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What missed calls cost your shop

A missed call costs you the gross profit of the job it would have booked. A plumber taking 150 new-customer calls a month, with a quarter of them after hours going to voicemail and 14% of daytime calls unanswered, misses about 53 calls, loses about 17 booked jobs and about $6,400 in gross profit a month on the first job.1,2,3 Put in your calls to see yours.

By Neil, founder of Isoline Growth. Wharton MBA, published marketing research.Updated
Check your missed callsBook a 15-minute call
14%of calls to home services businesses were missed, across 1.1 million leads.CallRail, Jan 20253
52%of callers to home services businesses reach a person. Invoca counts voicemail and menus as not reached.Invoca benchmarks, 20264
9%of calls after 6 p.m. were booked by small shops, across trades.ServiceTitan, June 20222
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Missed Call Check

Your missed calls, in booked jobs and gross profit

Pick your trade and put in last month's calls. The math runs in your browser. Your numbers stay with you unless you email yourself the link.

isolinegrowth.com/tools/missed-call-calculator/ · printed

1. Your trade

After-hours calls are valued as emergency plumber calls: $801 on the first job, $411 gross profit. Daytime calls use our plumbing blend: $567, $282 gross profit.

2. Your calls last month

Count calls from people who aren't customers yet. Leave out spam, wrong numbers, sales calls and existing customers. Your call tracking or phone system log has the total; Local Services Ads shows its own leads. After hours means outside the hours someone answers. 25% is our assumption; check your phone log.

14% is the home services missed-call rate in CallRail's report on 1.1 million leads (January 2025). Win-back is the share of missed callers you reach again and book with a callback or text; 25% is our assumption. CallRail says up to 85% of callers who go unanswered won't call back on their own.

The share not reached for each choice is our assumption. Use your own if you track it.

3. Booking

ServiceTitan's June 2022 plumbing average: 43% of calls booked. Shops with fewer than 5 techs booked 24%; shops with 25 or more booked 59%.

Advanced: what a booked call is worth

Defaults come from our trade value model: the jobs each search usually turns into, at published prices. The 12-month view adds plans, replacements and repeat work sold later in the year. Your own tickets and margins will be more accurate.

Gross profit lost a month$6,401See results
Lost to missed calls, a month
$6,401

in gross profit (first job). That’s 17 booked jobs and $12,567 in revenue.

Missed calls
53
Won back
13
Booked jobs lost
17

Business hours16 missed · 5 jobs

After hours37 missed · 12 jobs

About $76,810 in gross profit a year at this pace.

The booking gap

Your answered calls book at 43%. Shops with 25 or more techs booked 59% in ServiceTitan’s June 2022 data. Closing that gap on the 97 calls you already answer is worth 15 booked jobs and $4,362 in gross profit a month.

Keep these numbers

That's real money every month. The Booked-Job Audit ($1,500) scores 20 of your recorded calls and shows where jobs slip. Start with a 15-minute call. Book a 15-minute call

What it costs to answer more of them

Cheapest and priciest published plan, among the services we checked in October 2026, whose included minutes cover the calls each option would take at your volume. Each option is assumed to answer 90% of the calls it covers that you miss today (our assumption).

Answering options at your call volume
OptionCost a monthBooked jobs backGross profit backCost per booked job backBooks onto your schedule?
AI answeringAll after-hours calls and daytime calls you miss$49 to $449160 minutes at 3 a call15$5,761$3 to $29Some plans book into field software; entry plans take a message or text a booking link
Live answering serviceAll after-hours calls and daytime calls you miss$269 to $720160 minutes at 3 a call15$5,761$17 to $47Calendar scheduling on the plans we checked; field software not listed
In-house CSRBusiness hours only$5,331Full-time, US median wage plus benefits and payroll costs5$1,288$1,166Yes, straight into your field software

Plan prices from the providers' own pricing pages (listed under Sources), taxes and fees extra; the AI phone-system add-on includes the lowest phone plan it needs ($15 a user, billed annually). A message isn't a booked job until someone calls back and schedules it, so for message-only services expect fewer jobs back than shown. An in-house CSR covers business hours only, at $5,331 a month: $21.53 an hour (BLS median, May 2025) × 2,080 hours ÷ 12, divided by 70.0% (wages' share of private-industry compensation, June 2026). Compare costs side by side in our answering service guide.

Missed calls = calls × [(1 − after-hours share) × daytime miss rate + after-hours share × after-hours miss rate]
Booked jobs lost = missed calls × (1 − won back) × booking rate
Booking gap = answered calls × (59% − your booking rate), when positive

Revenue lost = booked jobs lost × value of a booked call. Gross profit lost = revenue lost × gross margin. Daytime and after-hours calls are valued separately. Example math with your inputs, for planning only.

This counts calls that ring. Calls that never ring because you don't show on the map are a separate question. The free 49-point map scan answers it.

After-Hours Capture is our plumbing program for the night and weekend calls this tool counts.

How does the Missed Call Check work?

It splits your new-customer calls into business hours and after hours, because they get missed for different reasons and are often worth different amounts. Daytime calls are missed when the office is on another line or the tech is under a sink. After-hours calls are missed when nobody's set up to take them.

Missed calls = calls × [(1 − after-hours share) × daytime miss rate + after-hours share × after-hours miss rate]

Then booked jobs lost = missed calls × (1 − callers you win back) × booking rate. Each lost job is valued at what that kind of call usually turns into, and counted in gross profit, because that's what pays for answering it.1

In the plumbing example: 150 calls, a quarter of them after hours. Every after-hours call hits voicemail and 14% of daytime calls go unanswered, so 53 calls are missed. A callback wins back a quarter. At a 43% booking rate that's about 17 booked jobs lost: 12 after hours, valued as emergency plumber calls, and 5 during the day. Revenue lost is about $12,567; gross profit about $6,401.1,2

The tool counts answering and booking separately. Calls you answer but don't book show up in the booking gap: your answered calls times the difference between your booking rate and the 59% that shops with 25 or more techs booked in ServiceTitan's June 2022 data.2 When that line is bigger than the missed-call line, work on the booking first.

Where do the defaults come from?

TradeDaytime call, first job / 12 monthsAfter-hours call, first job / 12 monthsBooking rate
Plumbing$567 / $613Plumbing blend; GP $282 / $307$801 / $846Emergency plumber; GP $411 / $43643%
HVAC$1,250 / $1,478HVAC blend; GP $580 / $675$1,278 / $1,518Emergency HVAC; GP $620 / $72038%*
Garage door$623 / $693Spring calls; GP $290 / $315$623 / $693Spring calls; GP $290 / $31531%*
Pest control$179 / $404General pest; GP $98 / $222$179 / $404General pest; GP $98 / $22242%*

Value of one booked call, base case, Isoline trade value model v1.0, October 2026 (GP = gross profit).1 Booking rates: ServiceTitan, June 2022.2 *HVAC's 38% covers all calls in June, a peak month; garage door's 31% is garage door and water treatment combined; pest uses the 42% all-trades average because ServiceTitan doesn't report pest separately.

  • Plumbing splits the two: after-hours calls are valued as emergency plumber calls (burst pipes, backups, failed water heaters), daytime calls as the trade blend, which is mostly repairs and drain clears.1
  • HVAC daytime calls use the trade blend, where about 4% of repair calls end in a replacement. If most of your daytime calls are people asking about a new system, tick the replacement box: a booked replacement inquiry averages $3,955 once estimates that don't close are counted.1
  • Garage door calls are valued as spring calls, the most common urgent repair: $623 on the first job.1
  • Pest control defaults to 12 months, because about half of general pest calls start a quarterly plan in our model (an assumption). The first visit alone is $179.1

The other defaults are assumptions, labeled in the tool: 25% of calls after hours, how often each after-hours setup misses a caller, and a 25% callback win-back. The 14% daytime miss rate is CallRail's home services figure across all calls in its January 2025 report.3 Replace each with your own numbers from your phone log.

What does it cost to answer the calls you miss?

The options table prices three ways to catch more calls at your volume: an AI answering service, a live answering service and an in-house CSR. Prices are the published plans we found in October 2026; the table picks the cheapest and priciest plan that covers your minutes, at 3 minutes a call (our assumption).5,6,7,8,9,10 An in-house CSR costs about $5,331 a month at the US median wage of $21.53 an hour, plus benefits and payroll costs (wages are 70% of total compensation), and covers business hours only.11,12

Two checks matter more than price. Can the option put a job on your schedule, or does it only take a message? And does it hand off emergencies to your on-call tech by your rules? Our guide to answering services for HVAC and plumbing covers both, with triage scripts by trade.

Do missed calls cost money on Google too?

On Local Services Ads, yes. Since October 1, 2026, Google charges for a missed call placed during business hours when the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds, according to Google's email to advertisers.13,14 If your line has a menu, the 20 seconds start after the caller presses a key. So a missed LSA call can cost you the lead fee and the job.

Hours matter on the free map too. In Whitespark's survey of local search experts, whether a business is open at the time of the search ranked fifth among map ranking factors.15 Set hours that match when someone actually answers.

Questions owners ask

How many calls does a typical home service company miss?

CallRail's January 2025 report put the home services missed-call rate at 14% across 1.1 million leads.3 Invoca's 2026 benchmarks found 52% of callers to home services businesses spoke with a person.4 They measure different things (Invoca counts callers who reached a person, so menus and voicemail fall outside it), and your own phone log beats both.

Why gross profit and not revenue?

Because answering costs come out of profit. An $801 emergency plumbing job leaves about $411 in gross profit in our trade value model; that's the number to weigh against an answering service's monthly bill.1

What counts as a missed call?

Any new-customer call nobody picked up live: rang out, went to voicemail, or hung up while waiting. Leave out spam, wrong numbers and existing customers before you count.

Does a callback fix it?

Some of it. The tool assumes you win back a quarter of missed callers with a callback or text; change it to yours. CallRail says up to 85% of callers whose calls go unanswered won't call back on their own, so the callback has to come from you, fast.3

Does this calculator save what I type?

No. The math runs in your browser and your numbers aren't sent to us. The copy-link button copies a link that holds your numbers, so you can share them. If you email yourself the link, it comes to us so we can send it.

Sources

Defaults: the value of a booked call from our trade value model (v1.0, October 2026, base case: the jobs each search usually turns into, priced from published cost guides and platform data, with job-mix shares and several margins labeled as assumptions)1; booking rates from ServiceTitan platform data for June 2022 (more than 3,000 trades businesses)2; the 14% daytime miss rate from CallRail's January 2025 report.3 After-hours share, after-hours miss rates, win-back, minutes per call and the share of calls each option catches are our assumptions. Answering plan prices were taken from each provider's own pricing page on October 19, 2026; taxes and fees are extra. The CSR cost uses the BLS May 2025 median wage and the June 2026 wage share of private-industry compensation.11,12 Vendors are named in the sources only.

  1. What a booked call is worth, by trade (Isoline trade value model v1.0: job mix per search, Charlotte-area search weights, sourced tickets and margins). Isoline Growth, Oct 2026. www.isolinegrowth.com/tools/cost-per-booked-job/#value
  2. Call booking rates: data from 3,000+ trades businesses. ServiceTitan, Oct 2022. www.servicetitan.com/blog/data-call-booking-rates
  3. CallRail releases report benchmarking marketing efforts for small businesses (1.1 million leads; home services missed-call rate 14%). CallRail via Business Wire, Jan 14, 2025. www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250114793850/en/CallRail-Releases-Report-Benchmarking-Marketing-Efforts-for-Small-Businesses
  4. Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report 2026. Invoca, Jul 2026. invoca.com/reports/the-invoca-home-services-lead-conversion-benchmarks-report-2026
  5. Pricing: live call answering plans ($99 for 50 minutes to $6,899 for 5,000). PATLive, page updated Oct 12, 2026. www.patlive.com/pricing/
  6. Plans and pricing: virtual receptionist ($250 for 50 minutes to $1,725 for 500). Ruby, page updated Mar 18, 2026. ruby.com/pricing
  7. Compare answering service rates (per-minute plans from $1.54 to $1.09 a minute; 100 minutes $159, 220 minutes $269). Specialty Answering Service, accessed Oct 19, 2026. www.specialtyansweringservice.net/compare-answering-service-rates
  8. Pricing: AI answering plans ($49 for 250 minutes to $299 for 2,000). Rosie, accessed Oct 19, 2026. heyrosie.com/pricing
  9. Pricing: AI answering plans with scheduling into field software ($449 and $789 a month). Sameday AI, accessed Oct 19, 2026. sameday.ai/pricing
  10. Quo pricing (phone plans from $15 a user, billed annually; AI agent add-on from $25 for 40 calls). Quo, updated Oct 5, 2026. www.quo.com/blog/quo-pricing/
  11. Customer service representatives: pay (median $21.53 an hour, May 2025). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, accessed Oct 19, 2026. www.bls.gov/ooh/office-and-administrative-support/customer-service-representatives.htm
  12. Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (private industry: wages and salaries 70.0% of compensation). U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Sep 9, 2026. www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/ecec_09092026.htm
  13. Google to charge for missed and subsequent calls on Local Services Ads (Google's email to advertisers). Search Engine Roundtable, Aug 25, 2026. seroundtable.com/google-lsa-missed-subsequent-calls-41940.html
  14. How leads work. Google Local Services Ads Help, accessed Oct 2026. support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435?hl=en
  15. Local Search Ranking Factors 2026. Whitespark, 2026. whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors/
Trades
HVACReplacement targeting by neighborhoodPlumbingEmergency and after-hours callsPest controlRecurring plans inside your routesGarage doorReal companies vs. fake listings

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