AI phone answering · San Diego · Contractors & trades

AI phone answering service in San Diego — $500 a month

The phone rings.
Somebody answers.

While you are on a roof, under a sink or asleep, it picks up, finds out what the caller needs, books the estimate or gets the emergency to you, and texts you what happened.

What it is

An AI receptionist set up around your business

Our AI Phone Assistant answers your business line 24/7 and sounds like a person. It asks the questions you would ask, sorts the caller into emergency, estimate or neither, sends emergencies to you by the rules you set, books estimates into your calendar, and texts you a summary of every call. No missed calls. No after-hours voicemails that never get returned.

What it costs

$500 a month, add-on

$500 a month, added to any Haymaker monthly plan: Local SEO Starter, Google Ads management, or the Foundation, Growth and Dominate packages. Month-to-month, no minimum term. Cancel before the next billing date and that month is the last one billed. 750 minutes of calls a month are included; past that, extra minutes are $0.50 each. Every price is on one page.

One price. No contract. Cancel by the next bill.

Who it is for

Anyone who misses calls on the job

San Diego County contractors first — plumbing, HVAC, roofing, electrical — where the call comes while your hands are full or after the office has closed, and the caller dials the next name if nobody picks up. Then clinics, shops and any small business whose phone rings when nobody can get to it.

Marketing: San Diego County. Custom builds: anywhere in the US, delivered remotely.

How it starts

A kickoff call, test calls, then live

It starts with a kickoff call where we write down how you answer the phone today: your trade, your service area, what counts as an emergency, when you book estimates. We build the script and the rules from that, you make test calls yourself until it sounds right, and then it goes live. We set the go-live date with you on that call.

Book the kickoff call

$500 a month. Or get the free website audit first.

The honest comparison

Why not the
$29 one?

Field-service software now comes with an AI receptionist. If yours does the job, keep it.

Jobber lists an AI receptionist add-on at $29 a month on its pricing page (we checked on October 3, 2026). Housecall Pro offers one too, called CSR AI. If you already run your jobs on one of them, try theirs first. If it answers your calls, books the work and you trust what it tells callers, you have saved $471 a month and you do not need us for this.

Here is what the $500 pays for instead, and it is mostly people, not features:

  • Set up by a person, around you

    Not a settings page you fill in on a Sunday night. We write the script around your trade, the neighborhoods you will drive to, your emergency rules and the way your calendar actually works, then test it with you before a customer hears it.

  • Changed when your business changes

    New service, new area, new price for a service call, a tech on vacation. You tell us, we change the script.

  • The same shop that makes the phone ring

    It is an add-on to your Haymaker plan, so the shop running your map listing and your ads is the one making sure the calls they produce get answered. Paying for a click and then sending the call to voicemail throws the click away.

Example call · not a real customer

9:40 p.m.
Water on the floor.

An illustration of how one call runs for a plumber whose rules we have set up. The business, the caller and the times are made up. Your script and rules would be your own.

  1. 01 / Answer

    Answered, with your name

    A homeowner in Clairemont calls Marrow Creek Plumbing at 9:40 on a Tuesday night. The office closed at five. The assistant answers with the business name and asks how it can help. The water heater in the garage is leaking.

  2. 02 / Qualify

    The questions you would ask

    Is water still coming out, or is it a slow drip? Gas or electric? Can they get to the shut-off? What is the address? It checks that Clairemont is inside the service area, and takes a name and a call-back number.

  3. 03 / Route or book

    Your rules decide

    This owner's rule: water still running after hours is an emergency, and goes straight to the person on call. A slow drip is not; it gets the first estimate slot the next morning, booked into the calendar while the caller is still on the line.

  4. 04 / Summary

    A text, not a voicemail

    The owner gets a text: who called, where, what is wrong, what the caller was told, and what happens next. No voicemail to decode at 6 a.m. with no number to call back.

Example summary text

9:41 PM · New call · Clairemont 92117
Water heater leaking in garage, gas, water still running. Caller has not found the shut-off.
EMERGENCY per your rules · sent to on-call.
Call-back number saved. Caller told: someone will call within your emergency window.

The objection

Will customers
hate a robot?

Some will. Compare it to what they get now.

  • Some callers will not like it

    That is true and we will not pretend otherwise. It sounds like a person, but some people want a person, and a few will hang up. You are not choosing between the assistant and you picking up on the second ring.

  • The real alternative is voicemail at 9 p.m.

    You are choosing between the assistant and a voicemail greeting, or a phone that rings out while you are on a ladder. A caller with water on the floor does not leave a message and wait. They call the next plumber on the list.

  • It hands off what it should not handle

    Emergencies, angry customers, a question about a bill, anything outside the script: you decide what goes to a human, and it goes to you. It is not there to argue with your customers. It is there so nobody hears a dead line.

  • You read every call, you change the script

    Every call ends in a summary text, so you see what it said and how callers reacted. If a question lands wrong or a caller got the wrong idea, tell us and we change the script. It gets more like you the longer it runs.

By trade

AI appointment setter
for contractors

AI phone answering for contractors is mostly two jobs: get the emergency to a human fast, and put the estimate on the calendar before the caller hangs up. Each trade sets those rules differently.

Plumbing

Active water is the line

Burst pipe, sewage backing up, a water heater emptying into the garage: those go to you, any hour. Drains, fixtures and quotes on a repipe get booked as estimates.

HVAC

No heat, no cool, who is home

An AC that quits during a September heat wave with an elderly parent in the house is a different call from a tune-up. Your rules say which is which; replacement quotes go on the calendar.

Roofing

Leak now or roof later

Water coming through a ceiling in the first storm of the season is a tarp call. Everything else is an inspection, and the assistant asks the things you need first: tile or shingle, one story or two, roughly how old.

Electrical

Safety first, then the panel

Burning smell, sparking outlet, power out to half the house: the script you approve tells the caller what to do while it gets you on the line. Panel upgrades and EV chargers are booked as estimates.

Clinics

The front desk at lunch

Hours, directions, new-patient questions and appointment requests, answered while the front desk is with someone in person. Anything clinical goes to staff, by your rules.

Shops & everyone else

The same questions all day

Are you open, do you have it, how much, can I book. If your phone rings with the same five questions while you are serving the customer in front of you, it takes those calls and texts you the ones that need you.

What it costs · how it is set up

Is it worth
$500 a month?

Do the math on your own jobs, not ours.

The break-even

One job a month

For most trades, one booked job a month that would otherwise have gone to voicemail covers it. That is reasoning, not a promise: we have no client results to show you yet. Look at what an average job is worth to you, then at how many calls you missed last month.

The terms

Add-on, month-to-month

$500 a month on top of any monthly plan, with 750 minutes of calls included and $0.50 a minute after that. No minimum term, no exit fee. Cancel with notice before the next billing date and that month is the last one billed. The $750 profile setup and the $3,500 website build are one-time products, not monthly plans.

  1. 01 / Kickoff call

    We go through how calls come in today: who answers, what callers ask, what you charge for a service call, which areas you cover, and when you will get out of bed.

  2. 02 / The script

    We write what it says and what it asks, in your words. You read it and correct anything that is wrong about your trade.

  3. 03 / The rules

    What counts as an emergency and who gets it. Which zip codes are in. What it can book, when, and how long each estimate takes. What it must never promise.

  4. 04 / Test calls

    You call it. Your office manager calls it. Pretend to be the worst caller you had last year. We fix what comes out wrong before a customer ever hears it.

  5. 05 / Go live

    Your calls start reaching it on the date and for the hours we agreed on the kickoff call. You get the first summaries the same day.

  6. 06 / Tune it

    You read the summaries. When something should change, you tell us and we change the script.

Proof, honestly

No reviews
yet. On purpose.

We are a new shop. We will not show you call counts or client quotes we do not have.

  • Hear it before a customer does

    There is no demo line to call. The test is yours: during setup you call your own assistant as many times as you like before it goes live, and if it does not sound right to you, it does not go live.

  • Month-to-month is the guarantee

    No minimum term. If it is not earning its $500, cancel before the next bill and stop paying. We would rather keep you by being worth it.

  • First cohort, ten spots

    We are taking a first cohort of ten clients across our monthly plans. Start any monthly plan in the first cohort and the $750 Google Business Profile setup is on us (ten seats or March 31, 2027). Results get shown anonymized — trade and area, numbers only, never a business name. New shop. No fake reviews. Est. 2026.

Questions owners ask

Straight
answers.

Does it sound like a robot?
It is built to sound like a person: a natural voice, short answers, your business name. Some callers will still notice, and some will want a human. You decide what it hands to you, you read a summary of every call, and if something it says lands wrong, we change the script. During setup you make test calls yourself until it sounds right to you.
Can it book into my calendar?
Yes. Live calendar booking is part of it: the caller picks an open estimate slot and it goes on your calendar while they are still on the line, and you get the summary by text. Which calendar you use, which slots it may book and how long each estimate takes, we set up with you on the kickoff call.
What happens with emergencies?
You decide what counts as an emergency — active water, no heat, a burning smell, whatever it is in your trade — and who gets it at which hours. When a call matches, it routes the caller to you or whoever is on call instead of booking an estimate. Exactly how it reaches you, we set up with you on the kickoff call and test before it goes live.
Can I keep my number?
Your business number is yours and stays yours. How calls get from it to the assistant depends on your phone carrier and how you want it to work, and we set that up with you on the kickoff call, before anything goes live.
Do I need a monthly plan?
Yes. The AI Phone Assistant is a $500-a-month add-on to any Haymaker monthly plan: Local SEO Starter at $1,400 a month, Google Ads management from $1,500 a month, or the Foundation, Growth and Dominate packages. The $750 Google Business Profile setup and the $3,500 website build are one-time products, not monthly plans.
How many minutes are included?
750 minutes of calls a month. At about three minutes a call, that is roughly 250 calls, or eight a day, which covers after-hours answering and overflow for most small contractors. Past 750, extra minutes are $0.50 each, billed with the next month.
Is there a contract?
No. It is month-to-month with no minimum term, like every monthly product we sell. Cancel with notice before the next billing date and that month is the last one billed. No exit fee.
Where to start

Stop losing
the 9 p.m. call.

$500 a month on top of your plan. Or start with the free audit and see where the calls are leaking first.

Book the kickoff call Get the free website audit

Haymaker · San Diego

Haymaker Email: info@haymakermktg.com
San Diego, CA
Service area: San Diego County

Marketing: San Diego County. Custom builds: anywhere in the US, delivered remotely.

New shop. No fake reviews. Est. 2026. Ten spots in the first cohort, first come, first served.