Talkify / Alternatives / AppAI
AI receptionist · Described from their own pages · Checked August 2026

Two Christchurch outfits. One owns the phone line.

If you are weighing up AppAI, you should know exactly what they do before you decide, so here it is straight. A Christchurch AI receptionist aimed squarely at Kiwi businesses, answering the phone and texting the owner a summary of who rang and what they wanted.

Talkify is the bigger machine sitting behind the same job: built in Christchurch by a studio twelve years deep in phone systems and integrations, running on a New Zealand line we sell you ourselves, connected to the software you already use, with your call recordings held in this country. Reception is one of nine things it does.

Hear Talkify · 03 242 1262 See the cost table →
The fair bit

When AppAI is the right call.

Someone who wants a small, local, hands-on supplier and likes the idea of the founder being reachable directly. They publish a phone number and a founder mobile, which not everyone here does. They also state plainly that there is no per-minute overage rate and no minute cap, and that they will talk to you before moving you to a bigger plan. Publishing the absence of an overage rate is a better answer than the silence we found elsewhere, and they deserve credit for it.

We would rather you bought the right thing than bought from us. If the paragraph above describes your situation, go and talk to them.

What to ask before you sign anything.

Not gotchas, and not accusations. These are the three things about this kind of product that cost people money when they find out late. Ask us the same sort of questions.

Question 1.

What the entry price includes, since it sits well above most of this market and the fair comparison is against what you get rather than against the sticker.

Question 2.

Where the call data is held, which is not published, and which matters because those recordings are your customers' personal information.

Question 3.

Whether the agent books into your calendar and job software on the tier you are buying, or stops at texting you a summary you then action yourself.

Why Talkify, in plain words.

The people behind it, the integrations we build ourselves, where your calls are handled, and how the agent keeps getting better.

Read what it says

Let's be frank. Plenty of AI receptionists are a prompt, a rented voice and a website, thrown together in a weekend.

Others are overseas answering services, with a local number stuck on the front.

Talkify is neither. It's built and run by a New Zealand team that's been doing phones and software for years.

Network engineers who keep the lines up. Phone specialists who've run voice networks for years. AI specialists who teach the agent to really listen. And developers who plug it into the systems you already use.

Every integration is one we built ourselves, straight into your system. We work with the teams behind those systems, so it's done properly. No middleman, and nothing extra to break.

Your calls are handled in New Zealand and Australian data centres, and nowhere else. Recordings stay off unless you switch them on.

Where security matters, we pay for enterprise-grade services, not the free version. Our infrastructure is backed by an IT partner certified to ISO 27001 and 42001. And we never train AI models on your calls.

We look at how calls actually go: where an agent stumbled, what a caller asked for that it couldn't do yet. Then we fix it.

Talkify agent: And you don't have to be technical. Our assistant sets it up with you.

Talkify agent: Kia ora! Want emergencies after hours put through to whoever's on call? Let me see. Done. I've added it to your agent.

And when you need help, you talk to the people who built it.

Talkify. Built by people who know phones. Start free at talkify.nz.

Where we would argue for us.

We rate the local hands-on model, because it is more or less ours, and we are not going to pretend a Christchurch competitor is a worse idea than a Christchurch incumbent on principle. Put the two side by side on what is included, what writes into the systems you already run, and how long each of us has been doing it.

We sell the phone line itself, not just the thing that answers it.

We hold a direct commercial relationship with the New Zealand carrier our numbers ride on, so numbers are provisioned on our own account and the routing is ours to change. It also means we sell you the line: a real New Zealand business phone service, hosted here, with local numbers, seats for your team, published per-minute rates and the agent already sitting on it. One number, one bill, nobody to blame in the middle. Most AI receptionists are a layer of software sitting on top of a phone account somebody else sold you, which is invisible on a good day and is the whole game on a bad one. When something breaks at three in the morning, that is the difference between us fixing it and us logging a ticket with whoever can.

The integrations are ours, written one at a time.

Every system we name has a connector we wrote and can point you at in code. Calendars, CRMs, accounting, job management, gym and workshop and salon software, plus a documented REST API, webhooks and Zapier for whatever we have not built yet. We keep a hard internal rule that nothing gets named on this website until the connector behind it exists, which is why our integration list is shorter than some and why every name on it is real.

A New Zealand phone number, answered by the people who built it.

Support is 0800 002 967, answered in New Zealand, in your timezone. You are not going through a chat widget to reach a partner agency, and you are not waiting overnight for a reply from a different hemisphere. The people who answer are the people who wrote the thing, which is the practical advantage of buying from a studio rather than a sales funnel.

Side by side

What each of us actually publishes.

Row by row: where your call recordings are held, who sells the phone line, where support answers from, what runs on the same account. Their column is what AppAI says on their own site, ours is what we say on ours, and the page still ends with where they are the better pick.

Talkify vs AppAI →

Cost is deliberately not on this page. It lives on the comparison table, with a checked date against it, so there is one place to keep honest instead of twelve. See the rest of the market on alternatives.

Frequently asked.

The questions we hear most. If yours isn't here, ring our live demo agent on 03 242 1262, it'll either answer or queue a callback from a human.

What does AppAI actually do?
A Christchurch AI receptionist aimed squarely at Kiwi businesses, answering the phone and texting the owner a summary of who rang and what they wanted. We have described it from their own published material. If we have got something wrong about your product, email [email protected] and we will fix it.
When would AppAI be the better choice?
Someone who wants a small, local, hands-on supplier and likes the idea of the founder being reachable directly. They publish a phone number and a founder mobile, which not everyone here does. They also state plainly that there is no per-minute overage rate and no minute cap, and that they will talk to you before moving you to a bigger plan. Publishing the absence of an overage rate is a better answer than the silence we found elsewhere, and they deserve credit for it.
What should I ask AppAI before signing?
What the entry price includes, since it sits well above most of this market and the fair comparison is against what you get rather than against the sticker. Where the call data is held, which is not published, and which matters because those recordings are your customers' personal information. Whether the agent books into your calendar and job software on the tier you are buying, or stops at texting you a summary you then action yourself.
Why would I choose Talkify instead?
We rate the local hands-on model, because it is more or less ours, and we are not going to pretend a Christchurch competitor is a worse idea than a Christchurch incumbent on principle. Put the two side by side on what is included, what writes into the systems you already run, and how long each of us has been doing it.
How does the cost compare?
Cost lives on our comparison page rather than here, because prices change and we would rather maintain them in one place than let two pages drift apart. That page works out what 200 minutes of answered calls actually costs on every provider's published pricing, with setup fees, monthly platform fees, GST treatment and per-minute overage included, and it carries the date it was last checked.
Can I hear Talkify before I decide?
Yes, and without handing over your details. Ring 03 242 1262 any time, day or night, and talk to a live Talkify agent in a real New Zealand voice. No form, no card, no follow-up call unless you ask for one. Try to do the same with everyone on your shortlist, because five seconds of listening tells you more than any comparison table.
Is Talkify only an AI receptionist?
No. Reception is one product on the platform. The same account also runs outgoing call campaigns, phone surveys, overdue invoice chasing from your own Xero, daily wellness check calls, an on-call roster that keeps ringing until a human accepts, a front counter agent, a website chat widget that talks as well as types, and SMS follow-ups that catch whatever the call missed. We sell the phone line itself as well.
TALKIFY VS APPAI

Still deciding?
Ring ours and listen.

Hear it yourself · our AI agent, 24/7 · ask it anything 03 242 1262 Sign up, sales & support · we'll set you up 0800 002 967
● No card● No lock-in● Free to call● The demo line can sign you up too
Text our agent · 027 204 8827

Or run it from your pocket

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Talkify is currently available to businesses in New Zealand & Australia only.

Personal Assistant
Single mobile or landline. Built for one person, not a business.
$89/mo
Shortwave plan

Founding rate On a monthly plan your price is locked in at the founding rate for your first 3 months, then the standard rate applies. Pay as you go has no founding step: the rate is just the rate. Plans include 50 to 200 minutes a month, then 10c a minute. The first 20 texts each month are free, then 9c each.

● Your data stays in NZ.