An answering service for small business
that answers while you work
Your AI receptionist picks up every call. It answers questions about your business and takes the caller's details. You get an email when the call ends. You can switch on text alerts too.
An answering service for small business, running in 2 minutes
You do not fill in a form. You paste your website address, and your receptionist reads the site. It learns your services, your hours, your service area, and the questions your site already answers. The scan takes about 2 minutes. Then you read what it learned. Everything sits on one page, in plain sentences you can edit. Fix a price, add a service you do not list online, or delete a line that is out of date. You can change anything on that page. When the wording looks right, you claim a phone number. You can take a free local number, or forward the number you already use. Your callers keep dialing the same number they always have. That is the whole setup. There is no phone script to write, no training call, no salesperson, and nothing to install. You can do all of it on your phone between jobs.
- Paste your website address. There is no form to fill in.
- Read back what it learned and edit any line.
- Keep your number, or take a free local one.
It knows your services, hours and prices
Callers ask the same few things. They ask whether you do that kind of work. They ask how soon you can get there. They ask if the estimate costs anything. Your receptionist answers all three from what it read on your site. Everything it knows sits in one place, called the knowledge base. It is a list of plain sentences, not a form with fields to label. You open it and type the way you would tell a new hire. "We do not work on mobile homes." "We charge a flat fee for weekend diagnostics." "We cover the whole county, but we add a trip charge past the river." Change a price and the next caller hears the new price. Add a service in the morning and it is live that afternoon. You never write a script, and you never guess which words the caller will use. Your receptionist reads your note and answers in its own words.
- It answers from your own notes, not a script.
- Change a price or a service in one line.
- Add anything your website does not say.
Answer while you're on the job
You choose the hours your receptionist answers. Set your business hours, and it answers only inside them. Or leave it on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There are two common setups. Some owners send every call to it all day, because they are under a sink or up on a roof. Others answer their own phone until five, then hand over the nights and the weekends. The hours follow your timezone, so a call at 7pm is 7pm where you are. You can set different hours for each day. Saturday can end at noon. Sunday can be off. You can pause it at any time. If you are sitting in the truck with nothing to do, take the calls yourself. Turn it back on when you drive to the next job. The change takes effect right away, from your phone.
- Business hours, or 24 hours a day.
- Different hours for every day of the week.
- Pause it and take the calls yourself, any time.
Ask the questions that qualify the lead
A message with a name and a number is not much use. You still have to call back to find out what the job is and where it is. So you write the questions you want asked. Your receptionist asks every caller, and the answers come to you with the summary. The feature starts switched off. You turn it on, then write your first question. The box shows examples, such as "Get their zip code." "Ask what year the furnace is." "Find out if they own the house or rent it." "Ask how they heard about us." You write them the way you would say them out loud. There are no fields to label and no format to follow. Now a summary tells you what to do next. The zip code says whether the job is in your area. The urgent answer says whether it can wait until Monday.
- Write the questions in your own words.
- Your receptionist asks every caller.
- The answers arrive with the call summary.
Every call, written down and searchable
Your receptionist writes down every call. You get a short summary first: who called, what they wanted, and what they asked you to do. Under it sits the full transcript, word for word. The recording is there too, if you want to hear how the caller sounded. Your receptionist also puts a label on each call. The labels are urgent, lead, pricing, callback, complaint, information, spam and voicemail. Tap a label on the calls list and you see only those calls. Tap "lead" on a Monday morning and you have your callback list. Search runs across every call you have taken. Type a street name, a part number, or a last name. The call comes back with its transcript and recording. This helps when a customer says they told you something six weeks ago. You open the call and read what was said.
- Summary, full transcript and recording for every call.
- Filter the calls list by label, including urgent.
- Search every call by name, street or part.
Transfer to your phone when it matters
Some calls should not wait. Give your receptionist an on-call number, and it will put the caller through to you. The transfer happens in two cases. The caller asks to speak to a person. Or the caller gets frustrated on the line. In both cases your phone rings, and you pick up a call that is already going. You do not have to give a number. Leave it empty and it will not transfer anyone. It still will not drop a call. Your receptionist offers a callback instead. It takes the caller's name, their number, and the reason they called, then sends all three to you. A caller can also just leave a message, and that reaches you the same way. You can point the on-call number at your cell during the day and clear it at night. Change it whenever you want.
- It transfers when the caller asks for a person.
- It transfers when the caller sounds frustrated.
- With no number set, it takes a callback or a message.
What an answering service costs for a small business
Starter is $29 a month. That includes 150 minutes of answered calls. After that you pay $0.55 a minute, and only for the minutes you use. Divide the price by the minutes and it comes to about 19 cents a minute. A traditional answering service bills you $2 to $3 a minute, with a monthly fee on top. Their bill moves every month, because a busy week costs more than a quiet one. Hiring is the other option. A full-time receptionist costs $3,000 a month or more. That buys 40 hours of coverage a week. A week has 168 hours. There is no contract here. You pay by the month and you cancel with one click. Nothing renews on you at the end of a year. Starter covers one receptionist and one login. The larger plans add more minutes, more receptionists and more people on the account.
- $29 a month, with 150 minutes included.
- $0.55 a minute after that, for the minutes you use.
- No contract. Cancel with one click.
Is an answering service worth it?
Answer that with your own numbers. Take the price of your average job. Take the number of calls you miss in a week. Multiply the two. For a plumber with a $400 average job, four missed calls a month are worth $1,600. You will not win every one of them, so take your close rate off that number. For a locksmith at $150 a job, the same four calls are worth $600. Both are still well above the monthly fee. The calls you miss are not spread evenly either. A caller with a burst pipe will not leave a voicemail. They call the next name on the list. That one job often costs you more than a year of service. We built a calculator so you do not have to work it out yourself. Put in your average job value, your close rate, and the calls you miss. It shows what those calls are worth in a month and in a year.
- Use your own average job value and close rate.
- See the monthly and yearly cost of missed calls.
- Compare that number to the plan price before you buy.
Comparing services?
It is worth looking at three or four services before you pick one. We wrote a guide that lists ten of them, with what each one charges and what you get for it. It covers the human call centers, the AI services, and the ones that mix both. Our own entry sits in there next to the rest. Ask three questions while you read. Ask what a busy month costs, not a quiet one. Ask who answers at 2am. Ask what happens to the details of a call after it ends. Those three answers separate the services more than any feature list does. A per-minute service is cheap until the week you get 40 calls. A voicemail box is not coverage. And a message with a name but no zip code still costs you a callback. Read the guide, then come back and try this one.
- Ten services, with current prices and what each includes.
- Human call centers, AI services, and the mix of both.
- Our own entry is in the list with the rest.
Built for Businesses Like Yours
Whether you're a solo operator or a small team, SimpleAnswering fits the way you work.
Contractors & Trades
Plumbers, electricians, HVAC, roofers, handymen
Professional Services
Accountants, consultants, lawyers, insurance agents
Health & Wellness
Therapists, chiropractors, massage therapists, personal trainers
Creative Services
Photographers, designers, videographers, marketing freelancers
Local Services
Salons, cleaners, landscapers, pet groomers, auto shops
What Small Business Owners Say
"I used to miss 3-4 calls a day while I was on jobs. Now every call gets answered. Paid for itself in the first week."
Mike R.
Plumber, Austin TX
"My clients expect immediate response. SimpleAnswering makes my one-person operation feel like a real office."
Sarah K.
Bookkeeper, Denver CO
"The setup took me literally 2 minutes. I thought there would be a catch but there wasn't. It just works."
James T.
Photographer, Seattle WA
Common Questions
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