Virtual receptionist in Quebec: what it costs, and what the law expects

Why Quebec changes the shopping list

Most pricing guides you will find for "virtual receptionist" or "answering service" are written for the US market, where French is a nice-to-have. In Quebec it is a legal baseline. Section 5 of the Charter of the French language states that "consumers of goods and services have a right to be informed and served in French", and section 50.2, added in 2022, says an enterprise that offers goods or services to consumers "must respect their right to be informed and served in French."

That rule applies to how you answer the phone, whether the person on the line is your employee, an agent in a call centre or an AI. It also rules out some well-known options. Telelink, an answering service aimed at Ontario businesses, describes itself as "100% Canadian-based & English" on its pricing page. A comparison of 11 AI receptionists in Canada published by Mihron AI lists Smith.ai as English and Spanish only. Both may be fine businesses; neither fits a Laval or West Island shop with French-speaking customers.

There is a second Quebec wrinkle. Many tools say "French" and mean the French of France. Callers in Montreal say "fin de semaine", drop syllables and name streets like Côte-Vertu or Saint-Charles. The only way to know if an answering service understands them is to call it yourself (the test script is below).

The three options and their published prices

There are three ways to stop missing calls without hiring:

1. Live answering service. A person in a call centre answers in your business name, takes a message and sometimes books the appointment.
2. AI receptionist. A voice AI answers, handles common questions from your business information, books or takes a message, and sends you a summary.
3. Auto-attendant. The "press 1 for…" menu on your business line, ending in voicemail. It routes calls; it answers nothing.

For reference, the Job Bank puts the median receptionist wage at $20 an hour in the Montréal region and $19 in Laval. At 40 hours a week, that is roughly $3,290 a month in Laval before payroll costs, for office hours only.

All prices below are from each provider's page consulted in October 2026, in Canadian dollars unless noted, taxes extra.

A worked example: 300 minutes a month

Take a physiotherapy clinic in the West Island. Assumptions to replace with your own numbers: 100 calls a month, 3 minutes on average, so 300 minutes; about a third come in at lunch, in the evening or on weekends; callers are a mix of French and English speakers.

Two things stand out. First, at this volume an AI receptionist covers evenings and weekends for less than a bilingual live service covers weekdays. Second, Always Booked is not the cheapest AI on the list. What you pay for there is the setup: the answers written from your business information, testing in Quebec French, and one person to call when something needs changing. Whether that is worth $182.50 to $257.50 a month more than the lowest plan is your call.

Rule of thumb by volume

• Under about 30 calls a month: an auto-attendant or voicemail, plus an automatic text after every missed call, is usually enough.
• From 30 to a few hundred calls, mostly repeat questions: an AI receptionist, ideally connected to online booking.
• Calls that need judgment (emergencies, complaints, health questions): a live service, or an AI that transfers those calls to you.
• Over about 800 calls a month plus front-desk work (greeting, payments, filing): hire. At that point a $3,290-a-month salary buys more than answering.

Law 25 and call recording: the checklist

A receptionist of any kind collects personal information: names, numbers, addresses, the reason for the call. Before you sign, check these points against the official texts.

• Recording notice. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada says organizations should tell customers at the outset that the call is recorded, say why, and let them choose an alternative if they object. It also lists limiting how long recordings are kept.
• Purpose at collection. Section 8 of Quebec's private-sector privacy act (the act Law 25 amended) requires you to tell people, when you collect their information, the purposes, the means, and their rights of access and rectification.
• Data leaving Quebec. Under section 17, you must do a privacy impact assessment before communicating personal information outside Quebec. Ask every vendor, especially US ones, where recordings and transcripts are stored.
• Person in charge. Section 3.1 makes the person with the highest authority in the business responsible, and their title and contact details must be published on your website. My guide to Law 25 on a WordPress site shows where that goes.
• Voiceprints. On October 8, 2026, the Commissioner announced an update to its guidance on recording customer calls, which describes voiceprints as sensitive biometric information that may require express consent. Ask whether the vendor creates them.

This is general information, not legal advice.

Test it before you sign

Call the demo line five times:

1. Speak at your normal pace, in French, and ask "c'est-tu ouvert samedi?"
2. Give a phone number and an address on a local street.
3. Name a town you serve: Pierrefonds, Sainte-Thérèse, Mirabel.
4. Switch from French to English halfway through.
5. Ask for a price you never published and check that it takes a message instead of making one up.

If it fails two of the five, keep looking. If you are also shopping for a website, my guide to website costs in Quebec uses the same published-price approach.

Where Always Booked fits

The Always Booked AI receptionist answers in Quebec French and English, handles common questions from your own business information, takes messages and books appointments, and sends you a summary of every call. It tells callers they are speaking with an automated assistant, and you listen to test calls before it goes live. Setup is from $900, then $300 a month with 300 minutes included. If you get fewer than 30 calls a month, I will point you to automated follow-up instead: a text after every missed call, from $600 setup and $125 a month. The five automations that pay back fastest in a small business, with prices, are compared on my AI automation for Montreal small businesses page.

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