What a Minute of Phone Support Really Costs — Human vs AI

Cost per minute of a phone call is an unusual way to think about a business — but for companies with high call volume (reception desks, hotlines, appointment booking) it's a genuinely useful way to compare two service models: a human and an AI Assistant.

What a minute of human time costs

At an illustrative receptionist employment cost of around 5,500 PLN a month (salary plus employer contributions) and roughly 168 working hours a month, the cost of one minute of PRESENCE at work (not just talking — the whole time on shift) works out to roughly:

What a minute of AI Assistant conversation costs

The Standard plan (99 PLN/month) includes 1,000 call minutes — effectively about 0.099 PLN per minute if you use the full allowance. Anything over the limit is billed at 0.35 PLN/minute. The Premium plan (199 PLN/month) has no minute limit at all — the more calls you handle, the lower the effective cost per minute.

Why this comparison needs a careful read

This isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. A human does more than just answer the phone — they handle other tasks between calls. An AI Assistant, on the other hand, works on multiple calls in parallel, not limited to one conversation at a time the way a person is — so "cost per minute" doesn't translate directly into "how many calls it can handle per hour".

What this actually means in practice

• For businesses with low-to-medium call volume (up to a few hundred minutes a month), the cost gap heavily favours the AI Assistant — you pay a fixed, low amount instead of a full salary.
• For businesses with very high volume (hundreds of hours of calls a month), it's worth calculating actual minute usage and comparing it to the Premium plan, where no limit means no worrying about overages.
• In both cases, the AI Assistant doesn't replace a whole team — it takes the first phone contact off their plate, especially outside business hours and during peak times.

Cost per minute isn't the only measure that matters — but it's one of the few that lets you compare two completely different service models on common ground.

To work this out for your own business: check how many inbound call minutes you generate each month (with your carrier or in your billing), and compare it to the 1,000-minute Standard allowance — that will quickly show you which plan makes sense.