Property management answering and after-hours services in Australia, honestly compared

We sell one of the services on this list. DotVA places one dedicated receptionist or VA, working Australian business hours from the Philippines, from 10 hours a week. If your problem is the tenant ringing at 11pm about a burst pipe, a per-call answering service, an AI phone agent or your maintenance software will serve you better than we will. That is the most useful thing we can tell you, so it comes first.

The method is the same as our comparison of virtual receptionist services. Every claim about another provider comes from its own website, checked on 11 November 2026 and linked in the table. Where a figure is not published we write “not stated publicly” rather than guess, and where a site does not say where its people work, we do not assume.

If you are earlier than shortlisting, our property management virtual receptionist page shows what the daytime work looks like, and the property management virtual assistant guide covers the admin behind the rent roll.

The options at a glance

Option	What it is	Published price	Who answers, and where	Property software	Terms
DotVA property management virtual receptionist (that’s us)	One dedicated human receptionist on your agency’s number during the hours you book; optional AI receptionist for overnight and weekends	$12-17/hr AUD ex GST from 10 hrs/week; $500 deposit credited to the first invoice. AI receptionist from $89/month plus per-minute call usage and a one-off setup	A person in the Philippines working Australian business hours; nobody on the line overnight	PropertyMe, PropertyTree, Console Cloud, Ailo, Tapi	No lock-in contract: stop any time in the first 14 days, then 30 days’ notice
OfficeHQ	Shared human receptionists. Its real estate page says it can triage tenant emergencies and message or transfer calls to your on-call tradespeople; its FAQ there says scripted urgency checks and escalation to the property manager or on-call contact are on the MyAssistant or MyDiary plans	MyReceptionist from $35/month plus $3.40 a call, with a $1.00 per call surcharge after hours (outside 8am-6pm Monday to Friday and on national public holidays); MyAssistant from $50/month plus $2.50 a minute, $0.80 a minute more after hours, set-up from $50; ex GST	Majority of calls answered in Australia; on MyAssistant and MyDiary a UK-based team takes overflow after hours; on MyReceptionist, overflow from NZ, the UK or the US at peaks	Not named on the real estate page; it lists CRM and diary integrations on its MyAssistant and MyDiary plans	Month to month, no minimum term, three days’ notice before the renewal date, 7-day free trial
TMC	After-hours call handling; property managers are one of the sectors it lists, and its scope includes “Managing trades, triage and call-outs”	From $36.97/month with no calls included, $25 once-off set-up, $1.84 per excess call; a bundle with 50 calls is $91.87/month (shown in AUD and NZD; GST basis not stated)	Its after-hours page says “our local team” manages every interaction, without naming a country; it lists offices in Heidelberg West (Vic), Lower Hutt (NZ) and Makati (Philippines)	None named	7-day free trial; then a three-month minimum term; its general terms then roll to month to month on 30 days’ notice, and a break fee applies if you leave inside the minimum term
Sky Staff	Offshore property management VAs; an “offshore after-hours coordinator (if needed) handles emergency maintenance calls and tenant enquiries outside business hours"	"From $8/hr, no lock-in”; its after-hours row shows $12-14/hr ($25,000-29,000 a year; currency and GST basis not stated)	Offshore; its page refers to Philippine time for the daytime team and does not say where the after-hours coordinator sits	PropertyMe, Console Cloud, Managed App, Palace, PropertyTree; REX among its sales CRMs	”No lock-in”; notice period not stated on the page
Valory	AI phone agent, managed for you; 24/7 after-hours maintenance intake	From $149/month for 100 voice minutes and 50 SMS; one-time set-up from $990; prices in AUD, exclusive of taxes per its terms	AI; its terms say primarily hosted in Australia, with some providers in the US and EU	”PropertyMe or Console workflows” to discuss; it confirms connections during setup; CRM and webhook integrations listed from the $299 Core plan	Month to month; 14-day free trial from go-live, standard set-up waived or refunded if you cancel in the trial
Hey Jodie	AI phone answering for property managers: takes the address, the issue and its urgency, then texts and emails a summary	Basic A$99 (no call transfers or integrations), Professional A$199, Premium A$399 a month, “Unlimited Minutes”, excluding taxes	AI; run by Jodie AI Limited, a UK company (London address in its footer); where calls are processed is not stated	Zoho CRM and Zapier shown as live, Rex “Soon”; integrations on Professional and above; PropertyMe is not on that list	Month to month, no setup fees, 7-day free trial
Aussie AI Agency	AI receptionist for property management departments, managed by the company	Starter $149/month with 100 voice minutes, Business $299 with 250, Growth $499 with 700, Enterprise from $1,299 with 3,000; AUD ex GST	AI; “Australian business” with its head office in Bundoora, Victoria; it says some of its AI, voice and telephony providers may process data overseas	Details sent to you ready to add to PropertyMe, Property Tree, REST Professional or Rex PM; “direct integration is quoted on request”	Month to month
Waboom AI	AI voice agent for property managers: logs and triages maintenance requests, flags emergencies to your on-call staff or contractors; it says it never approves applications or gives tenancy law advice	Pay as you go: 95c a minute, down to 71c on larger credit loads; start with A$500 of call credit plus A$130 a month for the platform, ex GST	AI; Auckland, New Zealand address in its footer; a “Sovereign Sydney” option keeps calls and data in Australia at a custom per-minute rate; where standard-plan calls are processed is not stated	Says it integrates with PropertyMe, Console Cloud and MRI Software, with maintenance requests and tenant details syncing to your system	30-day money-back guarantee; credit never expires; contract term not stated on the page
Tapi (Tenant Concierge)	Maintenance software with a tenant-facing chatbot: tenants report by your agency’s website or a QR code in the home, at any hour. It is online reporting, not a phone line	Not stated publicly	Software; Tapi says its Success team helps build your after-hours process (Tapi blog, September 2024)	Its Concierge page says it works with “leading property management platforms”	Not stated publicly
PropertyMe (Jobs and tenant portal)	Property management software: maintenance requests logged as jobs with photos and tenancy details, from first request to completed repair; tenants log maintenance and message you from their portal	Manage PM Basic $149/month incl GST per 100 properties, minimum 200 properties (a start-up package for up to 100 properties is $193 incl GST); includes Tasks, Jobs and Inspections	Software; on the pages we read it does not say it answers calls	Is the software	No annual plan; a trial on request

Checked on each provider’s own pages on 11 November 2026. Prices are as published and GST bases differ, so they are not directly comparable; confirm before you sign. Virtual Headquarters sells a property management answering service too; its terms say Virtual Headquarters Pty Ltd provides the service as agent for Office HQ Pty Ltd, so we list it once, under OfficeHQ. “Not stated publicly” is an observation, not a criticism.

Our row in full is on the property management virtual receptionist page and pricing.

Four products share one label

1. A shared human answering service (OfficeHQ, TMC). A pool of receptionists answers in your agency’s name, takes a message, or transfers the call to your on-call contact under a script you brief them on. You pay a small monthly fee plus an amount per call or per minute. It starts within days and costs little at low volume, and the work the call creates still lands back on your team as a message.
2. An AI phone agent (Valory, Hey Jodie, Aussie AI Agency, Waboom AI, and the AI add-on at DotVA). Software answers around the clock and, in our experience, can take several calls at once. Billing is a monthly plan with a minute allowance (Valory, Aussie AI Agency), unlimited minutes (Hey Jodie), or per-minute usage on top of a monthly fee (Waboom AI’s A$130 platform fee, DotVA’s add-on from $89). In our experience it is good at capturing the address, the fault and the urgency, and weaker when the caller is upset or the request is unusual.
3. Repair intake inside maintenance software (Tapi, and PropertyMe’s jobs workflow). The tenant reports online and the request arrives as a job with photos. Tapi says its concierge sorts urgent from non-urgent; neither product, on the pages we read, is a phone service.
4. A dedicated receptionist billed for time (DotVA). The same person answers your number during the hours you book, logs the job in your software with the tenant still on the line, books inspections and rings the tenant back to confirm access. A dedicated person is not on the line overnight.

Sky Staff fits the fourth, a person billed for time, with an offshore after-hours role on offer.

What 30 after-hours calls a month costs

A worked example for a rent roll that gets about 30 calls a month outside office hours. Where we have added or multiplied, that is our arithmetic, not the provider’s figure, and every call is assumed to fall after hours.

Option	How we worked it out	About 30 after-hours calls a month
OfficeHQ MyReceptionist Starter 10	$45 including 10 calls, plus 20 x $3.40, plus 30 x $1.00 after-hours surcharge, ex GST; transfers ($0.40) and SMS ($0.10) are extra	About $143
OfficeHQ MyAssistant Starter 10 (scripted urgency checks)	$60 including 10 minutes; 30 calls x 2.5 minutes (our assumption) = 75 minutes, so 65 x $2.50 plus 75 x $0.80 after hours, ex GST, set-up from $50	About $283
TMC after-hours handling	$36.97 plus 30 x $1.84 (GST basis not stated)	About $92
Hey Jodie Basic or Professional	A$99 flat, unlimited minutes, message and email only; A$199 with call transfers; excluding taxes	A$99-199
Valory Intro	$149 for 100 voice minutes, plus one-time set-up from $990	$149 a month, plus one-time set-up
Aussie AI Agency Starter	$149 for 100 voice minutes; the company’s own 2.5 minutes a call puts 30 calls at 75 minutes; ex GST	$149
Waboom AI	30 calls x 2.5 minutes (our assumption) = 75 minutes x 95c, plus A$130 a month platform, ex GST; A$500 credit loaded up front	About $201 a month
DotVA AI receptionist	From $89 a month plus per-minute call usage and a one-off setup; usage depends on volume, so we have not totalled it	From $89 a month plus usage
Sky Staff After-Hours PM Support	Published as $25,000-29,000 a year ($12-14/hr); Sky Staff says it offers part-time hiring but publishes no part-time rate, so 10 hours a week is our assumption: 10 x $12-14 x 4.33 weeks (currency and GST basis not stated)	About $520-606
DotVA dedicated receptionist	10 hours a week at $12-17 an hour ex GST x 4.33 weeks; business hours only	About $520-736

On calls alone, the per-call plans and the AI agents are far cheaper than we are. A dedicated receptionist earns its place when each call creates work for someone: the job to log, the tradie to brief, the tenant to ring back. If your team spends hours a week acting on messages, compare the cost of that time, not the cost of the calls. The same 30 calls at DotVA would also need to arrive in the hours you book, because no one is on the line overnight.

What the regulators say about urgent repairs

Urgent and emergency repair rules differ by state. These are two official pages, quoted so you can see why an after-hours process needs a named person and a spending limit. Check your own state or territory regulator.

• Queensland. The Residential Tenancies Authority’s emergency repairs page says the tenancy agreement must include “the name and phone number of the nominated repairer”. It also says: “If the tenant is unable to contact the emergency repair contact within a reasonable timeframe, either the tenant or property manager can arrange repairs up to a maximum value of 4 weeks rent.”
• Victoria. Consumer Affairs Victoria’s repairs in rental properties page says: “Rental providers or agents must make sure the repair is done immediately.” For a renter who arranges it themselves when no one responds, it says: “They can only do this if the repair does not cost more than $2500.”

An answering service or AI agent can take the call and alert your contact. It does not change who is responsible for the repair. Valory’s own page puts it plainly: “An alert does not confirm that someone has received it or will attend.” Agree in writing, before go-live, who is alerted, what happens if they do not answer, and what each service may authorise.

How to compare them

1. Count your after-hours calls. Pull last month’s log. A handful a month suits a per-call service or an AI plan; hundreds a month is a different decision.
2. Decide what should happen after the call. A message, a transfer to an on-call contact, a job logged in your software, or a tradie dispatched? Only some services do each, and most integration rows above are details sent to you rather than a job created in your system, though Waboom AI says it syncs maintenance requests to PropertyMe, Console Cloud and MRI Software.
3. Write the urgent-repairs procedure first. Your service can only follow a procedure that exists: who is called, in what order, with what spending limit, and the fallback when nobody picks up.
4. Ask who answers. Australian-based, offshore, AI, or a mix with overflow. OfficeHQ says the majority of calls are answered in Australia, with overflow from a UK team after hours on MyAssistant and MyDiary and from NZ, UK or US offices at peaks on MyReceptionist; DotVA’s receptionists are in the Philippines on Australian hours.
5. Read the terms, not just the pricing page. Valory charges set-up from $990, waived or refunded if you cancel in its 14-day trial; TMC lists a three-month minimum after its 7-day trial; OfficeHQ, Hey Jodie, Aussie AI Agency and Valory are month to month.
6. Check what your software already does. If your platform already takes tenant repair requests at any hour, the gap may be the phone only.

Who should pick whom

• A person answering in your agency’s name, 24/7: OfficeHQ, per call on MyReceptionist or per minute on MyAssistant (which does the scripted urgency checks), or TMC for after-hours handling that includes triage and call-outs.
• A flat monthly price for the phone: Hey Jodie from A$99 a month (unlimited minutes; call transfers from A$199), or plans with a minute allowance from $149 a month at Valory and Aussie AI Agency (per-minute overage beyond it).
• An AI agent that says it syncs with your software: Waboom AI, per minute plus A$130 a month, says it syncs maintenance requests with PropertyMe, Console Cloud and MRI Software. Check that each connects to the software you run, and test it on your own after-hours scenarios.
• Tenants reporting repairs online, with photos, in the middle of the night: Tapi’s tenant concierge, or the tenant portal in your own software. Ask your software vendor first.
• An offshore team member who covers an after-hours roster: Sky Staff describes an offshore after-hours coordinator. Ask where the person works and what notice applies.
• Daytime calls while your property managers are out on inspections, with work that follows the call: a dedicated receptionist. That is what we do: one person on your number, logging jobs in PropertyMe, Tapi and similar tools, with licensed decisions staying with your property managers. Pair it with an after-hours service from this list if you need overnight cover.
• Overnight and weekends from us: our optional AI receptionist is the only after-hours cover we offer, from $89 a month plus per-minute call usage and a one-off setup. Among the independent agents here, one may suit you better, and they publish their own prices.

Run your own numbers

Count last month’s calls, then price your hours on the VA cost calculator and compare them with the per-call and monthly plans above. For the wider market, see our comparison of virtual receptionist services and AI receptionists sold in Australia. If you are weighing a VA for the rest of the rent roll admin, our comparison of real estate and property management VA services sets out what each provider publishes. If the right answer for your agency is one of the other names in the table, we would rather you find that out now than in month two. Otherwise, book a discovery call.