How much does a plumbing answering service cost? 2026 prices and a worked month for a 2-truck shop

A live plumbing answering service costs about $211.50 to $720 a month for a small shop that sends it 60 calls (about 150 minutes), depending on the company. That's from five services' own price lists, checked 7 November 2026; Smith.ai, which bills per call, comes to $645.

What moves the bill is how long your calls run, how each company counts a minute, what it charges for booking and alerts, and what happens in a busy month.

What does each answering service charge?

Five US live answering services that publish plan prices on their own pages. All prices are per month, before taxes, checked 7 November 2026.

PATLive also lists bigger plans, up to 5,000 minutes for $6,899. Abby says overage is billed at your plan's minute rate but doesn't print a dollar figure; Ruby doesn't publish an overage rate at all. Ask both before you sign. AnsweringService.com advertises live answering “from” $25 to $55 a month for new customers, but its pricing page doesn't show the minutes included, so it isn't in the table or the sums below. Run HVAC too? We priced a full year with a summer and a winter rush in how much an HVAC answering service costs.

What makes the bill go up?

Per minute or per call

MAP, PATLive, Abby and Ruby charge for minutes. Smith.ai charges per call, whatever the length, and says calls at 2 PM and 2 AM cost the same (Smith.ai). Per call suits a shop whose calls run long: the customer describing a slow drain under two sinks and a tub. Per minute suits short calls: “are you open Saturday?” Smith.ai says it doesn't charge for spam calls when the caller ID comes through, so spam and sales calls don't use up the 30 calls on Starter.

What counts as a minute

PATLive says you pay only for the time a receptionist is live on your call, with no charge for after-call notes (PATLive). None of the companies above publish how they round a call (to the second, the next 30 seconds or the next minute), so ask. Rounding every call up to the next full minute can add up to a minute a call, which on 60 calls is up to 60 minutes you didn't use.

Nights, weekends and holidays

PATLive lists “no night or weekend fees” with holidays included. Smith.ai says its agents are live 24/7 and that calls at 2 PM and 2 AM cost the same. Abby lists a 24/7 option with no weekend upcharge. Ruby includes after-hours, weekends and holidays. MAP shows 24/7 coverage on every plan, but its pricing page also warns that round-the-clock and holiday coverage can add to your monthly bill. Abby and MAP don't say what holidays cost, so ask.

Extras that are charged per call

PATLive lists call transfers and appointment scheduling as included (“no per feature fees”), and Ruby lists scheduling among its plan features. Abby and MAP don't price these on their pages, so ask. Smith.ai prices them separately: booking an appointment is $1.50 a call, a text or Slack alert $0.50 (plus $0.25 for each extra ping), call recording $0.25, and each transfer number beyond the plan's free ones is $15 a month (Smith.ai). In the worked month below, they add about 10% to the bill.

Contracts and setup

Smith.ai, Abby and PATLive say month to month or no contracts; MAP says no long-term contracts. Ruby, Smith.ai and Abby say no setup fee. PATLive and MAP don't publish one either way. Smith.ai gives 10% off for 12 months up front and a 30-day money-back guarantee.

What would a 2-truck shop pay?

Say you and one tech run two trucks. You forward the calls you can't take on a job and everything after 6 PM. To keep the sums simple we use 2.5 minutes a call, the same rule of thumb PATLive uses on its own page (50 minutes is “about 20 calls”). Your own average will differ: your phone bill or carrier app shows it. The second table is our example of a month where a freeze week doubles the calls, not a forecast.

What the tables show:

• The smaller plan plus overage can beat the bigger plan. At 150 minutes on PATLive, the 100-minute plan plus 50 extra minutes ($293.50) is cheaper than the 200-minute plan ($349). On MAP, Business plus 25 extra minutes ($211.50) beats Enterprise ($339). Price both before you pick.
• An unpublished overage rate makes a freeze week expensive. Ruby and Abby don't print a dollar price per extra minute, so in our sums only a plan that covers all 300 minutes counts: that's $1,380 on Abby and $1,725 on Ruby. Ask for the rate in writing; it may be cheaper than that.
• The cheapest plan changes when calls double. On MAP it moves from Business to Enterprise; on Smith.ai from Starter to Basic. If your winter is busy, price your worst month, not your average one.

And the extras: if Smith.ai books 25 of the 60 calls into your calendar and sends you one text alert after every call, add 25 × $1.50 + 60 × $0.50 = $67.50, so $712.50 for the normal month.

For the AI side: Jobber's AI Receptionist is a $29-a-month add-on with 30 conversations, but you need a Jobber plan too, from $49 a month (Jobber pricing, checked 6 November 2026). The full AI price list is in how much an AI receptionist costs.

How do I price my own calls? A 10-minute worksheet

Fill this in with your own numbers before you call any sales line.

1. Calls you'd forward a month: ____ (count missed calls during working hours in your phone log for two normal weeks, double it, then add calls that come in after you close).
2. Average call length: ____ minutes (from your phone bill or carrier app; use 2.5 if you can't find it).
3. Minutes a month = line 1 × line 2 = ____.
4. Busy-month minutes = your worst month last winter or summer, same sum = ____.
5. For each service: the cheapest plan that covers line 3, and the smaller plan plus overage. Write down the lower one: ____.
6. Extras: per-call booking, text alerts, transfers and recording × your calls = ____.
7. Busy-month total on the same plan (line 4 minutes) = ____.

Questions to ask before you sign

• “How do you round a call: by the second, 30 seconds or a full minute? Is hold time or transfer time billed?”
• “What's your price per extra minute on the plan I'm looking at, in dollars?” (Essential for Ruby and Abby.)
• “Do you charge more for nights, weekends or Christmas Day?”
• “When a caller has water coming through the ceiling at 11 PM, what exactly happens? Do you ring my on-call phone, and is that transfer extra?”
• “Do you book into my calendar or my job software, or just send me a message?”
• “Is there a setup fee, a contract, or a notice period to cancel?”
• “Can I hear a recording of how your people answer a plumbing call?”

Whoever you choose, give them a short script: the safety question, the shutoff, the address and gate code, the number read back. We wrote one in after-hours calls for plumbers: what to ask a 9 PM caller. Then forward only the calls you miss (how to forward your calls).

Do I need a live person or a virtual assistant?

In our view, a live receptionist is better at the messy call: the upset landlord, the caller who can't describe where the water is coming from. If most of your missed calls are that kind, and you have the budget, a live service is worth it. AI lines cost less (see our AI receptionist price list), but they're virtual assistants and callers should be told so. One setup worth pricing either way: answer yourself in the day, and send only the overflow and the night to a service.

Voxlivo is that kind of after-hours and overflow line for plumbing shops (our product). It says it's a virtual assistant, takes the name, address and what's broken, books into one Google Calendar and emails you within about a minute. Starter is $49 a month for 100 minutes; Growth, $99 for 200 minutes, also rings your on-call phone for real emergencies. Extra minutes are $0.25, and there's no setup fee (pricing). Priced like the tables above on Growth, the worked shop would pay $99 in the normal month and $124 in the freeze-week month. You can hear it first: call (720) 783-3138 and play a customer. More on our answering service for plumbers page.

Questions owners ask

How much is a plumbing answering service a month?

For 60 calls of about 2.5 minutes, the live services above come to $211.50 to $720 a month before any extras, with per-call Smith.ai at $645. Your own number depends on your call count and length: use the worksheet above.

Do answering services charge extra after hours?

None of the five plan tables shows a night or weekend surcharge. PATLive and Ruby say holidays are included too. MAP's page warns that round-the-clock and holiday coverage can cost more, so get the answer in writing from whoever you pick.

Is per call or per minute cheaper?

Usually per minute, if your calls are short. At 2.5 minutes a call, Smith.ai's Starter overage of $11.50 a call works out to $4.60 a minute, against $1.28 to $2.99 a minute at the per-minute services. Per call only comes out ahead once calls average more than about 4 to 9 minutes, depending on which per-minute rate you compare it with.

Can I use an answering service only at night?

Yes. Forwarding is set on your phone or with your carrier, not by the service, so you choose which calls go: after hours, when you're busy, or when you don't answer. The steps for each carrier are in how to forward business calls. Tell the service your hours so it greets night callers the right way.

Prices checked 7 November 2026 on each company's own page: MAP Communications pricing · PATLive pricing · Abby Connect pricing · Ruby pricing · Smith.ai receptionist pricing · AnsweringService.com pricing · Jobber pricing. Prices change; check the page before you buy. Voxlivo is our product and is not connected to any company above.