Face For Business offers likeable Lancashire-based PAs — but its Taster plan covers core business hours, with evening and weekend support from £115/month. TradeHalo answers every call 24/7, including bank holidays, from £19/month flat.
The short version: human PAs billed by the second, with out-of-hours cover on higher plans, versus always-on trade-trained AI at a flat rate.
| TradeHalo | Face For Business | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | From £19/month | Taster from £49/month |
| What the entry price covers | 24/7 answering, every day of the year | Core business hours support |
| Evenings & weekends | Included on every plan | Inclusive Minutes plan from £115/month |
| Overnight (e.g. 2am emergency) | Answered live by AI | Out-of-hours voicemail on most plans |
| Billing | Flat fee, unlimited AI-answered calls | By the second on calls, plan optimised monthly |
| Who answers | AI trained on your trade | Dedicated human PAs (proudly no AI) |
| Contracts | Monthly rolling, cancel anytime | No long-term contracts |
| Free trial | 14 days | 7 days |
Competitor details taken from publicly available pricing pages and independent guides, checked July 2026. Always confirm current pricing directly with the provider.
Face For Business publishes indicative plans: Taster from £49/month for support during your core business hours, Message Only from £99/month with a dedicated lead PA, and Inclusive Minutes from £115/month, which adds evening and weekend support. Calls are charged by the second rather than rounded up to the minute, there are no setup fees, and there's a 7-day free trial — all genuinely fair terms by industry standards.
The catch for trades isn't fairness, it's coverage and shape. The plan that includes evenings and weekends — when a huge share of trade enquiries happen — starts at £115/month. Overnight, most plans hand over to voicemail. And per-second billing, however honest, still means a busy month costs more than a quiet one.
TradeHalo's entry plan is £19/month and covers everything, always: nights, weekends, bank holidays, Christmas morning. Unlimited AI-answered calls, no per-second meter, and pricing that's identical in your best month and your worst.
The Face For Business plan with evening and weekend support starts at £115/month — and overnight calls still typically reach voicemail. TradeHalo answers live around the clock on every plan, from £19/month.
Per-second billing is fairer than per-minute — but it's still a meter. TradeHalo is a flat fee with unlimited answered calls, so you never think twice about a chatty customer or a busy week.
TradeHalo asks the questions a tradesperson would: what's the job, where, how urgent? Emergencies hit your phone by SMS instantly, callers get a confirmation text, and Pro books jobs straight into your calendar.
A landlord's tenant calls at 11pm on a Sunday in January. Here's what happens next.
How the two services compare on the things that matter to a trade business.
| Feature | TradeHalo | Face For Business |
|---|---|---|
| Coverage | ||
| 24/7 live answering on the entry plan | ✓ | — |
| Evenings and weekends included | ✓ | From £115/month |
| Overnight live answering | ✓ | Voicemail on most plans |
| Bank holidays included | ✓ | Per plan support hours |
| Call handling | ||
| Unlimited answered calls, no usage billing | ✓ | — |
| Dedicated UK business number included | ✓ | ✓ |
| No charge for sales/nuisance calls | ✓ | ✓ |
| Call recordings / transcripts | Transcripts + AI summaries | Recordings via portal and app |
| Trade job capture | ||
| Trade-specific questioning (job, location, urgency) | ✓ | — |
| Emergency detection with instant SMS alert | ✓ | — |
| Confirmation SMS to the caller | ✓ | — |
| Automatic call labelling and analytics | ✓ | — |
| Bookings, price and terms | ||
| Voice appointment booking into your calendar | Pro (£39/mo) | Flexible appointment booking on higher plans |
| Google Calendar sync with travel-aware slots | Pro (£39/mo) | — |
| Setup fees | None | None |
| Free trial | 14 days | 7 days |
| Free SEO-ready mini-website | ✓ | — |
Credit where it's due: Face For Business is one of the more transparent human answering services out there — per-second billing, no setup fees, no long-term contracts, and a dedicated lead PA who genuinely learns your business. If your callers are mostly daytime, and you want the same familiar human voice representing you — say you run a clinic, a solicitor's office or a showroom — they're a strong choice.
The trade-off is literal: humans work human hours, and human time is expensive. If your enquiries arrive at 7am, 8pm and Sunday lunchtime — like most trade work does — you need something that never clocks off. That's the job TradeHalo was built for, at £19/month.
The UK's biggest human answering service, with quote-based pricing — compared with flat-rate AI answering built for trades.
Read the comparison →24/7 human answering billed by the minute from £205/month — compared with unlimited flat-rate AI answering for trades.
Read the comparison →Manchester-based 24/7 call centre with per-call and per-minute charges — compared with flat-rate AI answering built for trades.
Read the comparison →A well-regarded AI receptionist at £49/month — compared with TradeHalo's job-focused AI answering from £19/month.
Read the comparison →An AI receptionist for small service businesses from £39/month — compared with a trades-only AI assistant from £19/month with booking built in.
Read the comparison →A trades-focused AI answerphone from £59/month with call caps — compared with unlimited answering and £39 calendar booking.
Read the comparison →Neither does TradeHalo. Live 24/7 answering from £19/month — free for your first 14 days.
Start Your Free Trial14 days free • Cancel anytime • No long-term contracts