A virtual receptionist on record.

Human services answer remotely and bill per call. Daciel answers on your own number at a flat plan, books or takes the message, and files the call on the customer.

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Reminders

Projects

Recent

Renewals at risk

Board pack, October

Supplier terms review

Churn post mortem

Which accounts are at risk this month, and draft the outreach.

Worked for 41s · 6 steps · $0.12

Read9 accounts renewing

Read14 open tickets

Comparedusage against the last two quarters

Drafted7 messages, held 2 for a person

Nine accounts renew inside 30 days and three of them are the ones to worry about. Their ticket volume is up while usage is falling, which is the pattern that preceded every churn last quarter.

Salesforce

Zendesk2 sources, permission aware

Message Daciel

Books into the calendar and CRM you already use.

Every call becomes a record

Library

Everything the work produced, with who owns it and who can read it.

AllDocumentsSheetsFrom runs

Renewal brief, Acme

Document · Priya · Deal team

Q3 pipeline review

Sheet · Marcus · Sales

Supplier terms summary

Document · Ana · Private

Churn post mortem

Document · Marcus · Everyone

Board pack, October

Deck · Priya · Leadership

Access review

Sheet · Tom · Admins

Turn the renewal brief into an email to the deal team

Renewal brief, Acme

Chat

One composer, on every surface.

Vendor reviews

Q3 onboarding

Support desk

Website rebuild

Everything the renewal touched: the thread it started in, the artifacts it produced, and who is allowed to see them.

148 artifacts

Keep

Acme renewal

Payroll migration

Hiring: sales

Said once, kept for good

Any answer becomes an artifact, with an owner and a permission.

Slack

Gmail

Outlook

Google Drive

Notion

Salesforce

HubSpot

Zendesk

Jira

GitHub

Linear

Stripe

Zoom

Asana

Airtable

Dropbox

Box

Confluence

Intercom

Google Calendar

Monday

ClickUp

Figma

DocuSign

Trello

Slack

Gmail

Outlook

Connected from day one

The systems you already run, readable in one place.

Runs this week

RunOutcome and traceWhat it producedCost

1Renewal outreachApprovedRead the nine accounts renewing this quarter in Salesforce, compared each one's usage against the last two quarters, drafted seven messages and held two back for a person. 41s, 6 steps, $0.12...7 draftsTotal$0.12Model$0.09Tools$0.03

2Invoice chaseHeldMatched fourteen overdue invoices in Stripe against the support thread for each account, then stopped before sending: two of them are in an open dispute and the policy says a person decides...14 invoicesTotal$0.08Model$0.06Tools$0.02

3Monday briefingApprovedPulled every run from the last seven days, grouped them by workspace, and wrote the briefing into the Library with the trace attached to each claim so any line can be opened...1 briefingTotal$0.21Model$0.17Tools$0.04

4Access reviewApprovedListed every connection holding a write scope, checked each against the role that owns it, and flagged three that now outlive the person who created them. Nothing was revoked without asking...3 flaggedTotal$0.05Model$0.04Tools$0.01

Runs

Every step, every tool call, every cost, and who approved it.

Remote, and still on the record

The receptionist recognises the caller, reads their bookings and orders, and answers from them. A booking goes into your calendar; a message goes onto the record with the callback queued. Nobody relays anything by email.

Queued6+⋯

RUN-2085

Chase the 14 overdue invoices

RUN-2094

Summarise every ticket Acme opened

RUN-2092

Check which renewals slipped a quarter

RUN-2200

Rewrite the onboarding mail sequence

Planned10+⋯

RUN-2211

Renewal quote for Acme, send held

Salesforce

Priya approves

RUN-926

Renewal outreach, nine accounts

Salesforce

Gmail

RUN-2088

Weekly briefing into the Library

Slack

RUN-924

Reconcile Stripe against the tickets

Stripe

RUN-1882

Tag the inbox by account

Outlook

Running3+⋯

RUN-1487

Pull usage for the at-risk accounts

4 steps

RUN-1028

Answer the RFP security section

Confluence

RUN-2187

Flag connections holding write scope

Waiting on Priya6 steps

Done48+⋯

RUN-2074

Monday briefing, written and filed

Library$0.21

RUN-1912

Churn post mortem for Q3

$0.14

RUN-1951

Board pack pulled together

$0.31

RUN-1960

Access review, three flagged

Approved$0.05

RUN-1991

Supplier terms summarised

Thread in #renewals

Marcus Hale9:12 AM

Acme wants a renewal quote. Their contract is up in three weeks.

Ana Duarte9:12 AM

Ticket volume has climbed every month this quarter. Read that before we price it.

Marcus Hale9:13 AM

So someone pulls usage, open tickets and the last two invoices. Three systems.

Priya Raman9:14 AM

And most of an afternoon. Hand it over and hold the send until one of us reads it.

Marcus Hale9:14 AM

@Daciel draft the Acme renewal from usage and tickets, hold the send

Two calls it takes on day one

The booking

Real slots from the connected calendar, booked on the call, confirmed through your own tools.

Get started

Conversations

7 open · 4 answered without a person

Acme CoWhere is invoice 4417?Agent

NorthwindRefund for the duplicate seatAgent

StarlightCan we move the renewal date?Held

MeridianAPI keys stopped workingWaiting

BrightlineInvoice address is wrongAgent

KestrelDo you support SSO?Agent

HalcyonExport stopped at 10k rowsWaiting

The message

Need and urgency captured, filed on the record, callback queued to the right person.

See the AI receptionist

Renewals

9 inside 30 days · 7 drafted, 2 held

Brightline$14kDrafted

Kestrel$9kSent

Halcyon$6kHeld

What is a virtual receptionist?

A virtual receptionist answers a business's phone from somewhere other than its front desk. For twenty years that meant a human service such as Ruby or Smith.ai: trained operators answering in your name, taking messages and booking appointments, billed per call or per minute. Since 2024 it also means an AI receptionist doing the same job at a flat software price.

How the virtual receptionist works

A number, yours

Daciel buys a local or toll-free number and holds it on your account, or you forward or port your own.

Caller recognised

Matched to customers and leads; bookings, orders and invoices read before the greeting ends.

Brief followed

Hours, services, prices you allow, questions that go to a person. Nothing invented.

Book, message or transfer

Calendar slots, messages with urgency, live transfer to a named person.

Filed

On the record with transcript and summary; minutes metered against the plan.

Human and AI receptionists, compared

The choice is between a human service billed per call and an AI at a plan price. The rows below compare both kinds on channels, control and cost.

	Best for	Channels	How a person stays in control	Published pricing
Smith.ai, Ruby and other live services	Businesses that want a human voice and accept per-call pricing	Phone answered by staff; messages relayed by email or text	Scripts and instructions given to the receptionists	Per call or per minute, plus plan fees; published on their sites
Synthflow	Agencies deploying receptionist agents for many clients	Phone; numbers provisioned through the product	Call flows and transfers; no approval queue	Monthly plans with minute allowances; published on their site
Retell	Developers and agencies building call flows for clients	Phone; numbers through their telephony or your own	Post-call analysis; no approval queue	About $0.07–$0.15 per minute all in, estimated; published on their site
Vapi	Developers building their own voice agent	Phone via your own telephony; bring your own keys	None built in; whatever your code does	$0.05 per minute platform fee plus model and telephony passthrough; $10 per line a month above 10 concurrent calls
Dacielthis site	Businesses that want the phone answered by the same agent that runs the inbox and the ledger	A number bought and held inside Daciel; inbound and approved outbound; email and messaging on the same record	Outbound campaigns and gated actions held for a named person; every call filed as a run	Contact Daciel for business plan availability and pricing.

Competitor pricing as published on each vendor's site, read 2026-08-19. Where a vendor publishes nothing, the row says so.

Your number, your voice

See pricing

Daciel

ElevenLabs

Answers in a voice you would not know from a person.

Daciel

Twilio

A direct line of its own, answering from the first ring.

Daciel

Cloudflare

Domains provisioned and shielded at the edge before they are asked for.

Daciel

Anthropic

Frontier reasoning on the work, with the trace kept for every line.

Daciel

ElevenLabs

Answers in a voice you would not know from a person.

Daciel

Twilio

A direct line of its own, answering from the first ring.

Daciel

Cloudflare

Domains provisioned and shielded at the edge before they are asked for.

Daciel

Anthropic

Frontier reasoning on the work, with the trace kept for every line.

Daciel

ElevenLabs

Answers in a voice you would not know from a person.

Daciel

Twilio

A direct line of its own, answering from the first ring.

Daciel

Cloudflare

Domains provisioned and shielded at the edge before they are asked for.

Daciel

Anthropic

Frontier reasoning on the work, with the trace kept for every line.

Connects to

Answers from its briefHours, services, what to quote, what to hand to a person

Transfers on your rulesA request for a person or an urgent word goes live

Every call is a runTranscript, summary, actions and cost on the record

Safe to let it answer. A receptionist that can book and promise is held to the brief you gave it, and shows every call.

How permissions work

Questions people ask before buying

Human or AI virtual receptionist: which should a small business choose?

A human service if you want a person's judgment on every call and accept per-call billing. An AI if your calls are mostly bookings, messages and routine questions, and you want a flat price and the call filed on the record.

Does the AI sound like a robot?

No. It uses a natural voice, your greeting and answers from your brief. Callers who ask for a person get one during your hours.

Can it use my existing number?

Yes. Forward it to Daciel or port it in. Daciel can also buy a new number for you.

How much does it cost?

Human services bill per call or per minute plus plan fees. Contact Daciel for business plan availability and pricing.

Where do messages go?

Onto the caller's record with the callback queued, visible to Support, Sales and Finance. Not into a relayed email.

AI receptionist AI answering service After-hours answering service Phone answering service for small business

Built for the future. Available today.

See pricing