email, booking and a CRM. A standalone voice assistant is a separate custom build, priced on request.
What does a PROOF48 voice assistant cost?
We publish no fixed price. It is a custom build, scoped on your call volume and your rules, and priced on request. Usage fees from a voice platform are a separate line and vary by vendor.
Can a voice assistant replace the receptionist completely?
Usually it takes the routine calls and passes the rest to a person, so the person keeps the calls that need judgment and the desk work. Our post on when an AI assistant replaces a hire explains where that line sits.
Where PROOF48 fits
Compare the share of a receptionist's salary spent on routine calls with an assistant's build, per-minute usage and weekly review, not salary against bill. The legal floor is 4,325 lei gross from 1 July 2026, about 4,418 lei to the employer. PROOF48 prices a standalone voice assistant on request, and AUTOMATE, 2,997 EUR a month, does not include phone.
Cosmin Tiu · Founder, PROOF48
Cosmin has worked in online marketing and software development since 2018, and has built with AI every day since January 2023. He still writes code from scratch daily, in Python, React, Rust and C#. PROOF48 ships business websites in 48 hours and invoices afterwards, so every opinion on this blog was paid for in real builds, not in theory.