The software is $49 a month. Getting it to work is the part nobody prices.

Tuesday night, 9:40, you start a Rosie trial on your phone. The sign-up takes four minutes. Then it is time to forward your business line to it when you do not answer, and that takes a code from your carrier. You search for the code, find three different answers, and decide to do it Saturday. Saturday you are on a job. The trial is seven days. On day eight the calls still go to voicemail, and you have one more login you will never use.

That is how most of this software fails. The tool works. Nobody finished turning it on.

The monthly price is the number everyone compares, and it is the small one. Rosie starts at $49 a month. OpenPhone is $19 a user. Jobber Receptionist is $29 on top of the plan. The real cost is the dozen decisions between the sign-up screen and the first call that gets answered the way you would have answered it.

Setup is a list of decisions, not a download

Here is what has to be true before a missed call turns into a booked job instead of a voicemail you return at 8 p.m.:

• Which number rings first, how many rings before it forwards, and whether your carrier forwards on busy, on no answer, or both.
• What the text-back says, and whether it can be sent at all. Business texting needs carrier registration. On OpenPhone that is $19.50 plus $1.50 to $3 a month.
• What the AI receptionist is allowed to promise. A price range, a window, a callback, or nothing but “we got it.”
• Which calls go to a person right now. A burst pipe at 2 a.m. is not a booking link.
• Where the note lands. Your phone, your email, or the job board in Jobber or Housecall Pro. A note you never see is the same as a voicemail.
• What happens when you run past the plan. Rosie upgrades you when you go over minutes. On Smith.ai Human Starter, call 31 is $11.50.

None of these are hard. All of them are fiddly, they live in three different admin screens, and getting one wrong means the system looks on and does nothing. Most owners find out it was wrong from a customer.

Most of picking is ruling things out

The missed-call text-back and AI receptionist aisles have dozens of tools. You do not need to compare dozens. You need to know what you already pay for and what you cannot change. If you want the full list of questions, how to choose an AI answering service has it, and the Jobber and Housecall Pro phone stack covers pairing a receptionist with the job software you run.

If you are on Jobber, Receptionist is $29 a month for 30 conversations, then $0.79 each. That may be the whole answer, and you already have the login. If your number is on the truck, the van wrap, and your Google profile, you do not port it to try something. You forward it. If you have OpenPhone, auto-replies on missed calls are on every paid plan, but it is a one-way template with a three-hour cooldown, so it texts back and stops there. Sendblue gets you iMessage at $100 a line and better replies, but it is an API, not a box that fires when the line goes to voicemail.

Reviews follow the same logic. Housecall Pro already sends review asks on every plan. Jobber puts reviews in its $99 Marketing Suite. If neither fits, NiceJob is $75 a month. Buying a review tool on top of a system that already sends the text means two texts to the same customer.

That is what a good install starts with: a list of what you can skip.

What we actually do in five business days

The installs we run are flat rate and remote, anywhere in the US. The steps are the same every time.

First, a 30-minute fit call. We look at your call volume and how you miss calls, and we tell you which setup pays for itself. Sometimes the answer is none, or it is a setting in software you already have, and we say so on the call.

Then we pick the tools from the ones we review here, matched to your phone system, your job software, and your budget. We set them up, connect them, and test them with real calls before anything goes live. Your part is approving the greeting. At the end your team gets a 20-minute walkthrough.

Missed-Call Recovery is $1,500 one time, covering text-back, an AI receptionist that answers and qualifies, and a booking link on your calendar. Review Engine is $1,250. Full Front Desk, both of those plus website chat and one inbox for calls, texts, and chat, is $3,500. Each has a $99 a month care plan, and it is optional. If you skip it, you get every login and a written runbook.

Software is separate and usually runs $75 to $400 a month. You pay the vendor directly. We do not mark it up and we do not sit between you and the bill.

If you already pay a marketing agency for leads, this sits after their work, not in place of it. They get the phone to ring. The install makes sure the ring turns into a job.

When you should do it yourself

Pay for an install when your time is the bottleneck and the misses are costing you real jobs. Do not pay for one when the fix is a toggle.

If you are on Jobber and you miss a few calls a week, turn on Receptionist yourself this afternoon. If you have OpenPhone and you only need a polite text when you are on a ladder, turn on auto-replies and write the message. If you miss two calls a month, you do not have a missed-call problem yet, and no package changes that.

The test is simple. If you have started a trial, stalled at the forwarding step, and let it lapse, the problem was never the software.

Before you book anything

1. Count two weeks of missed calls from your phone log. Note the hour and the day for each one.
2. Call your own business number after hours from a cell phone. Write down exactly what a customer hears and gets.
3. List what you already pay for that touches the phone or reviews: your carrier, Jobber or Housecall Pro, any texting app, any answering plan.
4. Write the three call types that need a person right away. Everything else can wait for a note.
5. Pick a monthly ceiling for software and overages, and hold any plan to it at the per-call or per-minute rate, not the headline.

Bring that list to a fit call and it takes 30 minutes. Do it yourself and you will at least know which toggle to flip. If you would rather never open a carrier forwarding menu again, see what the installs cover or email support@counterandcrew.com.