ChatGPTTL;DR
- After-hours coverage is a different purchase from a daytime receptionist. You are buying 123 standby hours a week to catch about a quarter of your calls, so per-minute and per-call plans win.
- Twelve services with published prices are ranked below for a trade company taking 45 after-hours calls a month.
- The range runs from $49 for an AI receptionist to $810 for the priciest live plan.
- Three more services will not show a price.
- Since October 1, 2026, Google charges Local Services advertisers for missed business-hours calls, but not for after-hours ones.
A trade business runs on a 168-hour week. An office that answers from eight to five, Monday through Friday, covers 45 of them. The other 123 hours go to voicemail, and that is where this comparison starts. Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page on October 26, 2026. The three that refuse to publish are named as such.
The hours you are actually buying
Those 123 hours are 73 percent of the week, and they generate nowhere near 73 percent of your calls. For most residential trades the after-hours share lands between 20 and 35 percent of total volume. A five-truck company taking 150 calls a month at 30 percent after hours is looking at 45 night and weekend calls. At a four-minute average that is 180 minutes, spread across 123 hours a week.
That ratio is why after-hours is the one case where usage billing is on your side. A receptionist priced for availability charges you for the standby. A per-minute or per-call service charges you for the 180 minutes and nothing else, because the operator is sitting on someone else's calls the rest of the night. Every ranking below uses that 45-call, 180-minute month so the services can be compared on one bill.
Pro tip
Pull your call log before you shop. Every office phone system and mobile carrier exports inbound calls with timestamps. Sort by hour and you will know your real after-hours share in ten minutes, which turns every quote into arithmetic.
What changed on October 1, 2026
If you run Google Local Services Ads, Google now charges you for a call during your business hours that nobody answers, as long as the caller stays on the line past 20 seconds, including calls that reach voicemail. The rule is written around business hours, the ones on your Google Business Profile. Calls outside those hours are not charged. So the after-hours window is the one place a missed call costs you the job and nothing else, and a daytime missed call now costs the job plus the lead fee. That is a reason to fix the daytime leak first with missed call text back and an answering plan for business hours, and to size the night coverage by the math above rather than by fear.
The 12, ranked for a contractor's night shift
Ranked by what the 45-call month costs, adjusted for whether the service can actually dispatch an emergency or only take a message. Live services first, AI second, ours last and labeled.
1. Specialty Answering Service: $269 on the 220-minute plan
The cleanest published ladder in the category. Economy is $44 a month with no minutes included and $1.54 a minute. 100 minutes is $159 plus $1.44 for each additional minute, 220 minutes is $269, and 500 minutes is $649 at $1.34 over. The ladder runs to 10,000 minutes at $10,599 and $1.09. No setup fee, no contract, month to month, and a 14-day trial capped at 200 minutes with no credit card, which is almost exactly one month of after-hours volume for the five-truck company. Billing increments are one second from connect to disconnect, so the 20-second wrong number costs 20 seconds. Patching a call through to your on-call tech is billed per minute on top. For our 180-minute month the 220-minute plan beats Economy by about $50.
2. ReceptionHQ: about $115 at 45 calls
The cheapest live option if message taking is enough. MessageExpress is $25 a month plus $1.99 per call answered, US-based receptionists, 24/7, no long-term contract. Forty-five calls is $114.55. ReceptionistPlus adds call transfers from $35 a month. MyAssistant adds lead capture into your CRM from $49, and MyDiary adds appointment booking from $49, each still on a per-call or per-minute meter. ReceptionHQ's own pricing page says the quiet part: most competitors charge $100 to $350 at entry level. The catch for a trade is that MessageExpress takes the message and sends it to you. It does not reach your on-call tech, so you pay for the transfer plan if the 2 am call has to become a 2 am dispatch.
3. PATLive: $349 on the 200-minute plan
Pay as you go is $49 a month with no minutes and $2.99 a minute. Then 50 minutes for $99 ($2.29 over), 100 for $189 ($2.09), 200 for $349 ($1.99), 300 for $479, 500 for $759, up to 4,000 minutes at $5,599. Every plan includes 24/7 US receptionists, emergency dispatch, message taking, appointment scheduling and call screening, with a 14-day trial and no contract. PATLive's own sizing note, "about 80 calls" for 200 minutes, puts its average call at two and a half minutes, which is shorter than a real emergency intake runs. Budget on four.
4. Posh: $420 on the 200-minute plan
Chïc is $65 a month with no minutes at $2.30 a minute, Vogue is 50 minutes for $130, Elegant 100 for $215, Luxurious 200 for $420 ($2.10 over), Prestige 350 for $700 and Exclusive 1,000 for $1,900. Live 24/7 answering on every plan, a mobile app you can text and call from, and a custom setup per account. The per-minute rates sit about 50 cents above Specialty's at every tier, which is what you pay for the app and the hand-holding.
5. Abby Connect: $599 for 200 Abby Minutes
Starter is $164 a month for 50 minutes, labeled on Abby's own page as "small offices catching overflow or after-hours calls." Essential is $329 for 100, Growth $599 for 200, and 500 minutes is $1,380. Abby now sells a human-plus-AI mix where you choose how each call is handled, and it doubles your minutes if you pick the AI-first option. The live plan prices make it the most expensive per minute of the seven live services here, and the trade-off is a dedicated receptionist team that learns your scripts rather than a pool.
6. Ruby: $720 for 200 minutes
50 minutes is $250 a month, 100 is $395, 200 is $720, 500 is $1,725, all with 24/7 coverage including after-hours, weekends and holidays, bilingual answering and client intake as optional features. Ruby's reputation is in legal and professional services, and the pricing reflects that market. For a contractor whose night calls are "no heat" and "water in the basement," you are paying for a polish the caller will not notice at 2 am.
7. Smith.ai: $810 on the 90-call plan
Smith.ai bills per call, not per minute: 30 calls for $300 a month, 90 calls for $810, 300 calls for $2,100, so $10, $9 and $7 a call. Appointment booking is $1.50 a call on top, SMS or Slack notifications 50 cents, a dedicated Spanish line $1 a call, and CRM integrations beyond the first are 50 cents a call. For 45 after-hours calls you are on the 90-call plan. Per-call pricing is the wrong model for a night shift, where a 20-second robocall and a six-minute emergency cost the same, and that is why Smith.ai ranks last among the live services here despite being the best at intake.
8. Rosie (AI): $49 for 250 minutes
Professional is $49 a month for 250 minutes, 24/7, with custom message taking for two scenarios, appointment links by text, spam detection and a website chat widget. Scale is $149 and adds booking and routing calls to the right person; Growth is $299 with backup transfer paths for high-volume shops. Two months free on annual billing. For a company whose night calls mostly need a name, an address and a promise that someone will call at 7 am, Rosie covers the whole month for the price of 25 minutes at a live service. It cannot read a panicked caller, and it will not argue with one.
9. Goodcall (AI): $79, no minutes metered
Starter is $79 a month for 100 unique callers (about 150 calls), then 79 cents per extra caller. Growth is $129 for 500 callers, Scale $299 for 2,000. Goodcall never meters minutes, so a nine-minute booking and a thirty-second wrong number cost the same, which is the opposite of the live-service math and works in your favor on long emergency intakes. Spam and wrong numbers do not count toward the caller total. Goodcall's own page puts live answering at $1.50 to $1.90 a minute, which matches what we read above.
10. Dialzara (AI): $99 for 220 minutes
Lite is $29 a month for 60 minutes at 48 cents a minute over, and Pro is $99 for 220 minutes (45 cents over). Plus is $199 for 500, Elite is $349 for 1,000, and a done-for-you tier starts at $1,500 a month. The 60-minute Lite plan is too small for 45 calls; Pro is the right size and still under half the cheapest live plan that reaches 180 minutes.
11. Jobber Receptionist (AI): $29 plus overage, on a Jobber plan
If you already run Jobber, Receptionist is a $29 a month add-on with 30 conversations included and 79 cents for each after, included free on the Plus plan. It answers, books into the Jobber calendar and texts a caller who hangs up before it picks up. Forty-five conversations is about $41 on top of your plan. The dependency is the plan underneath; Jobber pricing covers those tiers, and we are a Jobber partner, which that post discloses.
12. Skill Mammoth AI receptionist add-on: $150 a month
Ours, so read it as a vendor entry. $150 a month plus a $199 setup on the Essentials plan, $99 a month with setup waived on Growth and Authority, 200 minutes included and 40 cents a minute after. It answers after hours, books the estimate and texts you the details, and it is wired to the call tracking and missed call text back that come with the plan. Pricing is on the pricing page, and two unedited recordings of it taking real calls are on the AI phone agent page. It is not the cheapest line here; it is the one that lands the booking in the same system as your website leads.
The three that will not show a price
AnswerConnect, MAP Communications and Absent Answer route you to a quote form. Absent Answer, which ranks for this search in half the states because it has a page for each, says on its pricing page that it builds custom packages per customer. Third-party reports put AnswerConnect near $325 for 200 minutes. Quote-only pricing is defensible when implementation varies by an order of magnitude. On a product that bills in minutes, it is a negotiating position. Ask for the per-minute rate and the increment in writing before the demo.
The whole ranking on one table
Cost column assumes 45 after-hours calls, 180 minutes, one month. Published prices as of October 26, 2026.
| Service | Entry price | How it bills | Cost at 45 calls | Dispatches? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Specialty Answering Service | $44 plus $1.54 a minute | Per minute, 1-second increments | $269 (220-minute plan) | Yes, patching billed per minute |
| ReceptionHQ | $25 plus $1.99 a call | Per call | About $115 | Transfers from the $35 plan |
| PATLive | $49 plus $2.99 a minute | Per minute | $349 (200-minute plan) | Yes, emergency dispatch on every plan |
| Posh | $65 plus $2.30 a minute | Per minute | $420 (200-minute plan) | Yes |
| Abby Connect | $164 for 50 minutes | Per minute | $599 (200 minutes) | Yes |
| Ruby | $250 for 50 minutes | Per minute | $720 (200 minutes) | Yes |
| Smith.ai | $300 for 30 calls | Per call | $810 (90-call plan) | Yes, booking $1.50 a call extra |
| Rosie (AI) | $49 for 250 minutes | Flat | $49 | Routes calls on the $149 plan |
| Goodcall (AI) | $79 for 100 callers | Per unique caller | $79 | Transfers, no minutes metered |
| Dialzara (AI) | $29 for 60 minutes | Per minute | $99 (220-minute plan) | Transfers |
| Jobber Receptionist (AI) | $29 for 30 conversations | Per conversation | About $41 plus a Jobber plan | Books into Jobber |
| Skill Mammoth add-on (AI) | $150, 200 minutes, $199 setup | Per minute over 200 | $150 ($99 on Growth and up) | Books the estimate, texts you |
| Verdict | Live: Specialty or ReceptionHQ; AI: Rosie or Goodcall | |||
For live answering, pick Specialty if you need real conversations and ReceptionHQ if a message is enough. For AI, Rosie wins on price and Goodcall handles long emergency intakes. Skip per-call live pricing for a night shift.
Not sure how many calls you are actually missing?
We will pull your call data and tell you what after-hours is costing you before you sign with anyone. No charge for the look.
Per minute or per call, after dark
The billing unit matters more at night than during the day, because the call mix is different. Daytime calls include suppliers, schedulers and people confirming appointments. Night calls skew to two extremes: a genuine emergency that takes six minutes to qualify, or a wrong number that takes twenty seconds. Per-call pricing charges the same for both. At ReceptionHQ's $1.99 that hardly matters; at Smith.ai's $9 a call, every robocall that reaches a human is a line item. Per-minute pricing charges the wrong number at twenty seconds and the emergency at six minutes, which is right both times. Ask whether the vendor bills in one-second, six-second or one-minute increments, and whether hold and transfer time count. Specialty bills by the second; most round up to the minute, and that alone moves the bill about 20 percent.
Three things to settle before you sign
An answering service is a switchboard with a script. Every bad experience we have seen traces back to one of these being undefined.
Who is on call, and on what rotation. If your rotation is "whoever picks up," you will pay a service to leave voicemails on three phones at 2 am. Write the rotation down, give the service the escalation order, and give it a fallback number that always answers.
What counts as an emergency at your company. No heat in January is not a dripping faucet, and the operator has no way to know your threshold. Give three or four concrete examples in each bucket.
Who quotes the after-hours rate. Someone has to tell the caller that a 1 am visit carries a premium. If the operator does it, they need the number and the exact wording. If the tech does it at the door, you eat cancellations.
What voicemail actually costs
Work the other side of the ledger. Take the five-truck company: 45 after-hours calls a month, a $450 average ticket, and a 45 percent close rate on calls booked live.
in monthly revenue sitting in 45 unanswered after-hours calls at a $450 ticket
Roughly 20 of those 45 calls should become jobs. Against that, a $49 to $349 monthly bill is not a close decision. It only gets interesting below about a $150 ticket, where one job's margin stops covering a meaningful share of the subscription. A carpet cleaner at $180 a job and a commercial mechanical contractor at $4,000 a call are not making the same purchase. One caution: the arithmetic holds only if the calls answered at night get worked in the morning. A booked slot nobody confirms becomes a no-show, which is the same lost job with a bill attached. Our lead follow-up guide covers the confirmation step that protects the number above. Our own client data puts recovered after-hours calls at 40 to 60 percent when a text goes out within a minute, so even the free backstop earns part of that $9,100.
Three to skip
Offshore services priced under a dollar a minute. The saving is real and so is the reason for it. Home service calls turn on local knowledge, and a caller who repeats their street name twice has already decided about you.
Any plan where appointment booking is an add-on you did not price. Smith.ai lists it at $1.50 a call on top of the per-call rate. If booking is the reason you are buying, put it in the comparison before you sign.
A 24/7 contract when you need nights and weekends. The coverage window is negotiable at almost every vendor on this page, and nobody volunteers it. Specialty, PATLive, Posh and the AI tools all let you forward only after hours, which is the cheapest version of every plan above.
Where this fits with the rest of the phone
The live-versus-AI decision in full, with what each one misses, is in answering service for contractors. The plumbing triage script and per-call math are in plumbing answering service, and the heat-wave problem that breaks every minute plan is in HVAC answering service. If the office is already answering well during the day, start with the free backstop, missed call text back, and the broader AI tool roundup is AI receptionist for small business.
We build the follow-up, not just the phone answer
Answering the call is step one. Booking it, confirming it by text and getting it onto the real dispatch board is where the job happens. Essentials is $350 a month with call tracking and missed call text back included; the receptionist add-on is $150.
Frequently asked questions
How much does an after-hours answering service cost?
Between $115 and $420 a month for a trade company handling 45 after-hours calls, based on prices read October 26, 2026. ReceptionHQ is the cheapest live option at $25 a month plus $1.99 a call. Specialty Answering Service is $44 plus $1.54 a minute or $269 for 220 minutes. PATLive is $349 for 200 minutes. An AI receptionist covers the same hours from $49 at Rosie or $79 at Goodcall.
What is the best after-hours answering service for contractors?
Specialty Answering Service for live conversations: published per-minute rates from $1.54, one-second billing, no setup fee and no contract. ReceptionHQ if message taking is enough, at $25 plus $1.99 a call. Rosie or Goodcall if an AI that books and texts the caller is acceptable, at $49 to $79 a month.
Can I buy nights and weekends only, instead of 24/7?
Yes, and you usually should. Forward the line to the service only outside office hours; Specialty, PATLive, Posh and every AI tool support it. If your office already answers well from eight to five, paying a live service to sit behind those hours duplicates work you already do.
Is per-minute or per-call billing better for after-hours?
Per minute. Night calls split between six-minute emergencies and twenty-second wrong numbers, and per-call pricing charges the same for both. Ask whether the vendor bills in one-second, six-second or one-minute increments and whether hold time counts; those two answers move the bill by about 20 percent.
Does Google charge me for missed after-hours calls on Local Services Ads?
No. Since October 1, 2026, Google charges for a missed call during your business hours when the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds. Calls outside the hours on your Google Business Profile are not charged. The daytime leak is the expensive one now.
Will an answering service wake up my technician?
Only if you tell it who and when. The service follows the escalation list you give it, so an undefined on-call rotation produces either nobody reached or everybody called. Write the rotation down, set the order, and give them a fallback number that always answers.
Should I use an AI receptionist instead after hours?
For overnight coverage the case is strong. An AI answers on the first ring at 3 am with no shift premium, and Rosie is $49 a month for 250 minutes against $269 for the comparable live plan. The trade is angry callers and anything needing judgment. The live-versus-AI comparison is in answering service for contractors.
Does Jobber or Housecall Pro answer calls after hours?
Jobber sells Receptionist, an AI add-on at $29 a month with 30 conversations, included on Plus, that answers and books into the Jobber calendar. Housecall Pro includes a missed-call text automation in its Voice settings rather than live answering. The Jobber pricing breakdown covers where the add-on sits against the plan tiers.