Guide · November 2026
Short-staffed front desk: your options
If you cannot fill the front desk, you have five realistic options: raise pay, use a temp agency, hire a remote receptionist service, put in a self-service kiosk, or rent a robot with a person behind it. The median receptionist in the United States earns $18.27 an hour, and the other options cost from nothing for basic sign-in software to about $27 an hour for an agency temp.
Why the front of house is hard to staff
A front desk needs a person for every open hour, and the people in these jobs leave often. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics expects about 105,100 receptionist openings a year over the decade, although the total number of receptionist jobs is falling. The agency says all of those openings come from workers who move to other jobs or stop working.
The figures below come from different surveys with different methods, so do not compare the rows with each other.
| Industry | What the source found | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Hotels | More than half of hoteliers said their property was somewhat or severely understaffed, although 70% offered higher wages (246 hoteliers, February 2026) | AHLA |
| Medical offices | 15.4% annual turnover for front desk and support staff | AMGA 2026 Medical Clinic Staffing Survey, reported by Medical Economics |
| Restaurants | 22% of operators lacked enough staff to meet customer demand in 2025, down from 32% in 2024 | National Restaurant Association |
| Retail | 51% of store associates said their store is short-staffed in busy periods most of the time (500 associates, March 2025) | Logile |
| Security | 89% annual turnover in the security industry in 2024, against 66% for the private sector | UC Berkeley Labor Center |
| Senior living | 35.4% average workforce turnover, and 24.8% of responding organizations often use temp agencies to fill direct care vacancies | Ziegler CFO Hotline, July 2026 |
The hotel row shows why this is hard: most hotels in that survey offered higher wages, and more than half were still short of staff.
The options and what each costs
Raise pay
The median pay for a receptionist was $18.27 an hour, or $38,010 a year, in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If you pay below the usual rate for your area, try a raise first, because it keeps the people who already know your building. A raise will not cover a sick day or a night shift, though.
A temp or staffing agency
An agency can send a person within days. According to the staffing platform Instawork, agencies usually add a markup of 25% to 50% to the hourly pay of a W-2 temp, which on the median receptionist wage comes to about $23 to $27 an hour. A temp covers a gap well, but each new temp has to learn your phones and your visitor rules.
A virtual or remote receptionist service
These services answer your phone from somewhere else. Ruby lists plans from $250 a month for 50 receptionist minutes to $1,725 a month for 500 minutes. Smith.ai prices by the call, from $300 a month for 30 calls to $2,100 a month for 300 calls. For a business where most contact comes by phone, this is the better choice, but it does nothing for the person who is standing in your lobby.
A self-service kiosk
A tablet at the door lets visitors sign in and tells the host that they have arrived. Envoy, one visitor sign-in product, lists a free basic plan with limited features and a premium plan at $362 a month for each location, billed annually. A kiosk is the cheapest way to cover a desk where almost every visitor is expected. It cannot answer an unusual question, and some visitors will not use a screen.
A robot with a person behind it
Starlife Bella is a humanoid service robot with a friendly face and a chest display on a wheeled base. Bella is not autonomous: a trained robot pilot, supplied by Starlife, controls it live from a laptop with AI assistance. Bella greets people, answers their questions, gives directions, leads them to a place, and tells the right staff member that someone has arrived. It speaks more than 30 languages with live translation both ways.
Bella costs $10 to $20 an hour, and that price includes the robot pilot, the driving and the maintenance. You pay by the hour with no big contract, and the robot works indoors and needs one power outlet. The robot receptionist page and pricing have more.
Bella does not hand over keys, badges or packages, and it works with the people in the room, so the phone still needs someone else. It is not a security device and does not replace a guard. Starlife has measured results from a mall and from healthcare settings, where its robots have had more than 2,000 guest interactions over 10 months. We have not run Bella in a medical office or a restaurant yet and are looking for first pilot sites.
Prices checked in November 2026. They change often; check the linked pages.
What each option solves and what it leaves open
| Option | Cost | Solves | Leaves open |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raise pay | Median wage is $18.27 an hour | Turnover among staff you want to keep | Breaks, sick days, nights and weekends |
| Remote receptionist service | $250 to $2,100 a month | Phone calls | Visitors at the door |
| Robot with a person behind it (Starlife Bella) | $10 to $20 an hour | Greeting, questions, directions, telling staff who has arrived, other languages | Phone calls, keys, packages |
| Self-service kiosk | Free to $362 a month for the software | Sign-in for expected visitors | Questions, lost visitors, people who avoid screens |
| Temp or staffing agency | About $23 to $27 an hour | A gap of days or weeks, and tasks that need hands | Training each new temp, long-term cost |
What can I do when I cannot hire a receptionist?
Split the job into its parts and cover each part with the cheapest option that does it well. The phone can go to a remote receptionist service, and expected visitors can sign in on a kiosk. Then decide who greets the people who walk in without an appointment, because that is the part a phone service and a kiosk do not cover. A temp can do it for a few weeks, and a robot with a person behind it can do it for the hours you choose.
How to test an option for two weeks
- For one normal week before the test, count the visitors each day, the phone calls that nobody answered, and the minutes other staff spent covering the desk.
- Choose one option and one desk, and do not test two things at once.
- Write down the pass mark before you start, for example "other staff spend less than 30 minutes a day covering the desk".
- Count the same things each day for two weeks, and add the cost.
- Compare the result with your pass mark and decide.
A Bella deployment normally starts this way, with a 14-day pilot and a lead time of about one week.
We can show you Bella greeting visitors at a desk like yours. Book a demo.