The arithmetic, a calculator you can run with your own numbers, and an honest look at where the industry's favourite statistics actually come from.
Published 7 August 2026 · Latitude Global Solutions
Multiply four numbers you already know: calls a day × 30 × the share you miss, then by your close rate, then by your average ticket.
A shop taking 8 calls a day and missing 30% of them loses roughly $11,300 a month. Halve every assumption and it's still about $5,700.
The fix is $297 a month, and one recovered job covers it. Run the calculator below with your own numbers.
Every company selling call-answering software will tell you missed calls are costing you a fortune. We sell one. So rather than repeat the numbers everybody else repeats, this page does two things: it gives you the arithmetic so you can compute your own figure, and it shows you exactly how solid — or not — the commonly quoted industry statistics are.
It answers the calls you miss — nights, weekends, mid-job — books the job during the call, and shows you every call afterwards in plain English. Not a message service: it takes the name, number, address and the actual problem, then puts the appointment on your calendar.
$297/month · 1,500 minutes included · overage $0.25/min · no contract
The demo line answers as the front desk of Summit Plumbing & Drain, a fictional Denver shop — it's the same software that would go on your line.
Four numbers you already know, three lines of multiplication:
| Step | Calculation |
|---|---|
| Missed calls per month | calls per day × 30 × % missed |
| Lost jobs per month | missed calls per month × close rate |
| Lost revenue per month | lost jobs per month × average ticket |
A deliberately conservative worked example — a small shop taking 8 calls a day, missing 30% of them, closing 45% of the people it does reach, at a $350 average ticket:
8 × 30 × 0.30 = 72 missed calls. 72 × 0.45 = 32.4 jobs. 32.4 × $350 = roughly $11,300 a month.
Halve every single assumption — say you only miss 15% — and it is still around $5,700 a month walking out the door. The point of running it yourself is that you supply the four inputs, so you cannot argue with the output.
You have probably seen figures like "85% of callers won't leave a voicemail" or "62% of business calls go unanswered." We went looking for the primary sources behind the numbers in our own category. What we found is worth knowing before you quote any of them.
Searching for these statistics returns page after page of vendor blogs — companies selling AI receptionists and answering services — each citing another company selling AI receptionists and answering services. The figures do not agree with each other, and the more dramatic version tends to be the one that propagates.
| Common claim | Published range | Named primary source | Our read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Callers who hang up rather than leave a voicemail | 67% – 90% | BIA/Kelsey (67%); Invoca (86%) | Directionally true, precisely unknowable. The 23-point spread across sources is the story. |
| Share of business calls that go unanswered | 27% (all business) – 62% (SMB) | Attributed to a ServiceTitan analysis of 50,000+ contractor lines | The SMB figure is plausible for small shops but we could not reach the underlying study. |
| Callers who immediately dial a competitor | 67% – 85% | No traceable primary source found | Treat as folklore until someone publishes a method. |
| Speed-to-lead advantage from responding within 5 minutes | ~100× more likely to connect | Harvard Business Review, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads" | The best-sourced claim in the category — but it is about web leads, not inbound phone calls. |
Our position: do not buy anything based on these numbers, including from us. Use them to decide whether the question is worth ten minutes of your time, then answer it with your own line.
This is the entire method, and it costs nothing:
Four calls will tell you more about your business than any statistic on this page. If three of the four went to voicemail, you now have a real percentage to put in the calculator above — and it is yours, not an average.
If it turns out you are leaking calls, there are three ways to fix it, and they differ by an order of magnitude in price.
| Option | Rough monthly cost | Covers nights & weekends? |
|---|---|---|
| Software AI receptionist (general) | $29 – $299 published list prices | Yes |
| AI receptionist built for home services | Clusters near $299 | Yes |
| Call Inbox | $297, no contract | Yes |
| Human answering service | Varies widely; usually per-minute or per-call | Usually, at a premium |
| Dedicated human receptionist (in-house) | Several thousand before payroll taxes | No — one person cannot |
Price ranges reflect vendors' published list prices in the home-services category, checked 7 August 2026. Vendors that do not publish pricing are excluded rather than guessed at.
Set up on your existing number within 24 hours. 30 days — if you're not happy, you don't pay. No minimum call volume, no hoops. If we haven't booked you at least five jobs, just let us know you aren't satisfied and we'll refund everything you've paid — and you keep every booking it made.
The demo line answers as the front desk of Summit Plumbing & Drain, a fictional Denver shop — it's the same software that would go on your line.
Run the three lines of arithmetic above with your own four numbers. The conservative worked example — 8 calls a day, 30% missed, 45% close rate, $350 ticket — comes out around $11,300 a month. Your figure depends entirely on your ticket size and how much of the day your phone is unattended.
Nobody credibly knows. Published claims run from 67% to 90% hanging up without leaving a message, and nearly every citation traces back to a company selling call-answering software. The two named primary sources are BIA/Kelsey at 67% and Invoca at 86%.
For a small residential shop, substantially — home-services AI receptionists cluster near $299 a month against several thousand for a front-desk hire before payroll taxes, benefits and turnover. The more important difference is coverage: one person cannot answer at 7pm on a Saturday, which is exactly when a burst pipe calls.
Call (305) 909-0399. That is the whole answer.