What a busy week costs on Wakeman
A freeze or a heat wave can double a shop’s calls in a week. On Wakeman, every extra minute has a published price, you set the monthly limit where new calls go to your phone instead of the AI, and spam is never billed. Here is the arithmetic for each plan, with the numbers shown.
- A published price per extra minute
- A monthly limit you set
- Spam never billed
- No forced plan change
Your plan price, plus extra minutes at a published rate, up to a limit you set
After the minutes in your plan, each extra minute costs $0.59 on After Hours, $0.39 on Front Desk and $0.29 on Dispatch. You set a monthly spending limit. When your plan price plus extra minutes reaches it, new calls go to your on-call phone instead of the AI, so the bill stops growing once the calls already going have finished. Spam and robocalls are never billed, and a busy month never moves you onto a bigger plan.
Four things that keep a busy week predictable
A published price for each extra minute
$0.59 on After Hours, $0.39 on Front Desk and $0.29 on Dispatch, after the 300, 750 or 2,000 minutes in your plan. Each billable call is rounded up to the next whole minute. Minutes reset each month and don’t roll over.
A monthly limit you set
When your plan price plus extra minutes reaches it, new calls go to your on-call phone instead of the AI. We email you at 80% of it, and email and text you at 95%.
Spam is never billed
Robocalls and sales pitches are answered but never billed, and they don’t count toward your minutes or your limit.
No forced move to a bigger plan
Going over your minutes never changes your plan. It changes only if you change it yourself, in your dashboard.
A normal month and a busy one, on each plan
These shops are examples, not customer data
After Hours: $149 a month, 300 minutes included, then $0.59 a minute
A one- or two-truck plumbing shop whose calls while closed use 250 minutes in a normal month. A freeze doubles them to 500. This shop set its monthly limit at $250. After Hours answers only while you’re closed, so these are minutes from calls while the shop is shut.
| Billable minutes | Extra minutes × rate | Bill before tax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal month | 250 | None: all inside the 300 included | $149.00 |
| A freeze: calls double, with no limit | 500 | 200 × $0.59 = $118.00 | $267.00 |
| A freeze: calls double, with the $250 limit | About 472 | The bill passes $250 at 472 minutes. New calls after that go to your on-call phone and aren’t billed. | A little over $250 |
Front Desk: $349 a month, 750 minutes included, then $0.39 a minute
An HVAC shop whose missed calls use 600 minutes in a normal month. A heat wave doubles them to 1,200. This shop set its monthly limit at $500.
| Billable minutes | Extra minutes × rate | Bill before tax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal month | 600 | None: all inside the 750 included | $349.00 |
| A heat wave: calls double, with no limit | 1,200 | 450 × $0.39 = $175.50 | $524.50 |
| A heat wave: calls double, with the $500 limit | About 1,138 | The bill passes $500 at 1,138 minutes. New calls after that go to your on-call phone and aren’t billed. | A little over $500 |
Dispatch: $829 a month, 2,000 minutes included, then $0.29 a minute
A multi-crew HVAC and plumbing shop at 1,500 minutes in a normal month. A freeze doubles them to 3,000. This shop set its monthly limit at $1,200.
| Billable minutes | Extra minutes × rate | Bill before tax | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal month | 1,500 | None: all inside the 2,000 included | $829.00 |
| A freeze: calls double, with no limit | 3,000 | 1,000 × $0.29 = $290.00 | $1,119.00 |
| A freeze: calls double, with the $1,200 limit | 3,000 | Limit not reached: $1,119.00 is under $1,200. | $1,119.00 |
Why “a little over”: the limit is checked after each call ends, so the call that crosses it, and any call already going, finish and are billed in full at the plan’s rate.
A doubled month isn’t always a big bill. A smaller Front Desk shop that goes from 400 to 800 minutes pays $368.50 before tax, because all but 50 of those minutes still fit in the 750 included.
What happens when you reach your limit
- New calls go to your on-call phone, or your own cell if nobody is on call, instead of the AI. Those calls aren’t billed.
- The limit counts your plan price and your extra minutes, before tax. It is checked after each call ends, so the call that crosses it, and any call already going, finish and are billed.
- We email you at 80% of the limit and email and text you at 95%. When you reach it, we email and text you again.
- Raise the limit in your dashboard and the AI answers again straight away. If you don’t, it starts again when your next billing month begins.
- The limit has to be above your plan’s price, because the price alone would use it up. If yours is at or below the price when you subscribe, it is raised to the price plus half, rounded up to the next $50: $250 on After Hours, $550 on Front Desk and $1,250 on Dispatch. You can change it any time.
If your on-call phone is also your business line
During the free trial
The trial runs 14 days or 500 minutes of answering, whichever comes first, with no card. If a freeze uses the 500 minutes early and you haven’t picked a plan, the AI stops and calls go to your on-call phone; nothing is charged. If you’ve already picked a plan, billing starts from that point instead.
Per minute, per call or flat: what each one rewards
Most answering services bill in one of three ways. None is cheapest every month, so the useful question is how each one behaves in your busiest week, and what to ask before you sign.
| How it bills | What it rewards | In a busy week | Ask the vendor | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Per minute | A monthly bundle of minutes, then a price for each extra minute. | Short, efficient calls. Quiet months cost less. | The bill rises with talk time. It is predictable only with a published rate and a spending limit. | What an extra minute costs, in writing. How calls are rounded: per second, per 30 seconds or per minute. Whether spam and hold time count. What happens at the limit. |
| Per call or per caller | A price for each call answered, or for each different caller in a month. | Long calls: a 20-minute call costs the same as a 1-minute one. | Every call counts, so a day of short calls costs as much as a day of long ones. | What counts as a call: wrong numbers, hang-ups, spam, the same caller calling twice. What each call past the included ones costs. |
| Flat or “unlimited” | One monthly price. | High call volume, if it is truly unlimited. | The bill holds still, unless you pass a fair-use cap. | The fair-use cap, and what happens past it: a surcharge, slower answering or a bigger plan. What the plan really counts: callers, agents or locations. |
Wakeman bills per minute, and it is not always the cheapest option in a spike: a flat plan whose fair-use cap you never reach can cost less in your busiest week. Wakeman’s case is narrower. The price of every extra minute is published, you set the monthly limit where the AI stops taking new calls, and spam never costs you anything. And each of those minutes is spent on a receptionist built for trade calls.
A busy week is when the calls matter most
- For gas, carbon monoxide, fire or smoke, water near electrics, major flooding and sewage, it gives safety steps written in advance and tries your on-call phone while the caller is still on the line. It is a safety net, not 911.
- It sorts no heat or no cooling from a tune-up. No heat, no cooling and active leaks are marked urgent and texted to your on-call phone at once; a filter question comes to you as a job summary.
- It checks the address against the postal database before it writes the job down.
- Once you switch booking on, it books the job into Jobber. Until then it writes the job down for you to confirm.
One call taken apart, second by second, and how emergency calls are handled.
Busy-week billing questions
Every plan and price is on the pricing page.
What happens to my answering-service bill in a heat wave?
On Wakeman you pay your plan price, then a published rate for each minute past the ones included: $0.59 on After Hours, $0.39 on Front Desk and $0.29 on Dispatch. For example, a Front Desk shop that goes from 600 to 1,200 minutes pays $349 + 450 × $0.39 = $524.50 before tax. Spam is never billed, your plan never changes on its own, and once the month reaches the limit you set, new calls go to your phone instead of the AI — a call already going can finish slightly above it.
Can my answering-service bill run away in a freeze?
Not on Wakeman. Every account has a monthly spending limit, and you choose the amount. When your plan price plus extra minutes reaches it, new calls go to your on-call phone (your own cell if nobody is on call) instead of the AI, and those calls aren’t billed. The limit is checked after each call, so the call that crosses it, and any call already going, can finish a little above it. We email you at 80% of the limit, and email and text you at 95%.
Do spam calls count against my minutes?
No. Robocalls and sales pitches are answered but never billed, and they don’t count toward your minutes or your limit. A wrong number, or any call where the caller never says what they need, isn’t billed either, unless it runs past a minute and Wakeman takes down a problem or an address. A call that ends within 8 seconds isn’t billed unless the caller mentioned an emergency.
What happens when I hit my spend limit?
New calls go to your on-call phone instead of the AI, or to your own cell if nobody is on call, and those calls aren’t billed. A call already going finishes. We email and text you when it happens. Raise the limit in your dashboard and the AI answers again straight away; otherwise it starts again when your next billing month begins. If your on-call phone is also the business line that forwards to Wakeman, calls can’t be sent back to it, so Wakeman answers them free during the hours your plan covers, up to 30 minutes in any 30 days; after that, callers are asked to contact the business directly.
Is per-minute or flat-rate better for an HVAC company?
Neither is cheaper every month. Flat or “unlimited” pricing holds still in a heat wave, as long as its fair-use cap and what it really counts (callers, calls or agents) don’t catch you; per-minute pricing costs less in quiet months and rises with talk time in busy ones, so it is predictable only with a published rate and a spending limit. On Wakeman, a Front Desk shop that goes from 600 to 1,200 minutes pays $349 + 450 × $0.39 = $524.50 before tax, and at the limit you set, new calls stop going to the AI.
Will a busy month move me onto a bigger plan?
No. Going past your included minutes never changes your plan. The extra minutes are billed at your plan’s published rate, and your plan changes only if you change it yourself in the dashboard.
Page updated September 29, 2026.
Somebody’s always awake.
Try it on your own phone tonight. About ten minutes, no card.