A restaurant phone system in Australia costs about A$20 to A$35 per user a month on a standard cloud plan, plus a one off setup fee of A$0 to A$200 and A$80 to A$250 for each desk handset you decide to keep. Skai Solutions has priced the inputs below at August 2026 market rates.
The monthly plan is the number providers advertise and it is the smallest part of the bill. Australian market rates as at August 2026, published by Need to Know Comms, an independent Australian communications guide, updated 22 August 2026, in AUD including GST:
| Input | Australian market rate, August 2026 | What it means for a venue |
|---|---|---|
| Basic cloud plan, per user per month | A$8 to A$20 | App calling, voicemail, one local number. Enough for a single operator, not for a floor. |
| Standard cloud plan, per user per month | A$20 to A$35 | Adds an auto attendant, ring groups, transfer and hold music. This is the tier most venues land on. |
| Advanced plan, per user per month | A$40 to A$60 and up | Call recording, analytics, multi site routing. Worth it for a group, oversold to a single site. |
| Entry desk handset, one off | A$80 to A$150 | One at the pass, maybe one in the office. |
| Mid range desk handset, one off | A$150 to A$250 | Colour screen, more line keys. Rarely necessary in a restaurant. |
| Handset rental instead of buying | A$5 to A$15 per phone per month | Over 24 months this usually costs more than buying outright. |
| Provider setup fee, one off | A$0 to A$200 | Often nil if you configure it yourself through the portal. |
| Porting your existing number | Free, or A$25 to A$50 for a simple local port | Takes 8 to 15 business days, up to 30 if the port is complex. |
| A 1300 number | A$10 to A$20 a month plus per minute inbound | You pay for inbound minutes. For a single venue this is usually money for nothing. |
| Call recording as an add on | A$5 to A$15 per user per month | Check your state's recording law before you switch it on. |
Those are advertised market ranges across Australian providers, not one company's price list and not Skai Solutions' price. Phone plan pricing moves, so treat the August 2026 date as part of the figure.
Take a single site cafe. Two staff need to answer calls, the manager wants one handset at the pass, and the existing landline number has to survive the move because it is on the signage and every delivery docket.
That is A$54 a month ongoing and A$160 up front, or about A$808 across the first year. Run it over three years with no price rise and it is roughly A$2,104. It is not an expensive line item, which is exactly why the wrong conclusion gets drawn from it.
Because a phone system routes calls. It does not answer them. Every input in the table above buys you a better path from the caller to a handset, and none of it buys you a person free to pick that handset up at 7:40pm on a Friday.
The best evidence on what happens next is not from a vendor. It is a full year census of more than 1,200,000 calls to a bank call centre, published by Brown, Gans, Mandelbaum and others, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2005. About 20% of callers who asked for service abandoned before anyone reached them, mean caller patience was 446 seconds, and the hang up hazard spiked twice: once in the first few seconds as the hold message started, and again at about 60 seconds when it repeated. A restaurant has no hold queue and no callback, so its version of that curve is steeper, not gentler.
So the honest way to read the A$54 a month is this: it is the cost of the wiring. The cost of the answering is either a wage, an outside service, or software. Those are priced separately and Skai Solutions has costed both routes at phone answering service cost in Australia and virtual receptionist cost in Australia.
Per minute outbound on the cheap tiers. A plan advertised at A$15 a user can charge per minute for outbound calls. If your kitchen chases suppliers all morning, the dearer flat rate plan is cheaper by the middle of the month.
Contract exit formulas. Some plans lock in for 24 months and calculate the exit fee from the remaining commitment. On a multi user system that can run past A$500. Month to month exists, so ask for it.
Rental that outruns purchase. A handset at A$12 a month is A$288 over two years for hardware that costs A$150 to own. Rental only makes sense when the provider swaps faulty units for nothing.
The auto attendant tax. A phone menu is free on a standard plan and it is where restaurant calls die. A caller who wanted to move a table for six to 7:30 does not press 2 for bookings, they hang up and try the place next door.
Here is the part most pricing pages skip. If your phone mostly carries enquiries you can return the next morning, buy the basic cloud plan, use the app on the phone in your pocket and stop reading. A$8 to A$20 a month solves your problem and nothing on this site is a better buy than that.
Move up to standard if you need calls to ring in more than one place at once, or if a booking coming in during service is worth more than the difference. Skip advanced unless you run more than one site.
The decision changes only when calls are arriving faster than anyone can pick them up during service. At that point the question is no longer which plan, it is who or what answers. An AI receptionist answers every call at once and writes the booking down, and for a takeaway an AI phone ordering system can put the order into the till. Both cost more than a A$27 plan and neither is worth buying until the phone is genuinely beating you.
If you are choosing a till at the same time, Skai Solutions writes into the systems used here, including Square and Kounta by Lightspeed.
Fifteen minutes, your menu, your busiest Friday night.
Book a Free DemoAbout A$20 to A$35 per user a month on a standard cloud plan, plus a one off setup fee of A$0 to A$200 and A$80 to A$250 per desk handset. A two user single site cafe typically lands near A$54 a month with about A$160 up front. Market rates as at August 2026.
No. Every mainstream cloud provider offers an app that runs on a phone or computer, so the hardware cost can be zero. Most venues buy one handset for the pass because a mobile app is awkward with wet hands mid service.
Yes. Porting a simple local number is free or a one off A$25 to A$50 and takes 8 to 15 business days, up to 30 if the port is complex. Keep the old service live until the port completes.
Usually not. A 1300 number costs A$10 to A$20 a month plus per minute inbound charges that you pay. It earns its keep for a group with one central booking line, not for one restaurant with a local number already on the signage.
A basic cloud plan at A$8 to A$20 per user a month, using the provider app on a phone you already own, with your existing number ported across. No handset, no setup fee. If your calls are enquiries rather than bookings during service, that is the right buy.
No. A phone system decides where a call rings, not whether anyone is free to answer it. Roughly 20% of callers waiting for service hang up before being reached in the best measured study available, and a restaurant has no hold queue to soften that.