FRNLEN
Call Janet
Pricing · Phone answering service

What a phone costs when nobody answers it.

Four ways to get your number answered, and four different cost structures. This page compares the models, then publishes our three plans: €75, €150 and €300 a month, excluding VAT.

Call Janet, our AI receptionistCall Janet Book an intro call

The quickest way is still to hear her before you choose. Our AI receptionist · +32 460 25 44 13

Our plans

Three plans, and what is in them

All three do the same job: Janet picks up 24/7, books appointments during the call, takes messages on a dated record, answers from your own information and transfers when she has to. The diary and the capacity plan are included in every plan, so is importing your documents and your CSV lists into the knowledge base, and you get the full software, with nothing held back. What changes from one plan to the next is the volume, the languages and the number of calls handled at the same time.

Starter
€75a month, excl. VAT
250 minutes of calls included
  • One language: French or Dutch
  • One call at a time

A real receptionist, from the first plan on.

Standard
€150a month, excl. VAT
750 minutes of calls included
  • French and Dutch, switching from one to the other during the call
  • Two simultaneous calls
  • A connection to your tools, API and bespoke integrations

Everything above, and: the line holds two calls and changes language without hanging up.

First responder
€300a month, excl. VAT
1,750 minutes of calls included
  • Four simultaneous calls
  • Two further languages, your choice
  • Several sites on a single account
  • Bespoke development

Everything above, and: several addresses, four lines at the front.

All prices are excluding VAT; Belgian VAT at 21% is added on top. If you go over your minutes, you move up to the plan above — we never charge by the minute. Setup fees are not automatic and, when there are any, they are capped at one month of your plan. No hidden fees, no surcharge for wider hours, nothing to install at your place. And if you stop, you switch off call forwarding: your calls come back to you, there is nothing to dismantle.

The diagnostic

You do not know your number of minutes. Nobody does.

01How many calls do you get a day?
02When do you pick up?
03Any Dutch-speaking customers?
Your reading

15 calls a day × 22 working days
× 60% you do not take = 198 calls
× 1 min 41 on average

333minutes a month
250Starter 750Standard 1,750Responder

Your plan: Standard, €150 a month excl. VAT — it is the first tier that covers your 333 minutes.

That is 198 calls a month that, today, ring into the void.

Don't take our word for it.

+32 460 25 44 13 Janet picks up. She's an AI — you'll hear it, or you won't.
By emailsales@celya.be
By phone+32 460 25 44 13
In twenty minutesBook an intro call
An old telephone on a midnight-blue wall

The four ways to get your phone answered.

The models

The four ways to get your phone answered

When a business number rings there are only four outcomes: someone in the house picks up, an outside provider picks up, a machine records, or nobody answers. Those four outcomes do not cost the same — but above all they do not have the same cost structure, and it is the structure that decides what happens when your business changes. A model that holds at ten calls a day can turn absurd at sixty, and the reverse is true as well.

Criterion You Voicemail The human answering service Celya, the voice agent
Who picks up You, between two jobs — or nobody. A machine that records. A real person, on a call floor, in your company's name. For a complex or highly personalised welcome, that is still the best there is. Janet, an AI that says so. She holds the conversation, books the appointment, notes the message, transfers on your rules.
What sets the price Your time. Every call you take interrupts a job; every call you miss is a customer ringing the next name. Nothing: it is the cheapest option on the market, by a distance. A wage behind every hour covered. The price therefore follows the opening hours mechanically. A bundle of minutes. No wage behind an hour covered: a line open at 3 am costs no more than one at 3 pm.
Monthly cost No invoice — lost earnings that show up in no set of accounts. Included in your phone subscription. —
We name no provider and publish no price taken from one: we describe the model, not the players.		 €75, €150 or €300 excl. VAT, depending on the plan. Never by the minute.
Evenings, weekends, nights When you are there. Always on — but the caller hangs up before the beep. Affordable in office hours; noticeably dearer evenings and weekends, and that is perfectly logical. It is what kept 24-hour cover out of reach for most self-employed people. At the same price as a Tuesday afternoon. No surcharge for wider hours.
Two calls at once The second one gets the engaged tone. Both land on the machine. Depends on the call floor and on the hours in the plan. One, two or four simultaneous calls depending on the plan, with no doubled wait. A seasonal peak calls for no hiring.
What the caller gets An answer, if you are there. Silence. For a leak, a door slammed shut or an appointment to fix, nobody talks to a machine that will not answer. A welcome, a message taken, sometimes an appointment. An appointment booked during the call, a message on a dated record, or a transfer to you. Nothing to install, you keep your number and your operator.

Every line in this table is about money going out. The heaviest one is not: it is the lost call, and you work it out with your own numbers — see the question below.

Frequently asked questions

Phone answering service pricing: your questions

What happens if I go over my minutes?
You move up to the plan above, and nothing else changes. We never charge by the minute: an overage billed on the meter turns a good month — plenty of calls, so plenty of customers — into a nasty surprise, and that is exactly the opposite of what we want to sell you. If it is a one-off, we leave it alone.
How do I know which plan to take?
By your minutes, not by your turnover. Take the average length of a call at your place, multiply it by the number of calls you get in a month, and you land on the plan. If you are torn between two, take the lower one: moving up happens on its own, moving down means cancelling.
Does the price depend on the hours covered?
No, and that is the real structural difference with a human answering service. We pay no night-shift wage: covering a Saturday costs us no more than a Tuesday. That is what puts 24-hour cover within reach of a self-employed person, which a classic phone answering service cannot do.
Is there a setup fee?
Not as a rule. There is real configuration work — your hours, your services, your transfer rules, your standard answers — and that is what separates an agent that answers properly from a generic one. When that work is charged, it is capped at one month of your plan, never more.
Do I have to commit for a fixed term?
The commitment terms are part of the proposal and are open to discussion. What we ask above all is that you call the number and hear the service: nobody should sign for a voice they have never heard.
Do I pay per call or a flat fee?
A flat fee, and only a flat fee. You pay a monthly amount that includes a volume of minutes; beyond that, you change plan. There is no price per call, no price per minute, and no meter running while you read this page.
Is it cheaper than a human answering service?
We do not compare figures we have not verified ourselves, and we name no competitor. What this page compares is the models: who pays for what, and why the price follows the hours in one case and not in the other.
What if my call volume changes?
A heating engineer triples his volume in November, an accountancy firm in February. That is expected, and it is one of the reasons the proposal comes after looking at your year, not just your week.
Can I stop?
You switch off call forwarding at your operator, and your calls come back to you as before. You have installed nothing, migrated nothing and changed no number: so there is nothing to dismantle.
Where is the data hosted?
Our clients' calls are processed and their data hosted in the European Union, in line with the GDPR. You can ask for it to be deleted at any time.
Why does nobody leave a message on voicemail?
Voicemail's problem is not its price, it is whether it works. A caller with an immediate need — a leak, a door slammed shut, an appointment to fix — has no reason to talk to a machine that will not answer them. They hang up before the beep and ring the next name on the list. Voicemail does not lose the call: it turns it into silence, which is worse, because you believe you have a solution. The recorded message keeps its uses — announcing a closure, giving an on-call number, pointing people elsewhere — and we have gathered twenty-five of them, ready to copy, on a page of their own. But a message is not a welcome.
Why does a human service cost more evenings and weekends?
Because behind every hour covered there is a wage. The principle of the human phone answering service is an old one and it works: you forward your calls to a call floor, and a real person answers in your company's name. But the price follows the opening hours mechanically: cover in office hours is affordable, cover in the evening and at weekends costs a good deal more. That is why most self-employed people have never had 24-hour cover — not because they did not want it, but because the model put it out of reach at their scale.
What does a voice agent change in the sums?
Not the nature of the service: it holds a conversation, books an appointment, takes a message, transfers on rules. What it changes is the structure of the cost. The price does not follow the opening hours, several calls are handled at the same time, there is no installation and no hardware, you keep your number and your operator, and a seasonal peak calls for no hiring. That, and nothing else, is what puts continuous cover within reach of a small business.
What does a lost call cost me?
Do the exercise on your own business, with your own figures. How many calls do you miss in a week? What share of them would have turned into a job or an order? What is an average job worth at your place? Multiply. Whatever the result, it can be set against every model in the table. We deliberately put no figure here: the missed-call statistics doing the rounds online are almost all without a verifiable source, and we are not going to add one. Your own reading beats any average.
Further reading

Put a number on your situation

Cost of a secretary (in French)Gross pay, social contributions, holiday pay, bonus: the sums, with their sources.→ Voicemail messages (in French)25 messages ready to copy, and what they will not fix.→ Your sector (in French)Eleven situations where the phone rings while you are working.→ Hiring or not (in French)The threshold, what it covers, and what exists below it.→ Cost of an answering service (in French)What makes one proposal differ from another.→ Agent or human (in French)Voice agent or human answering service: what each does better.→ Voicemail or a line (in French)Voicemail or an answering service: the difference, call by call.→ Flat fee or per call (in French)The two price structures, and what they do.→ The phone answering service (in French)The word, and what it actually covers.→

← Back to home   Get in touch

The prices are above. The voice is right now.

Call Janet, our AI receptionistCall Janet Book an intro call

Our AI receptionist · +32 460 25 44 13. It is an AI that picks up, and the call commits you to nothing.