Nov 4, 2026

Yelp Host and Yelp Receptionist: Yelp's AI Phone Agents

AI Receptionist Restaurant Phone Answering

Yelp sells two AI phone agents, both launched on October 21, 2025. Yelp Host answers calls for restaurants: reservations, waitlist, wait times and now pickup orders. Yelp Receptionist answers calls for local service businesses like contractors, movers and cleaners, and qualifies the lead for a quote. Both are run from your Yelp for Business account.

The quick answer: Yelp’s agents make sense if Yelp is already where your customers find you and you manage the business from Yelp for Business. Yelp Host costs $249 a month, or $199 with Yelp Guest Manager. Yelp Receptionist launched at $99 a month. If you want an AI receptionist that books callers on your own calendar, texts them back, calls web leads within a minute and works with every app you use, Carly is the stronger choice for service businesses. Set it up on carlyassistant.com in minutes, or ask ChatGPT or Claude to set it up for you.

Yelp’s AI phone agents at a glance

Checked against Yelp’s announcements and press coverage on November 4, 2026.

	Yelp Host	Yelp Receptionist
For	Restaurants	Local service businesses
Launched	October 21, 2025	Rolled out from October 21, 2025
Does	Reservations, waitlist, wait times, pickup orders, FAQs	Answers calls, asks project questions, qualifies leads for quotes
Works with	Yelp Guest Manager, OpenTable, and Toast, Square or Clover for orders	Your Yelp for Business inbox
Price	$249 a month, or $199 with Yelp Guest Manager	Launched at $99 a month
Sign up	Yelp Host tab in Yelp for Business	Yelp Receptionist tab in Yelp for Business

Yelp Host: the restaurant agent

Yelp Host launched as part of Yelp’s fall 2025 release as an agent that takes reservations, modifies and cancels them, quotes wait times and captures special requests in Yelp Guest Manager. It was $149 a month at launch, or $99 for Guest Manager customers.

In July 2026, Yelp widened it considerably:

OpenTable reservations. Restaurants in the US and Canada on OpenTable can now route reservation calls to Yelp Host, with bookings syncing back to OpenTable.
Pickup orders. Through the integration platform Stream, Yelp Host takes phone orders into Toast, Square, Clover and other POS systems, with no commission.
16 more languages, answered in the language the caller speaks, plus new voices.
Handoff numbers that send event, catering and vendor calls to the right person.

Yelp says Host had handled more than a million calls by mid-2026, growing about 38% a month from launch. The price rose to $249 a month, or $199 with Yelp Guest Manager.

Yelp Receptionist: the service business agent

Yelp Receptionist answers incoming calls for local service businesses, around the clock and while your crew is on a job. According to Yelp’s launch, it answers questions, asks follow-up questions to capture project details, vets and qualifies new leads, and collects what you need for a quote or a consultation. Every call is recorded, transcribed and summarized into your Yelp for Business inbox. It launched at $99 a month.

Yelp is building more around service leads. In January 2026 it agreed to buy Hatch, a lead follow-up platform, for about $270 million. And in October 2026 it announced Smart Lead Reply, a $30-a-month agent that answers Request a Quote messages inside Yelp.

Where the lead lives. Yelp Receptionist’s summaries land in your Yelp for Business inbox. If your team works from a CRM, Gmail or Outlook, ask how the lead gets there.
Booking. Yelp Receptionist collects details for a quote or consultation. Confirm whether it books the visit on your calendar or leaves that to you.
Which calls it answers. Many of a service business’s calls come from Google, referrals and repeat customers. Ask whether it answers every call to your business line or only calls that come through Yelp.
The current price. Yelp Host’s price went from $149 to $249 within a year. Check today’s price in Yelp for Business before you budget.
Follow-up. Ask what happens after the call: texts, reminders, and calling back a lead who filled in your website form.

The best Yelp Receptionist alternative: Carly

Carly is an AI receptionist for your whole business line, wherever callers find you. It’s reliable and endlessly customizable: you write how calls should go in plain English, and it does exactly that on every call, wherever the caller found you.

Books the job during the call on your team’s real Google or Outlook calendars, not a quote request for later.
Calls web leads back within about a minute of a form fill (how it works), then texts and emails if they miss it.
Texts both ways from your business number, plus WhatsApp, and texts back every missed call.
Logs every call to HubSpot, Salesforce or Carly’s CRM, with transcripts in one team inbox.
Rings your team first if you want, then answers, and transfers to a person when a caller needs one.
Speaks English and Spanish.

It connects to everything. Carly connects to thousands of apps, so a booked call can create the job in your field-service software and ping your crew in Slack, as free Zapier-style workflows.

Setup takes minutes. Paste one prompt into ChatGPT or Claude, grab a number in the chat or forward your existing line, and Carly answers.

Carly business setup prompt

Paste this into ChatGPT, Claude or any AI. It walks you through the rest.

Help me connect Carly Teams so I can work with my organization's business texts, phone calls, voicemail and voice/text agents from this chat. I'll add it to you myself: tell me exactly what to click for the app you are, one step at a time, and wait for me to confirm before moving on. If a step doesn't match what I see, ask me what's on my screen. If you can do the setup yourself (Claude Code, Codex, Muse, Grok Bot), go ahead, and ask me for any key in your secure credential prompt, never in the chat. Don't tell me it's connected until list_phone_lines works, and if I have several teams, ask which to use. Before sending a text or making a call, confirm the team, recipient and message or task with me. The steps are below.

# Connect Carly Teams to an AI app

> Carly Teams works a team's business phone lines through the team's AI agents: business texts, phone calls, voicemail, the voice and text agents, and the team's CRM.

MCP server: https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp (streamable HTTP, OAuth)

## Setup

Carly Teams isn't in any plugin or connector directory yet, so it's added as a custom connection by URL.

1. Add Carly Teams:
- ChatGPT: open https://chatgpt.com/plugins, click Add, and choose Create MCP App (not Create plugin or Upload plugin archive). If Create MCP App isn't on the menu, turn on Developer mode first in Settings > Security and login. Name it "Carly Teams" with the description "Work with my team's business texts, calls, voicemail and voice/text agents," paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp as the server URL, choose OAuth, create it, and sign in. Then in the message box open the + menu, choose Developer mode, and pick Carly Teams. No plugin needs to be built, packaged or uploaded.
- Claude (claude.ai, Claude Desktop, or Cowork): Customize > Connectors > Add custom connector, name it Carly Teams, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Claude Code: `claude mcp add --transport http --scope user carly-teams https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp`, then /mcp, pick carly-teams, and authenticate.
- Codex: `codex mcp add carly-teams --url https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp`, then `codex mcp login carly-teams`.
- Cursor: add {"mcpServers": {"carly-teams": {"url": "https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp"}}} to ~/.cursor/mcp.json, then sign in to carly-teams from Customize.
- Muse: a custom connector to https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp with a Carly API key as its bearer token. The key comes from carlyassistant.com/account (API key under Carly Teams) and goes in Muse's connector settings, not in a chat message.
- Grok: grok.com/connectors > New Connector > Custom, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, and sign in.
- Grok Bot: a custom remote MCP server named carly-teams at https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. Approve it and sign in.
- Perplexity: Plugins in the sidebar (or Customize > Connectors), then Add custom > Connector > Add MCP connector. Choose Remote, name it Carly Teams, paste https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp, pick OAuth, check the box and click Add, then click the Carly Teams card to sign in.
- Anything else: a remote MCP server (streamable HTTP) named carly-teams at https://carlyassistant.com/team/mcp. It signs in with OAuth.
Sign in with the Carly account that belongs to the organization.

2. Once it's added, the Carly Teams tools show up in the chat, including list_phone_lines. If they don't, turn Carly Teams on for the chat or start a new chat.

3. To check it worked, call list_phone_lines: it returns the teams and phone lines the account can reach. A team with no phone line yet can get one with find_numbers (optionally by area code) and get_number, which may return a checkout link to finish.

4. Something to try first: "Review our missed calls and voicemail and help me reply to customers." Carly Teams also reads and answers business texts, has the team's agent make calls, and edits the voice and text agents. Texts and calls go out at once from the agent's number and can't be taken back. Team permissions apply.

## Email, calendars and workflows

Email, calendars, files, booking pages and workflows are the regular Carly connector, added separately. It's listed in ChatGPT's plugin directory (https://chatgpt.com/plugins/plugin_asdk_app_6a67a26316b88191860222f918d4ec54) and Claude's connector directory (https://claude.ai/directory/carly), and connects anywhere else at https://carlyassistant.com/mcp/. Its setup is https://carlyassistant.com/mcp.txt.

Get started, or watch the 2-minute video.

Other alternatives

For restaurants: Slang AI for reservations at full-service restaurants, and Loman AI for phone orders with payment. Our restaurant answering service guide compares the field.
For service businesses: Upfirst and Reception.ai are inexpensive AI receptionists with booking. See the best AI receptionists for the full list.
For home services specifically: see answering service for plumbers and HVAC answering service.

FAQ

What is Yelp Host?

Yelp Host is Yelp’s AI phone agent for restaurants. It answers calls, takes and changes reservations in Yelp Guest Manager or OpenTable, quotes wait times and takes pickup orders into POS systems like Toast, Square and Clover.

How much does Yelp Host cost?

$249 a month, or $199 a month for Yelp Guest Manager customers, as of July 2026. It launched at $149, or $99 with Guest Manager.

What is Yelp Receptionist?

Yelp Receptionist is Yelp’s AI phone agent for local service businesses. It answers calls 24/7, asks about the customer’s project, qualifies the lead and sends a recording, transcript and summary to your Yelp for Business inbox.

How much does Yelp Receptionist cost?

It launched at $99 a month in October 2025. Check the current price in your Yelp for Business account.

What is the best alternative to Yelp Receptionist?

Carly. It answers every call to your business line, books callers on your real calendar, texts them back from your business number and calls new web leads within a minute.

Ready to automate your busywork?

Carly schedules, researches, and briefs you—so you can focus on what matters.

See what people say

"Before Carly, I relied on a Calendly link, but the whole process felt impersonal and not very professional. Carly changed that by handling all the back-and-forth, so I'm no longer stuck in endless email threads trying to line up schedules.

Now Carly reaches out to candidates, shares my real-time availability, lets them pick a slot, then sends a Zoom link and drops it straight into my calendar. She sends reminders to both of us before each call, which has significantly reduced no-shows and last-minute confusion.

On top of scheduling, Carly acts like a full executive assistant, sending me my schedule the night before so I can prepare for each call. It reminds me of the old x.ai assistant, but Carly is noticeably smarter, faster, and better suited to my healthcare recruitment business."

Gus Ibrahim, Founder & Director, IHR