What an AI receptionist for plumbers costs
An AI receptionist for a plumbing company costs $500 to set up and $500 a month, flat, with no per-minute or per-call charges and no contract. That is the whole price. If the jobs it books in your first month aren't worth at least $3,000, you get the full $1,000 back, setup included.
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One price, and it does not move.
Most of this market bills by the minute, which means your bill is highest in the month your phone rang most — the month it was working. We do not do that.
Training on your business, integration with your calendar or dispatch software, testing, and going live.
Unlimited calls. Weekly call-log review. Rewording and retraining any time, included.
Setup plus twelve months, assuming you stay. There is no contract, so that is a ceiling and not a commitment.
No contract, cancel any month. Prices are in US dollars and exclude any sales tax your state applies.
Why this is not $49.
There are AI answering tools at $25 to $99 a month, and for some businesses they are the right call. They are software: you sign up, you type your business details into a form, you point your number at it, and what you get out is as good as what you put in.
This is not that. We build the thing for you — a 30-minute call to learn your call-out fee, your service area, the brands you work with, what you turn down, and how you want a gas smell handled at 2 AM. We write it up, you approve it, we wire it into ServiceTitan or Jobber or Housecall Pro, and you ring it until it sounds like your shop. Then we go through the call log with you every week and tighten what it says.
That is the difference in the price: the cheap tools sell you a tool, and we are selling you the work of setting one up properly and keeping it sharp. If you would rather do that work yourself and save the difference, you genuinely should — and we will tell you so on the call.
What the alternatives cost.
Real figures from public sources, not our estimates. Where a range is published, the range is what you see.
| Capability | Voicemail | Answering service | In-house receptionist | Riley |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Free | $135–$450 a month | ~$3,103 in base wages | $500 flat |
| Up-front cost | None | Setup fees are common | Hiring and training time | $500 one-time |
| Hours covered | Partly:Always on, never answers | Yes:24/7 on most plans | No:Your business hours | Yes:24/7, including holidays |
| Cost when calls spike | Unchanged | Overage at $0.75–$1.50 a minute | Overtime, or calls ring out | Unchanged |
| Books the job on your calendar | No:No | Partly:Usually takes a message | Yes:Yes | Yes:Yes |
| Knows your prices and service area | No:No | Partly:Reads your script | Yes:Yes | Yes:Trained on your answers |
| Handles two calls at once | Yes:Yes | Partly:Limited by staffing | No:No | Yes:Yes |
At the bottom of the answering-service range we are not the cheaper option, and the table above will tell you that before we do. A shop taking a handful of calls a month is better off on a $135 plan. The gap closes fast — a 250-minute bundle already runs $330 to $525 — and it closes for good the month your phone gets busy, because that is the month their bill climbs and ours does not.
When this is not worth it.
Four situations where we would tell you not to buy, because finding out in month six is worse for both of us.
Your phone gets picked up every time already. If you have an office person who catches the calls and nothing rings out after hours, there is nothing here for us to recover.
Almost every job needs a site visit before you can quote. If a caller can never get a useful answer without you looking at the thing first, booking is most of the value and it does not apply.
You run on long-term commercial accounts. When the same five property managers call and expect a named person, a general intake is a downgrade.
You cannot picture $3,000 of missed work in a month. Run your own numbers on the calculator — if the arithmetic does not clear the threshold, the guarantee just means we would be refunding you, and neither of us wants to spend a month getting there.
3x in month one, or you pay nothing.
Setup plus your first month is $1,000. If the jobs Riley books in month one — from calls that came in after hours, or while your line was busy or ringing out — aren't worth at least $3,000 to you, we refund every dollar, setup included. You have 45 days to ask, it takes one email, and nobody rings you up to talk you out of it.
The full terms, including exactly which jobs count toward the 3x, are on the terms page. You can also run your own numbers against the 3,000-dollar threshold before you talk to us — month one costs you 1,000 dollars and the calculator will tell you honestly whether that clears.
Still weighing it against something specific? We have written up how this compares against a live answering service, hiring a receptionist, and leaving it on voicemail.
What people ask about the price.
$500 one-time setup and $500 a month with Smart Lead Recovery. Across the wider market, self-serve AI answering tools run roughly $25 to $200 a month, live answering services run $135–$450 a month for most small businesses, and an in-house receptionist costs about $3,103 a month in base wages before payroll tax and benefits.
No. $500 a month covers every call, however busy the month gets. This is the main way the bill differs from a live answering service, where the published overage rates run $0.75–$1.50 a minute once you pass your bundle.
No. It is month to month and you can cancel any month. On top of that you have 45 days to ask for a full refund of setup and your first month.
The build. A 30-minute call to learn your pricing, service area, hours and rules, a written spec you approve, integration with your calendar or dispatch software, and testing until you have rung it yourself and liked what you heard. It is a one-time charge and it does not repeat.
No. That is the point of a flat fee. Whether the phone rings 40 times a month or 400, the invoice is the same.
Yes, on cost, and it is not close — the median US receptionist wage is $17.90 an hour (May 2024, BLS), which is about $37,232 a year in base pay before payroll tax and benefits, against $6,500 for year one here. But it is not the same purchase: a receptionist also does the paperwork, chases invoices and talks to suppliers, and works your business hours rather than all of them.
You email us and it stops at the end of the month. Your number goes back to ringing wherever you want it to ring, and you keep every recording and transcript from the time it was running.
Ring it before you decide.
The demo line is the cheapest due diligence there is. Ask it for a price, tell it your water heater is leaking, and see whether it is worth what we are asking.