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AI receptionist for plumbers

Someone with water coming through a ceiling gives you about twenty seconds before they dial the next plumber on the list. This page prices the services that pick up while you are under a sink: real plans from $29 a month, the cheapest one that actually works at $49, and unlimited flat rate at $199.

Every figure comes from the vendor's own pricing page, checked in July 2026. Full comparison on the pricing index.

What calls does a plumber actually miss?

Plumbing is the trade where the gap between a missed call and a lost job is shortest. There is no consideration period. There is a person standing in water.

• The 11pm burst pipe. The highest value call you will get all week, and it arrives when your phone is on the kitchen counter. Nobody in that situation leaves a voicemail.
• Calls while both hands are wet. You are on your back under a sink with a wrench. The phone rings in the van. That is not a scheduling problem you can fix with discipline.
• Saturday and Sunday. Weekend calls carry a premium rate and convert better than weekday quote shopping, because the caller has already decided they need someone today.
• The spam wall. Trades numbers get hammered by sales calls, so you stop answering unknown numbers, and then you stop answering customers too. Rosie includes spam filtering on its entry plan, which is a small feature that changes behaviour.
• Landlords and property managers. They call the plumber who answers, and then they keep calling them. One missed call there costs a stream of work, not a single job.

What one missed call costs you here

A typical residential service job lands somewhere in the $150 to $400 range. A water heater replacement, a repipe or an emergency mains job is several times that. Those are typical ranges to start from, not a claim about your pricing. Use your own average invoice.

The number that changes the answer is conversion, and for plumbers it is unusually high on emergencies. A quote shopper calling five plumbers on a Tuesday might convert at one in five. Someone with a flooded kitchen at midnight converts at closer to one in two, because they will book whoever answers. So if you take 40 calls a week, miss a quarter of them and half of those missed emergency callers would have booked, you are giving away several jobs a month. At $150 to $400 each, that is $600 to $2,400 a month walking to a competitor, against a $49 to $99 a month plan.

Set the conversion field higher than you think if most of your missed calls are emergencies. Workings on the missed call calculator.

Which service fits a plumber

Rosie, the cheapest plan that does a real job

Rosie costs $49 a month for 250 minutes, and that tier includes message taking, spam filtering, an app and both English and Spanish. For a one-van operation that mostly needs the name, the address and the problem captured accurately, that is enough. Move up to Scale at $149 a month for 1,000 minutes when you want calendar booking and warm transfers to your mobile. The missing piece in their published data: no overage rate anywhere, so ask what happens on minute 251. Check current Rosie pricing.

Dialzara, if you want booking and Spanish on one plan

Dialzara lists 24/7 answering, booking, lead qualification and calendar handling on every tier, in English and Spanish, with no setup fee and white glove setup included. Business Pro is $99 a month for 220 minutes and Business Plus is $199 for 500 minutes. Ignore the $29 headline: 60 minutes is about one call a day, which makes it a trial tier rather than a working plan. Overage is published clearly, which is rarer than it should be: $0.45 a minute on Pro, $0.40 on Plus. Check current Dialzara pricing.

NextPhone, when the phone never stops

Once you are running three vans and taking emergency calls around the clock, minute bundles stop making sense. NextPhone charges $199 a month for unlimited calls with no per-minute charges, including booking, transfers, SMS and call recording. If you want the job pushed into ServiceTitan or HubSpot rather than emailed to you, that lives on the $299 Growth tier. Their prices are quoted as "starts at", so confirm your own number before you sign anything. Check current NextPhone pricing.

Smith.ai, if you only get a handful of calls

Worth knowing about before you spend anything: Smith.ai runs a free AI tier covering 25 calls a month, then $3.00 per call above that. For a part-time or side operation that takes five calls a week, that is a genuinely free way to stop losing them. The moment you get busy the maths turns: their AI Pro plan is $150 a month for 75 calls at $2.00 per extra call, and per-call pricing beats per-minute only when your calls run long. Check current Smith.ai pricing.

Prices side by side

Verified July 2026. All 17 vendors with published prices are on the pricing index.

What to ask before you sign

1. What exactly happens at 2am? Does it text you the address and the problem, ring your mobile, or file a message you find at 7am. For emergency work this is the only feature that matters.
2. What does it capture, field by field? Name, callback number, full address, access notes and what is actually leaking. If you cannot dispatch from the message without calling back, the service has saved you nothing.
3. What does a 9-minute panicked call cost? On a per-minute plan you pay for all nine. Dialzara publishes $0.45 a minute past the bundle on Business Pro. Rosie publishes no rate at all. Ask, and get the answer in writing.
4. Is Spanish included or extra? Rosie and Dialzara both cover English and Spanish on their plans. Elsewhere it is an add-on: $20 a month at PATLive, $30 a month at AnswerConnect, $1.00 per call at Smith.ai on the human plans.
5. Can I cancel next month? Trades revenue moves with the weather. Look for a monthly term and a trial: Dialzara offers 7 days, Answrr gives 14 days with 60 minutes and no credit card.

Where to go next

HVAC companies face the same emergency pattern with a bigger seasonal spike, which pushes them toward flat-rate plans sooner. If you do commercial kitchen and grease trap work, the restaurants page shows how your customers are handling their own phones, and which of them will actually pick up when you call back. Every published plan is on the pricing index.