What does an AI answering service charge per call?
It depends on the pricing model. WireDesk bills voice at $0.20 per started minute, so the price of a call is its length rounded up to the minute. A one-minute 'are you open' call is $0.20. A three-minute call that books a drain cleaning is $0.60. A seven-minute emergency call where the agent keeps the caller calm and transfers you is $1.40.
There is no per-call minimum, no monthly platform fee and no seat licence. If the phone doesn't ring, the bill is zero. There is also a hard monthly spend cap on every account — $50 by default, which you raise when you're ready — so the bill can never be a surprise.
What does a month actually come to?
Take a two-truck shop with 320 inbound calls a month averaging three minutes: 320 × 3 × $0.20 = $192. Add 150 website chats at $0.02 each ($3) and 80 emails at $0.02 ($1.60) and the month is about $197. In a slow month with 200 calls it's closer to $125. In a cold snap with 500, about $300.
One water heater replacement covers a quarter of that. One emergency call that would otherwise have gone to voicemail — and to the next plumber in the search results — covers the month.
How does that compare to a traditional answering service?
Live answering services for trades typically price per call, per minute, or in monthly bundles of minutes, with a monthly minimum. Common ranges are $1–2 per call or $0.80–1.50 per operator minute, with plans starting around $100–300 a month before overages. For the same 320 three-minute calls, a per-call service at $1.50 is $480; a per-minute service at $1.20 is $1,150. Check your own invoice — the range is wide.
The bigger difference is what happens on the call. An answering service operator reads a script and takes a message: name, number, 'someone will call you back'. That message waits for you. An AI agent trained on your website answers the question the caller actually asked — do you serve my area, how much is a drain cleaning, can someone come today — books the visit on your calendar, and transfers the flood to your phone live. The caller gets an answer; you get a booked job instead of a callback list.
What's included in the AI price, and what isn't?
Included at WireDesk's rates: the voice agent itself, trained from your website; live transfer of a call to your phone; message-taking with a text to you; booking into your calendar; the same agent on your website chat and on its own email address; a dashboard with every conversation and transcript; roles for your team; and the spend cap.
Not included: a phone number, if you want a new one rather than forwarding your existing line — bring your own or provision one at cost. And not included, deliberately: anything the agent would have to guess. If your website doesn't publish a repipe price, the agent says a plumber will quote on site and books the visit. It never invents a number.
Is there a free way to try it?
Yes. WireDesk starts free with no credit card and a $50 spend cap. Paste your website, chat with the agent on your own content within a minute, then hear it answer by voice in the browser. Most plumbers put it on the website first, listen to it for a day or two, then forward the phone line — after hours to begin with, if that's more comfortable.
If you want to put a number on what missed calls are costing you today, the missed call revenue calculator does it in thirty seconds with your own figures.