Frequently Asked Questions

Every trades business owner knows the feeling: the phone rings while you are on a job, under a sink, or driving between sites, and you watch that call disappear to voicemail. That caller will not wait. They will call the next contractor on the list.

Answering Now solves that. When you cannot answer, our AI agent picks up immediately, greets the caller by your business name, handles their questions, captures their contact information, and sends you a full call summary by email within seconds of the call ending. If you opt in during onboarding, you also receive a text message. Your customer gets answered. You get the lead. Nobody goes to your competitor.

Wayne Turner, one person in Boone, Iowa, built this specifically for trades businesses because the generic answering services do not understand your work. This one does.

You are probably wondering whether your customers will hear a robot and think you have gone cheap or impersonal. Here is what actually happens.

A caller dials your business number. Your agent picks up and greets them by your business name. It does not announce itself as automated, does not say "Press 1 for..." and does not sound like a phone tree. It listens, asks follow-up questions when needed, and answers common questions using a knowledge base built specifically for your business and your trade. If a caller needs to reach you directly, the agent tells them the owner will be in touch shortly and makes sure their name and number are captured in the summary headed to your phone.

After every call, you receive a structured email summary: caller name, phone number, reason for calling, urgency level, and any details they shared. That summary arrives within seconds of the call ending, so you can call back before they dial your competitor.

Yes, if you opt in. By default, every call generates an email summary within 60 seconds. If you also want SMS text alerts on your phone, check the SMS box during onboarding and provide a mobile number that can receive texts.

Texts arrive from "AN Notifications" at +1 (515) 500-2903, our Twilio A2P-registered sender. Standard message and data rates apply. Reply STOP at any time to unsubscribe, or HELP for help. You can switch to email-only anytime by emailing wayne@answering.now.

SMS notifications are optional. Skip the checkbox at onboarding and you receive email notifications only, which is plenty for most owners.

No. You keep your existing business phone number and your customers keep calling it exactly as they always have.

Here is how it works: during onboarding, Wayne provides you with a dedicated Answering Now forwarding number. You set up conditional call forwarding on your own carrier so that when you do not answer, calls route to that number and reach your AI agent. This takes about two minutes in your carrier's online portal or phone settings -- Wayne walks you through it. Your business number never changes, your customers never see a different number, and you stay in complete control of when the agent picks up.

Here is the honest answer about how this works. Most trades owners use conditional call forwarding -- when you cannot answer, your carrier forwards the call to your Answering Now number. That means your line is already busy or unavailable when AN picks up. Transferring back to that same number would just loop or go to voicemail.

So instead, your agent tells the caller: "The owner is unavailable right now, but I'm making sure they get your name and number immediately." Within seconds of that call ending, you receive a structured summary with everything the caller said. You call them back from the job site, knowing exactly who it is and why they called -- before they have a chance to dial your competitor. That callback, made from a position of full information, is a stronger closer than a blind transfer to a phone that is not being answered.

During onboarding, you spend about 10 minutes in a wizard answering questions about your services, hours, service area, and the calls you get most often. Wayne uses that information to build a custom knowledge base for your business. He also applies pre-built templates for your specific trade, so your agent delivers accurate answers from day one rather than learning from scratch on live calls.

After your agent goes live, Wayne personally reviews the questions it could not answer and updates your knowledge base so it handles those calls correctly going forward. That ongoing maintenance is included in every plan at no extra charge.

We have pre-built knowledge bases and call handling templates for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, landscaping, general contracting, pest control, cleaning services, auto repair, property management, and house painting. If your trade is not on this list, we can still build a custom agent for you. The AI platform handles any type of phone-based customer interaction.

All plans include free onboarding, agent setup, and knowledge base configuration. There are no long-term contracts. Cancel anytime with one email.

Starter ($149/month) works for solo trades operators with one mobile line who lose leads to voicemail. The 250 included minutes cover roughly 60 to 80 calls per month at typical 3 to 4 minute trades calls. You get a trade-specific AI agent, email summary within 60 seconds of every call, voicemail transcription, and 24/7/365 coverage. 30-day free trial included, no card required.

Complete ($299/month) suits established trades shops with 2 to 5 employees and one or two locations, generating 10 to 20 leads per week. You get everything in Starter plus custom greeting and on-hold messaging, Cal.com appointment booking during the call, lead scoring on every call summary, structured quote intake, same-day prompt updates, and 3 forwarding numbers. 600 included minutes.

Enterprise ($549/month) supports multi-truck operations, multi-location shops, multi-trade businesses, or storm-season scale with 5 or more employees. Everything in Complete plus multi-agent capability (different conversation logic per phone number), dispatch platform integration (Jobber, Housecall Pro), bilingual Spanish and English agent, multi-location support, quarterly business review call, and 5 forwarding numbers. 1,200 included minutes.

A minute counts only while your AI agent is actively handling a call. If a caller hangs up after 45 seconds, that counts as less than one minute. Hold time and transfer time are not counted against your included minutes. We track usage down to the second and report it in whole minutes for billing.

Your agent keeps answering calls. We never cut off your service mid-month. Overage minutes are billed at a per-minute rate based on your plan: $0.50/min for Starter, $0.45/min for Complete, and $0.40/min for Enterprise. If you consistently go over, upgrading to the next tier usually saves you money.

Yes. Every plan starts with a 30-day free trial. No credit card required to start. Your custom agent goes live within 24 hours of our first call and handles real incoming calls just as it would on day 365. You hear exactly what your customers hear. If anything sounds off, email Wayne and he will adjust it.

On day 31 we have a brief conversation. If the agent caught you a missed-call job and you want to keep going, you stay on for $149/month. If it didn't earn its keep, we shake hands, you keep the call recordings, and you walk away. No cancellation fee, no contract, no pressure.

This is intentional: I am one person in Boone, Iowa, and I want every customer to be there because the service is genuinely working for them, not because they forgot to cancel.

Yes. We are actively building new capabilities such as a verbal onboarding agent (phone-based intake that walks new customers through setup by voice), in-call phone payment processing for paying customers, a dedicated support line for existing customers, call analytics reporting, and custom integrations with tools your business already uses. As these features launch, we will add them to the appropriate plan tiers and update this page. Existing subscribers on any plan will receive new features included in their tier at no additional cost.

Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Plan changes take effect at the start of your next billing cycle. If you upgrade mid-cycle, we prorate the difference so you only pay for the days remaining at the new rate.

Most agents go live within 24 hours of your discovery call. After you sign up for the free trial at /offer, Wayne calls you for a short conversation (about 15 minutes) covering your business, your services, and the calls you get most often. From there, Wayne builds your custom agent, configures your knowledge base, and runs a full round of test calls to confirm everything works correctly before your agent touches a real caller. Once it passes, Wayne sends you the forwarding number and you are live. See exactly what we ask during setup.

After you sign up for the free trial at /offer, Wayne calls you for a short discovery conversation (about 15 minutes) covering your business name, hours, services, service area, and the questions your customers ask most often. Want to get a head start? See exactly what we ask.

Wayne uses that information to build your custom agent and knowledge base. He runs a full round of test calls to confirm the agent handles your specific business correctly before anything goes live. Once the agent is ready, Wayne sends you the dedicated forwarding number along with simple instructions for setting up conditional call forwarding on your carrier. That forwarding step takes about two minutes on your end. Once you complete it, your agent is live and answering calls for the next 30 days at no cost. On day 31, you decide whether to continue at your chosen plan tier.

Wayne Turner, the founder, personally builds and maintains every agent. This is not a self-service platform where you configure a bot yourself and hope it works. You describe your business. Wayne handles every part of the technical setup, runs test calls, and keeps your knowledge base current.

When you email wayne@answering.now, Wayne reads it and responds. When your agent cannot answer a caller's question, Wayne updates your knowledge base so it handles that call correctly going forward. You are not buying access to a dashboard. You are working directly with the person who built the service and whose reputation depends on it working well for you.

After your free trial converts on day 31, your plan is billed monthly through Stripe, a secure payment processor. Stripe handles all payment processing, and we never store your credit card information on our servers. If you use more than your included minutes in a given month, Wayne sends a separate invoice for the overage at the rate listed in your plan. There are no surprise charges; you always see what you owe before you pay it.

Send one email to wayne@answering.now or call (515) 349-7229. There are no cancellation fees, no long-term contracts, and no hoops to jump through. Your service continues through the end of your current billing cycle.

Yes. All data transmission uses encrypted connections (TLS/SSL). Call summaries are stored in a secure cloud database with access controls. Payment information is processed by Stripe and never touches our servers. For full details, read our Privacy Policy.

All calls are recorded so the AI can generate accurate summaries. This is how the service works -- without the recording, there is no summary. Callers are informed of recording at the start of each call. Recorded audio is stored securely and retained according to our Privacy Policy.