What an AI receptionist actually does
An AI receptionist answers your business phone the way a trained front-desk person would. It picks up, greets the caller in their language, works out what they want, answers questions about your services, timings and prices from your own information, books the appointment or visit, and sends a WhatsApp confirmation before the call ends. It does this at 2am, on a Sunday, during your lunch rush and on the days your front desk is short-staffed. Dvaarik does not hand you a blank tool to program from scratch. You sign up, pick your business type from 11 verticals, and add your services, prices, policies, escalation rules and booking logic in the dashboard; the agent is configured from that data. You run test calls yourself, fix what sounds wrong, and ask the Dvaarik team for help whenever you want it before the agent goes live. Anything the agent is not meant to handle, it passes to you with the caller's number and a summary. Before you read any further, hear the current one for yourself at app.dvaarik.com/dvaarik-ai, or message it on WhatsApp at +91 79956 76588.
AI powered, AI phone, AI call — the same job, different words
People search for this in four or five different ways, and the phrasing usually reveals the worry behind it. An AI powered receptionist is the broadest of them: someone wants the front-desk job done by software, across whatever channel the customer chooses, not just the phone line. An AI phone receptionist narrows that to the number on your board and your Google listing — the caller dials, an AI answers. An AI call receptionist tends to come from businesses whose problem is call volume: missed calls, a queue at peak hour, one person juggling four ringing lines. A virtual receptionist service in India has traditionally meant a human answering service in another city, taking messages on your behalf during set hours. At Dvaarik all of these are one agent. The same agent picks up the phone, replies on WhatsApp and Instagram, and works from one set of facts about your business, so a customer gets the same answer wherever they ask.
It has to work in the language your caller uses
This is the part you should test hardest, because Indian callers rarely stay inside one language. A caller in Hyderabad starts in Telugu and switches to English for the price. A parent in Mumbai asks in Hinglish — "kal subah 11 baje slot hai kya" — and expects the same register back, not a formal translation. A Chennai caller mixes Tamil and English inside one sentence. Language coverage depends on the voice grade: Essential starts at ₹2/min for 10 languages, while Standard at ₹3/min and Studio HD at ₹4/min cover all 23 languages (22 scheduled Indian languages plus English). Premium is ₹5/min for 11 languages. Do not take coverage or code-mixed performance on trust: call or message our live agent at app.dvaarik.com/dvaarik-ai, or WhatsApp +91 79956 76588, and test the exact language mix your callers use.
What an AI receptionist costs in India
Voice starts at ₹2 per minute on Essential for 10 languages with simple whole-minute billing — the permanent rate, not an introductory discount, and it applies from your first minute with no voice subscription and no minimum volume. Higher voice grades are there when you want them: Standard at ₹3 and Studio HD at ₹4 cover all 23 languages, while Premium is ₹5 per minute for 11 languages. Chat conversations are ₹2 each. Dvaarik phone access is a separate recurring channel. The app shows the current price and capacity; one channel handles one simultaneous call. Everything runs from one prepaid balance: there is no minimum commitment, direct top-ups start at ₹100, and credits never expire. Setup is ₹0, there is no separate platform fee and no per-booking commission. WhatsApp message charges are billed by Meta directly to your own WhatsApp account, with zero Dvaarik markup on top, so you see exactly what Meta charges you.
A worked month, in plain numbers
The volumes below are illustrations we made up so you can follow the arithmetic — they are not client averages. Put your own numbers in. Take a clinic receiving 400 calls a month, averaging three minutes each. That is 1,200 minutes, so ₹2,400 of voice credits on the entry grade. Dvaarik phone access is a separate recurring channel. The app shows the current price and capacity; one channel handles one simultaneous call. The direct Social Plan remains ₹1,500 per 30 days when WhatsApp or Instagram access is enabled. A salon with 150 calls of two minutes each is nearer ₹600 of voice, so its month is dominated by the phone line rather than by usage. If the agent also handles 300 WhatsApp and Instagram conversations at ₹2 each, add ₹600. The point of pay-as-you-go is that a quiet month is a cheap month: no seat fee sits there whether the phone rings or not, and when the balance runs out the agent pauses until you top up rather than running up a bill.
The pricing model, stated plainly
Setup is ₹0, for every business — not a limited offer, and not a trade for a testimonial. There is no minimum credit load, no lock-in and no voice subscription. Dvaarik phone access is a separate recurring channel. The app shows the current price and capacity; one channel handles one simultaneous call. The direct Social Plan remains ₹1,500 per 30 days when WhatsApp or Instagram access is enabled. If you want hands-on help beyond the dashboard, managed support is available — talk to us and we will scope it. Agencies and developers can also resell all of this white-label under their own brand and domain, at prices they set, from app.dvaarik.com/reseller/login. One price list for everyone, with no case-by-case bargaining.
The call is only half the job
Answering the phone politely is not the outcome you are paying for — the outcome is the appointment kept and the money collected. So the agent does not stop when the caller hangs up. It writes the enquiry into your lead sheet with the caller's number, what they asked for and what was promised. It sends the WhatsApp confirmation, then the reminder the day before, which does more against no-shows than almost anything else for the money. If a deposit or advance makes sense for your business, it can send a UPI or payment link inside the conversation, so the slot is held against something rather than nothing. The same agent handles Instagram DMs and comment-to-DM replies, and can call a fresh enquiry back within about a minute while the person is still deciding. That callback speed is a separate agent in our lineup, and it pairs naturally with the receptionist.
When an AI receptionist is not worth it
If your phone rings four or five times a week and you answer all of them, this is not for you yet. The phone-line recharge alone would cost more than the business you are missing, and we would rather say that plainly than sign you up. The same is true if every call is a long bespoke negotiation with no repeatable structure — a fabrication shop quoting from drawings gains less than a clinic booking slots. If your enquiries arrive almost entirely on Instagram or WhatsApp rather than the phone, start with those channels instead and add voice later. And if the underlying problem is that you have no consistent prices or policies, the agent will only expose that faster: it can be no clearer than the information you give it. The honest test is simple — count the calls you actually miss in a normal week, and check whether recovering even a couple of them pays for the month.
What it hands to a human, and what it will not do
The agent is built with an explicit boundary, and staying inside it is what makes it trustworthy. Complaints, refund arguments, price negotiations beyond the rules you set, anything medical, legal or financial that needs a qualified person, and any caller who simply wants a human — all of these get handed over rather than improvised. In practice that means the agent says plainly that someone will call back, captures the number and the reason, logs the conversation, and pings you on WhatsApp so it does not sit unread. It does not invent an answer when it does not know one, because a confident wrong answer costs you more than a transfer. On outbound calls the rules are tighter still: only your own leads and enquiries, never a purchased list, calling hours respected, and the agent identifies your business at the start of the call.
How to judge one before you commit
Ask three questions of anyone selling you this, us included. First, what is the per-minute rate, and does that rate depend on call volume or on a monthly plan sitting underneath it — ask for it in writing. Ours is from ₹2 a minute, whole-minute billing, from the first minute, and it is a permanent rate rather than an introductory discount. Second, what is not included: the phone number, the setup, the integrations and the ongoing support are often priced separately, so ask for a month-one total rather than a headline. Third, can you hear it work today, on your own sentences, before any money moves — ours is a live agent you can call or message, not a scripted video. If you are still shortlisting, read our vendor comparison guide linked below, where each provider's published rate is read from that company's own page and dated. This page is about what your agent would do; that one is about who you should pick.