How answering services charge
The pattern across all three: a busy month is an expensive month, and the after-hours emergency season, when calls matter most, is when the meter spins fastest.
Monthly totals for a service business
A trade line taking calls a month at typical rates lands between and monthly, before setup fees and holiday surcharges. And that buys message-taking: the job still has to be booked by a human the next morning, which is the hidden second cost.
Virtual receptionist cost
Worth it when callers need genuine human judgment; overkill for "my furnace died, when can you come."
The AI receptionist math
The model where the meter disappeared.
AI receptionists changed the structure, not just the price: they answer instantly at any hour and, when built into your field service platform, book the job into the actual schedule instead of taking a message about it. Pricing varies: some platforms meter per conversation, while flat-price platforms include it: Linq's 24/7 AI receptionist is part of the platform on Growth plans and up, no per-minute anything. The structural win isn't cheaper minutes; it's that the call ends as a booked job.
Which model fits
Complex intake with judgment calls: human service, priced accordingly. Low volume, business hours only: voicemail plus fast callbacks might genuinely be fine. Emergency trades where the after-hours call IS the business: the AI receptionist math is hard to beat, because the expensive month problem inverts: your busiest month costs the same as your slowest.
Try it on a real week
Fourteen days. Your actual jobs.
Not a sandbox with fake customers in it. Put a real week through the board, answer real calls with it, and see what the Friday number looks like. Fourteen days, no card, cancel any day.
Answering service cost questions
How much does an answering service cost per month?
The tables above break it down by model.
What does a virtual receptionist cost?
Is an AI receptionist cheaper than an answering service?
Usually structurally cheaper at emergency-trade volumes, and the deeper difference is output: an answering service cost buys you messages; an AI receptionist built into your platform books the job. Linq includes one on Growth plans and up.
Do answering services book appointments?
Most take messages or fill a form; true schedule booking requires access to your calendar, which is why platform-native AI answering became the category: it sees the real schedule.
Get started
Hear tomorrow's calls book themselves.
See the 24/7 AI receptionist, on Growth plans and up, or start with what missed calls already cost you: the missed call calculator.
Get started with answering service cost
Close every loop.
Linq is answering service cost for shops that would rather be on the tools than at a desk: start free, or put one real week through it on the 14-day trial and judge it on Friday.
