Pricing and money · HVAC
AI answering service for HVAC companies
You’re up on a roof. It answers, gets the details, and texts you the job.
- From $49 a month
- Keep your number
- Spam calls never billed
- You set the spend limit
New job: no heatSam · (303) 555-0129
8 Birch Ct
The furnace won’t come on. Newborn in the house.Urgent
8 Birch Ct
The furnace won’t come on. Newborn in the house.Urgent
What is an HVAC answering service?
An HVAC answering service is an answering service for an HVAC company: it answers the heating and cooling calls the office can’t — after hours, at weekends and through a heat-wave surge. A good one tells a dead furnace from a maintenance question, takes the address and the problem, and gets the urgent calls to the on-call tech.
Hear it answer
One call, start to finish, in under a minute
A leaking water heater at night, taken the way it’s taken on a Wakeman line: what’s wrong, a safety check for water near electrics, the address read back, and — with booking on — a time in the on-call window. The example is a plumbing shop. On your line it answers as your business and asks about HVAC work — it is set up for your trade and your own list of services.
Rather try it yourself? Call (503) 765-9727 and play the customer with an everyday job.
Wakeman, for Ridgeline PlumbingThanks for calling Ridgeline Plumbing. You're speaking with an AI assistant, and this call is recorded. What's going on?
CallerYeah, hi — there's water coming out from under my water heater. It's all over the garage floor.
Example call · synthesized voices, not a recorded caller
What one missed call costs
Each HVAC call or message from a Google ad turned into about $487 of paid work, on average.
Paid work per Google ad call or message
$487
What Google charged for each
$51
Share that booked a visit
44.0%
Average bill, when the customer paid
$2,110
Source: SearchLight’s Local Services Ads benchmark, February 2026 — 409 HVAC accounts.
How these numbers were worked out
SearchLight, which sells ad-tracking software to contractors, published these in its February 2026 Local Services Ads benchmark: 409 HVAC accounts, out of 888 contractors with 126,650 leads and $52.7M in closed revenue. Closed revenue per lead is SearchLight’s 9.55× return on ad spend times its $51 cost per lead. It is much lower than the booked share times the average job, because not every booked lead turned into a paying customer. SearchLight’s clients track their ads closely, which may make the numbers look better. Revenue it could not match to a lead is left out, which makes them look worse.
From October 1, 2026, Google charges for some missed calls too: during your business hours, a Local Services Ads caller who waits more than 20 seconds counts as a lead even if nobody answers. What that costs
Four calls at 2am
How Wakeman sorts HVAC calls
Only one of them should wake you. A generic answering service takes four messages and sends four texts. Wakeman works out which call is which — and it goes by what is actually wrong, not by how upset the caller sounds.
Urgent
“The furnace is dead and there's a newborn in the house”
No heat is marked urgent and goes straight to your on-call phone as an urgent text. A ring during the call is kept for gas, carbon monoxide and a burning smell.
Emergency
“Something smells like burning near the unit”
Tells them to get out and call 911 first, then tries your on-call phone during the call.
Urgent
“The AC is out and it's 104 degrees”
Takes the urgent job down and quotes your after-hours fee if you’ve set one. With booking on, it offers a time from the list you set.
Routine
“I want to ask about a maintenance plan”
Taken as routine work. With booking on, it offers a time from the list you set.
- Rings your on-call phone: gas, carbon monoxide, a downed power line, fire or smoke, a medical emergency, a child or pet locked in a car, water near electrics, a structural collapse, major flooding and sewage inside.
- How it knows: it listens for those words. A caller who describes it differently may be marked urgent instead.
- Urgent calls (no heat, or a leak that can’t wait) get a text, not a ring. So does an on-call phone that is the same line you forward to Wakeman.
- No on-call number set? It won’t tell the caller help is on the way.
- It’s a safety net. It doesn’t replace 911.
AI receptionist
An AI receptionist for HVAC contractors
Call it an answering service or a virtual receptionist — the job is the same. Wakeman is set up for HVAC work and your own list of services. It asks what a good dispatcher would: what’s wrong, how bad it is, the address and a number to call back. It checks the address, then texts you the job, or books it into Jobber on Pro and Max once you switch booking on. It says it’s an AI at the start of every call. There’s no call center behind it: a caller who needs a person is put through to your own on-call phone.
The HVAC jobs it starts with
- No heat
- No cooling
- Furnace repair
- AC repair
- Thermostat
- Maintenance
Setup fills these in for HVAC contractors, and you can change them. It also suggests heat pump, mini-split, boiler repair, ductwork, duct cleaning and five more. It treats work close to your list as work you do, and turns down anything on your “Jobs you don’t do” list plainly, taking a message.
Side by side
AI receptionists for HVAC contractors, compared
Wakeman wrote this, and Wakeman is on the list. Each row comes from the company’s own pages, checked October 20, 2026.
| Price | How it bills | When a caller needs a person | Books into | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goodcall | $79 / $129 / $299 a month | Unique callers: 100 / 500 / 2,000, then 79¢ / 26¢ / 15¢ each | Transfers to the people you choose | CRM through Zapier |
| Jobber AI Receptionist Price and fit reviewed 2026-11-06. Sources | Included with unlimited usage on Plus; $29/month for 30 conversations on eligible other plans, then $0.79 each | Conversations: 30 or 100 included (its help pages differ); one says $0.79 each after | When it hears a trigger word you set, it transfers to your one escalation contact or texts you | Jobber, through Online Booking |
| Rosie Price and fit reviewed 2026-11-06. Sources | Professional $49 (250 minutes); Scale $149 (1,000); Growth $299 (2,000) | Minutes; moves you up a plan when you go over | Warm and live transfers from the $149 plan; the $299 plan tries several numbers | Your calendar, on Scale and up. Logs callers and calls in Jobber and Housecall Pro, without booking the job there; Zapier |
| Ruby (people, not AI) | $250/mo (50 min) to $1,725 (500 min) | Minutes; each call rounded up to 60 seconds, hold time counts | A person answers every call | Not named on its pricing page |
| Smith.ai Price and fit reviewed 2026-11-06. Sources | Free: 25 calls/month; Pro from $150 for 75 calls; Enterprise from $500 for 300 | Per call; $2.10–$3.00 an extra call | Can hand the call to a live receptionist, any hour | Lists Jobber (via Zapier), ServiceTitan and Housecall Pro |
| Wakeman (our entry) | $49/mo (100 min); $149 (500); $399 (1,500), day and night | Minutes included; then $0.29–$0.45/min by plan, with a monthly limit you set. Spam is never billed | Puts the caller through to your own people: your on-call phone, then the owner’s if nobody picks up. It does this on a dangerous call, a complaint or an angry caller, or when someone asks for a person twice. The AI answers every call; there’s no call center | Jobber on Pro and Max, once you switch booking on |
Where these facts come from · checked October 20, 2026
Checked October 20, 2026. Prices and policies change; the links are the authority, not this page.
- Jobber pricing — $29 add-on; Plus includes it
- Jobber help: Receptionist — 30 conversations, $0.79, escalation contact, Jobber number
- Jobber help: add-ons — 100 conversations a month
- Rosie pricing — and its terms, for going over
- Smith.ai AI Receptionist pricing
- Smith.ai and Jobber — through Zapier
- Goodcall pricing
- Ruby plans and pricing
- Ruby billing basics — 60-second rounding, hold time
All 16 AI receptionists for contractors · The best HVAC answering service, compared · What every answering service charges
Why HVAC specifically
HVAC had the highest average paid job of the three trades in SearchLight’s February 2026 study (HVAC, plumbing, electrical), and its calls follow the weather. They arrive in sudden surges that no fixed number of office staff can absorb. A shop can’t hire for a July heat wave. Call volume swings far harder than headcount does.
A heat wave doesn’t wait its turn. Wakeman can take several calls at once, sorts no-heat calls from maintenance questions, writes each job down, and tries your on-call phone when it’s an emergency. Booking is off until you turn it on.
Field notes for HVAC contractors
All field notes
Free tools for HVAC contractors
Free line check
What does a customer hear when I can’t pick up?
Voicemail greeting generator
What should my business voicemail greeting say?
Missed call calculator
What are missed calls costing my shop?
Questions about an AI answering service for HVAC companies
How much is a missed HVAC call worth?
About $487 of paid work per Google ad call or message, from SearchLight’s February 2026 Local Services Ads benchmark: a 9.55× return on the $51 Google charged for each, across 409 HVAC accounts. Multiplying the 44% booking rate by the $2,110 average job gives $928, but that counts every booked lead as paid, and SearchLight’s own figures show about half of them were not.
Can it handle a heat-wave call surge?
It can take several calls at the same time, but not an unlimited number. If a heat wave is forecast, tell us ahead of time so we can check your limit is high enough. Calls over the limit may wait or fail.
Does it understand HVAC-specific problems?
It is set up for your trade and your own list of services. No heat or no cooling is marked urgent and sent to your on-call phone as a text. Dangers like a burning smell or carbon monoxide are emergencies, and Wakeman tries your on-call phone during the call. It is an AI speaking, so it may not say those words exactly, and we cannot promise the call to your phone gets through. It is a safety net, not an emergency service.
What does it cost?
Three plans, each answering day and night: $49, $149 or $399 a month by how busy you are, with 100, 500 or 1,500 minutes included, then 45¢, 35¢ or 29¢ a minute by plan. Pay yearly and get two months free. You set a monthly spend limit, and spam calls are never billed.
Can it be an HVAC after-hours answering service only?
Yes. Switch on “Answer only while we’re closed”, on any plan, and Wakeman answers only while you’re closed, by the hours you set, and daytime calls keep ringing your team. No heat or no cooling reaches your on-call tech as an urgent text, and a burning smell or carbon monoxide tries your on-call phone during the call.
Is it a 24/7 HVAC answering service?
It can be. On every plan, Wakeman answers the calls your team misses at any hour, day or night. If you switch on “Answer only while we’re closed”, it answers only outside the hours you set. Like any phone service it can have an outage, so it doesn’t promise that every call is answered.
Is Wakeman an AI receptionist for HVAC contractors or an answering service?
Both names describe the same job, and so does "AI CSR". Wakeman is an AI receptionist: it answers the calls your team misses in your company’s name, and says it is an AI at the start of every call. Like a HVAC answering service or a virtual receptionist, it writes each job down; unlike a message-taking service, it tells an emergency from a routine call and alerts your on-call phone for the dangerous ones.
Read next
Pricing · How it works · After-hours answering service · Emergency answering service · Booking into Jobber · How it compares
Other trades
plumbing answering service For plumbers.roofing answering service For roofing contractors.restoration answering service For restoration contractors.electrical answering service For electricians.
Every trade Wakeman answers for
Page updated October 21, 2026.
Somebody’s always awake.
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