What are missed calls costing your shop?
Two numbers you know — calls from new customers a month and your average job — and one you probably don’t: how many of those callers never reach a person. Move the sliders; the method and its sources are below.
What is it worth to you?
Paid work you may be missing
Up to $15,808
a month · 38 of them reach nobody
That’s the high end, from contractors who track their ads closely. Your number is probably lower.
How the number is worked out
- Missed calls: your new-customer calls × 27% — callers who waited past about 20 seconds and still reached nobody. Invoca’s 2026 answer rates for calls over 15 and 30 seconds put that between 27% and 35%; this uses the low end.
- What each is worth: $416 of paid work per lead, from SearchLight’s February 2026 Local Services Ads benchmark across 888 contractors, scaled by your average job against their $1,826. That figure already has the booking and paying rates inside it, so nothing else is multiplied in.
- SearchLight’s contractors track their ads closely, so treat the result as the high end.
Your own numbers beat any benchmark, including this one: pull 90 days of calls from your phone system and count the ones with zero talk time. Missed-call statistics for contractors, with sources. If you run Google Local Services Ads, the LSA calculator works out what Google’s charge for missed calls costs you.
Missed call questions
How much do missed calls cost a contractor?
It depends on your calls and your average job. About 27% of new-customer callers who wait past 20 seconds still reach nobody, on Invoca's 2026 answer rates, and SearchLight measured about $416 of paid work per Local Services Ads lead across 888 contractors. At 140 new-customer calls a month and a $1,826 average job, that is about 38 calls that reach nobody and up to about $15,800 a month. Treat it as the high end.
Where do the numbers come from?
The 27% is the low end of Invoca's 2026 answer rates for callers who waited more than 15 or 30 seconds. The $416 is SearchLight's February 2026 Local Services Ads benchmark: measured revenue divided by every lead, so the booking and paying rates are already inside it. Your own numbers beat any benchmark: pull 90 days of calls from your phone system and count the new-customer calls with zero talk time.
Page updated September 24, 2026.
Somebody’s always awake.
Try it on your own phone tonight. About ten minutes, no card.