Both answer your phone 24/7 with AI, and Jodie’s flat “unlimited minutes” is a real advantage if all you need is the phone picked up. Three things are worth reading before you sign. Its A$99 plan does not include bookings or call transfers — those start at A$199. Its integrations start at A$399, and neither ServiceM8 nor Xero is one of them. And “unlimited” is capped in the terms at 1,000 calls a month, counted the same whether the call is a job or a wrong number. AIssie books on every plan, connects to your tools on every plan, and answers web chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram from the same AI.
Jodie does this part well. On volume it is genuinely ahead — with one clause worth reading.
Jodie answers the phone and tells you about it. AIssie answers wherever the enquiry arrives.
Both cover a broad spread of industries. The difference is where the product is built and priced.
Both start at $99 and neither charges a setup fee. What the $99 buys is where they part company.
Hey Jodie column checked against its published Australian pricing page, plan comparison table, integrations page, terms of service and site footer on 13 August 2026. Details may have changed — verify at heyjodie.com.
Give Jodie its due: if all you need is the phone answered and messages taken, flat unlimited minutes is a good offer, and its mobile app is genuinely handy. Just price the plan you would actually be on. Bookings and transfers mean A$199, integrations mean A$399, and past 1,000 calls in a month — spam and wrong numbers included — the terms let it meter you or move you up. AIssie is the better fit if you want bookings, transfers and your integrations included at $99, if your customers message as well as ring, if ServiceM8 and Xero need to stay in the loop, or if you would rather buy from a Perth team than a London company with an Australian page. Free trial, no card, no setup fee, no lock-in. Ring (08) 6800 4000 and AIssie itself will answer.
If you are looking at Hey Jodie, AIssie is the natural comparison: also 24/7 AI phone answering, also no setup fee and no lock-in, but an Australian company building in Perth, booking appointments on the $99 entry plan rather than the $199 tier, connecting to ServiceM8 and Xero on every plan rather than to Zapier from A$399, and answering web chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram as well as the phone.
What the $99 buys. Jodie’s own plan table marks bookings, call transfers and team members as not included on its A$99 Basic plan — they start at A$199 — and marks integrations as Premium only, at A$399. AIssie’s $99 Voice Starter books the appointment during the call, sends the reminder, transfers urgent callers to you, chases overdue Xero invoices and includes the chat assistant for your website and socials. If booking the job is the reason you want an AI receptionist, the honest comparison is $99 against A$199, and against A$399 if it needs to reach your calendar or CRM.
On headline volume, yes — and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. If your phone runs hot, flat unlimited can beat metered minutes. But read clause 22 of Jodie’s terms: unlimited is subject to fair use of up to 1,000 call events per 30-day billing period, and a call event is counted “regardless of duration, origin, content or outcome”, explicitly including spam, wrong-number, silent and abandoned calls. Past that it may meter or rate-limit you for the rest of the period, or give you notice to change plan. So it is not unlimited so much as 1,000 calls of any length, spam included. AIssie prints the limit on the plan instead — 70 to 2,000 minutes by tier, then $0.65 a minute — and a 20-second wrong number costs you 20 seconds.
AIssie does, from the same knowledge base as your phone line, and it replies to comments left on your Facebook posts too, with Instagram comments coming soon. Jodie does not: its site has no page for any messaging channel and its plans list no messaging feature. The one WhatsApp mention on its site is about you ringing or WhatsApping the customer back yourself once Jodie has taken a message. If a good share of your enquiries arrive as a DM or a comment under an ad, that gap matters more than the minute count.
AIssie connects to both directly on every plan, along with Square, HubSpot and your Google or Microsoft calendar, so the booking and the invoice land in the tools you already run. Jodie’s integrations page lists two integrations — Rex and GoHighLevel — and its pricing page marks “Integrations (via Zapier)” as included only on the A$399 Premium plan. Neither ServiceM8 nor Xero appears. Worth pricing in if your job management software is where the work actually happens.
AIssie is built in Perth and sold only in Australia, so support runs on your hours and the voices are genuinely Australian. Jodie’s own site footer gives the company as Jodie AI Limited at 45 Albemarle Street, Mayfair, London, with UK company number 16685106, and it runs separate Australian, US, UK, Canadian, New Zealand and Irish sites. The same three plans list at US$49, US$99 and US$199 on its US page. None of that makes it a bad product — but it is worth knowing before you decide who to call when something goes wrong.
Ask both the same five things: a specific price, your service area, an after-hours booking, a reschedule, and something deliberately off-script. Then check what landed in your calendar and your job management software afterwards, not just what the AI said on the call. AIssie’s demo line is (08) 6800 4000 — no form, no salesperson, answered by AIssie itself.