What's more profitable for SME businesses: an administrator or POSKAI AI?

TL;DR: The average cost of maintaining a customer service specialist or administrator in Lithuania, including taxes, workspace, and equipment, costs a company 2100–3500 €/month in 2026. A POSKAI AI assistant, capable of handling 500+ calls simultaneously, 24/7, without vacations or sick leave, starts from €500/month. This is a 4-7x cheaper and undoubtedly more effective solution for automating standard, repetitive calls, allowing your people to focus on sales.

The illusion of a "cheap" administrator

Small and medium-sized business (SME) leaders often make one fundamental mistake when calculating company expenses: they only consider the employee's "take-home" salary or the basic salary on paper.

"I'll hire a student or a junior specialist for 1000 euros take-home pay, and they'll answer the phone" – this is classic thinking. However, in reality, for a business owner, that 1000 euros "take-home" turns into a huge financial burden when all direct and indirect taxes, equipment, training, and lost time are factored in.

In modern business, telephony and customer service are critical areas. If your company receives 200 calls a day, 70% of which are the same, routine questions ("Where is my order?", "Are you open on weekends?", "I want to book an appointment"), your people are simply wasting time doing work they shouldn't be doing.

Let's compare the true costs. How much does a human actually cost, and why the POSKAI platform solution is drastically changing the game rules in the Lithuanian market.

The true cost of an employee: The math accounting departments don't like

Let's try to calculate how much one average customer service specialist, SDR (Sales Development Representative), or administrator's workspace actually costs a company per month.

1. Salary and taxes

Let's say you pay a competitive, yet entry-level salary – about 1200–1400 € "take-home". This means the "on paper" (Gross) salary reaches about 1800–2100 €. Employer's social security taxes are added to this.

The total cost of a workspace (employer's costs) for salary alone starts from approximately 2100 € to 3500 €/month, depending on the specialist's experience and region.

2. Workspace and technical equipment

An employee needs more than just a chair. They need:

• A laptop: Average 800-1200 € (amortized over 3 years – about 30 €/month)
• Quality headphones and microphone: So office noise isn't heard in the background (about 150-250 €)
• Ergonomic desk and chair: About 400-600 €
• Office space: An employee occupies space for which you pay rent, electricity, heating, coffee, water (approximately 150-300 €/month)

3. Software licenses

For an employee to work, they need tools:

• CRM system license (Pipedrive, Salesforce, Hubspot): from 30 to 100 €/month.
• Calling platform (VoIP) and minutes: 20-50 €/month.
• Office 365 / Google Workspace: 10-20 €/month.

Adding all this up, a basic administrator already costs you at least 2500 € per month, not even including indirect costs.

Hidden employee costs you don't think about

Numbers in an "Excel" spreadsheet are one thing, but reality is much more complex. Hiring a person for repetitive calls, there are huge hidden costs:

• Recruitment and Onboarding: HR search, interviews, and training take from 2 to 4 weeks of your (or your HR manager's) valuable time. If the employee leaves after 3 months (which is common in call centers due to burnout) – you repeat this cycle.
• Vacation and Sick Leave: An employee is entitled to at least 20 working days of annual leave. What will you do when they are on vacation? Hire a substitute? Also, add sick days, children's illnesses. On those days, the phone simply rings, and customers go to competitors.
• Human errors: A person gets tired. After the 50th call, they forget to ask an important qualifying question, forget to enter data into the CRM, mix up dates, or are simply not in the mood and answer the customer rudely.
• Multilingual barrier: Your customer calls from Germany or Poland. How much does an administrator in Lithuania, fluent in German and Polish, cost? The salaries of such people start from 2500 € "take-home", and they certainly won't want to answer "where is my shipment?" all day.

"Artificial intelligence doesn't take away your salespeople's or administrators' jobs. It takes over the boring, repetitive part of the work that your best employees shouldn't be doing anyway. This allows them to become consultants, not telephone switchboards."

POSKAI pricing: What do you get from €500/month?

Unlike a human, a POSKAI AI assistant doesn't get tired, sick, or need vacations. But most importantly – it costs a tenth of what you spend on a live person for the same amount of functionality.

POSKAI platform pricing starts from €500/month. For this amount, which is significantly less than the minimum wage, you get a complete, "all-inclusive" business communication solution:

1. No hidden fees: This is a fixed price. You don't need to additionally buy minutes from telecommunication providers, you don't need to pay for every word answered (which foreign platforms often apply).
2. Unlimited call flow: POSKAI AI can process 500+ calls simultaneously. Even if all your customers decide to call at the same time, no one will hear a busy signal. With a human – this is impossible.
3. Natural Lithuanian language: The POSKAI voice engine is designed specifically for the Lithuanian market. It inflects, conjugates, understands context, and speaks so naturally that most customers don't even realize they are interacting with an assistant.
4. Multilingual communication: The system automatically detects the caller's language. If a German calls – the AI responds in German. If a Pole calls – it switches to Polish. Real-time, without any button presses ("Press 1 for English").
5. 24/7/365 operation: Weekends, holidays, nights – your business never misses a potential client or inquiry.
6. Automatic CRM integration: After each conversation, the system automatically generates a summary and enters information into your system.

Read more about POSKAI integrations with CRM systems and find out how to fully automate data entry.

Comparison table: Human vs POSKAI vs Foreign AI

Although humans have advantages in empathetic communication, for routine tasks, the numbers speak for themselves. It's also important to see how POSKAI stacks up against foreign solutions, which often seem cheap only in the first advertisement.

AI vs Human: Efficiency differences in various industries

Let's look at specific examples of how this price and efficiency difference is reflected in real Lithuanian businesses.

Logistics and transport

A transport manager or coordinator has to call 30 drivers every morning to ask: "Where are you? When will you be at the unloading site?" For a human, this takes about 1.5 – 2 hours daily (if they get through on the first try).

POSKAI solution: The POSKAI AI calls all 30 drivers simultaneously. After 2 minutes, the manager has a full report on their screen with all statuses. They intervene only where there is a real problem (e.g., a flat tire). 40 hours per month are saved – that's a full work week of one expensive specialist's time, which they can now dedicate to finding new cargo.

Read more: AI application in logistics

Clinics and beauty salons

A reception employee, for whom you pay 2100 € with taxes, spends 60% of their time answering questions: "What are your prices?", "Is the doctor working on Friday?", "I'd like to book an appointment." While they are on the phone, the queue at the reception desk grows, and physical clients become dissatisfied.

With POSKAI, the AI assistant handles all template-based registrations and appointment reminders (e.g., "Good day, a reminder about your visit tomorrow at 10:30"). The administrator can focus on live clients, offer them coffee, and upsell (sell additional services).

B2B sales (Cold calls)

A good salesperson is expensive. If you make them do 50 cold calls a day, you're wasting money. 80% of those calls end in voicemail or "I'm not interested." People burn out after three months.

The POSKAI AI platform can make 500 cold calls per hour, ask qualifying questions, and pass on to your expensive salesperson ONLY those contacts who said: "Yes, I'm interested, tell me more." This is called a Lead Qualification process, which maximizes your sales team's ROI (Return on Investment).

Read more about AI calls in sales.

Security and GDPR: Why you can't just pick a foreign "bot"

Many managers, seeing advertisements from foreign (mostly US) AI startups with prices like "20 cents per minute," think they've found an even cheaper alternative. However, this is an illusion with enormous legal and financial risk.

GDPR and EU AI Act requirements are not just recommendations – they are strict laws. When you use American platforms (Bland, Retell, Vapi), your customer data, phone numbers, and conversation content (which may contain financial or personal information) travel through US servers. This is a direct GDPR violation. Their contracts always state: YOU are responsible for compliance, not them. In case of a data breach, fines reach millions, and the responsibility falls on your shoulders.

POSKAI architectural advantage:

We are not a general, "shared" SaaS model. POSKAI applies per-client isolation. Each business gets its own completely isolated infrastructure and custom dashboard.

1. 100% EU data residency: No data leaves the European Union.
2. Isolation: If another client's system theoretically experiences an attack, your data remains completely separate and untouched.
3. Prompt injection protection: The POSKAI platform has built-in security mechanisms that prevent malicious callers from extracting confidential company information through complex, misleading questions.

When you choose a cheap foreign solution, you are buying legal risk. When you choose POSKAI – you get a certified, EU-standard compliant infrastructure solution that is incomparably cheaper in the long run.

Read more about data security in the POSKAI comparison with American platforms.

When is a human still needed?

It's important to understand that the POSKAI AI does not replace all people in your company. It only replaces the link that acts like a robot.

A human is still needed when:

• Complex, strategic negotiations are taking place (B2B sales "closing").
• High-level empathy is required in crisis situations (psychological support, managing complex complaints).
• Non-standard, unique algorithmic technical malfunctions are being solved on-site.

However, while a human sits by the phone and answers the question "How much does your service cost?" or "A reminder that your visit is tomorrow," they are wasting their potential and your money. POSKAI filters out the noise, leaving your employees with only value-creating tasks.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does POSKAI really sound natural in Lithuanian?

Yes, the POSKAI AI voice engine is designed exclusively for the Lithuanian market, focusing on the nuances of the native language. It's not a crude translation from English – it intonates, inflects, and makes micro-pauses, so it sounds completely natural. Furthermore, the system's response speed is less than 500 milliseconds, so there are no awkward silent pauses that betray foreign "bots".

Can I integrate POSKAI with my existing CRM system?

Absolutely. The POSKAI platform supports custom integrations with popular CRM systems, databases, and calendars (e.g., Calendly). After each call, the POSKAI AI generates a conversation summary and enters the necessary data (client need, status, next contact date) directly into your system.

Why is €500/month the starting price and what does it include?

The POSKAI pricing starting from €500/month is a comprehensive package. This price includes the voice assistant itself, unlimited language capabilities, an individual client management dashboard, infrastructure support, and EU data security guarantees. There are no hidden fees for telephony minutes or system maintenance – you know your monthly budget precisely.