FlashCrafterGuide
October 2026: 95% missed a five-minute response target in a 466-company test. Compare response evidence, answering costs and Google LSA rules.
Owners of independent local service businesses in the United States who need to answer inquiries while managing crews, working on job sites and paying for leads.
A fast response gives a prospective customer a way to move forward while their request is still active. For a home service business, that means answering the phone, responding to a website inquiry or handling a message with a clear next action. Answering, making successful contact, qualifying the request, booking an appointment and completing a sale are separate outcomes. Track each one separately so a quick acknowledgment does not hide a failure to reach or book the customer.
Five minutes is a useful operating target to consider for new inquiries during covered hours. Older cross-industry studies support acting quickly, but they do not establish a universal home-service deadline or a guaranteed increase in completed jobs. A 466-company home-service test found that 95% did not respond within five minutes; a newer owner survey describes a different, self-reported response pattern.
This guide compares the available evidence, answering and software costs, and Google's current Local Services Ads rules as checked October 10, 2026. Use it to choose coverage you can actually deliver, assign responsibility for each channel and measure what happens after the first response. Keep operating targets separate from published benchmarks and broad vendor claims.
At a glance
Valve+Meter tested U.S. home-service companies through website inquiry forms and watched for responses over five days. The report also says 71% did not reply within an hour and 55% within a day. Its study date is not visible; the hosted file has a 2019 upload path. These results describe that test, not a current national average.
The 2007 InsideSales.com and James Oldroyd report compared calls at five versus 30 minutes. It examined more than 15,000 web leads and 100,000 call attempts from six companies over three years. Qualification definitions varied, and the report explicitly did not examine close ratios. Neither figure is a home-service completed-job multiplier.
Jobber's 2026 report surveyed 1,050 U.S. home-service owners in December 2025. It also displays 60% same day, 18% within two days, 2% after more than two days and 1% unsure. The categories total 101%. Treat this as an owner survey, not a timed test of actual incoming inquiries.
Smith.ai's paid AI Pro plan includes 75 calls for $150 monthly. Ruby's $250 human receptionist tier includes 50 minutes, while Smith.ai's $300 human tier includes 30 calls. These allowances are different units. Smith.ai also lists a free AI plan with 25 calls; paid entry prices do not describe every available option.
A missed call during business hours can be valid and charged when the caller remains for more than 20 seconds. A separate ad schedule must also be active. Google identifies business hours as those set in Google Business Profile. Phone menus and voicemail greetings have additional timing rules, so inspect your routing as well as your staffing.
A practical path
Define the outcomes you will measure. Record first response, successful contact, qualification, appointment booking and completed sale separately. The original 2007 study measured contact and qualification rather than close ratios, so your own records should show whether quicker handling actually produces booked work and revenue.
Audit each active inquiry channel. Review incoming calls, website forms and Local Services Ads messages, then identify who receives each notification and who takes responsibility for the reply. For U.S. LSA messages, Google supports email, SMS or both. Check the actual destinations rather than assuming an enabled notification reaches the person covering leads.
Set a response target for the hours you cover. Consider the five-minute target described in Revcore's playbook, while labeling it as an operating choice. Assign a named response owner and plan for missed calls and after-hours requests. Adjust the handling to emergency and non-emergency work without presenting suggested deadlines as measured trade averages.
Match your answering arrangement to the task. Compare human answering, AI answering and field-service software by coverage, intake, scheduling and routing requirements. Calculate against calls or minutes as appropriate, and include published overages, add-ons and usage charges. A software subscription alone does not establish live lead coverage.
Check Google hours, schedules and phone routing. Align Business Profile hours with the coverage you can provide, inspect any separate LSA ad schedule, and test menus and voicemail behavior against Google's current billing rules. Pause or schedule ads when appropriate using the controls Google provides.
Measure response time alongside booking outcomes. Review median response time and booking rate, as Revcore recommends, while keeping acknowledgments distinct from successful contact. Compare channels and covered periods, then change routing or ownership where leads stall before qualification or scheduling.
Watch for these
The familiar 21× figure describes qualification odds when calling at five rather than 30 minutes in the 2007 study. The 100× figure concerns contact odds. The report did not examine close ratios, and participating companies used different qualification definitions. Promising 21 times as many booked or completed home-service jobs changes both the measured outcome and the population. Use your own booking and completed-sale records to evaluate the effect on your business.
A five-minute deadline can guide your team, but it is not a published universal home-service standard. Trade response averages circulated by Hawk Guru lack a corresponding dataset and sample. Jobber's figures come from owner reports, while Valve+Meter timed website inquiries. Those methods answer different questions. Choose a target deliberately and compare performance with measurements that use the same channel and definition.
Ruby bills its receptionist tiers by minutes, while Smith.ai's listed plans use calls. Smith.ai's human service also publishes separate charges for custom calendaring, extended intake and additional transfer destinations. HighLevel has usage charges beyond its subscription. Jobber's lowest displayed monthly equivalent requires annual billing. Compare the actual workload and functions you need before treating one headline price as the cheaper coverage option.
Google's current guidance allows a missed LSA call to be valid and charged when the caller remains for more than 20 seconds during business hours. When you use a separate ad schedule, both windows must be active. A voicemail greeting can trigger the timing rule even if the caller leaves no message. Review coverage, greeting length and menu routing together.
Google Business Profile's native chat and call history ended July 31, 2024; eligible accounts can offer text messaging or WhatsApp. LSA responsiveness is an auction factor, but Google publishes neither a numerical weight nor a five-minute requirement. Organic local guidance names relevance, distance and popularity or prominence. Keep paid-ad handling, current messaging options and organic ranking work distinct when assigning tasks.
Choose with context
AI answering
Human answering by call
Human answering by minute
Field-service workflow
Automation platform
| Option | Published entry or relevant plan | What to compare | Cost or capability limit | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI answering | Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Free: $0/month, 25 calls; Pro: $150/month, 75 calls | Call allowance, routing needs and whether custom prompting or integrations are needed | Additional calls are $3 on Free and $2.50 on Pro; Enterprise includes custom prompting and integrations. |
| Human answering by call | Smith.ai Virtual Receptionist | Starter: $300/month, 30 calls | Intake, calendaring and transfer destinations against the work callers need completed | $11.50 per extra call; Starter includes one transfer destination, with separately priced intake and calendaring. |
| Human answering by minute | Ruby virtual receptionist | 50 minutes: $250/month | Expected conversation length, scheduling, bilingual answering and intake | The pricing page does not publish an overage price; larger offerings require contact. |
| Field-service workflow | Jobber Core or Plus |
Takeaway
Build a response system around an accountable person, working notifications and coverage that matches the hours you advertise. A five-minute target can organize the work, but assess it through successful contact, qualification, appointment booking and completed sales. Published evidence supports urgency without establishing a universal home-service average or closed-job multiplier. Compare answering prices against their actual allowances, and inspect Google's current missed-call rules before assuming an unanswered paid inquiry has no cost.
For a paid AI answering comparison
Smith.ai AI Receptionist Pro
The published $150 monthly plan includes 75 calls and $2.50 additional calls. Compare its allowance with the $0, 25-call tier and the $500, 300-call Enterprise tier; Enterprise includes custom prompting and integrations.
For human answering comparisons
Ruby and Smith.ai Virtual Receptionist
Ruby starts at $250 monthly for 50 minutes and offers scheduling, bilingual answering and intake. Smith.ai starts at $300 for 30 calls, with published overage and add-on charges. Estimate both conversation time and call count before choosing.
For booking and request management
Jobber
Core includes online booking and request management, while higher plans add reminders, follow-ups, two-way SMS, workflow automation or Receptionist. Choose by the tasks you need handled and the billing commitment, rather than treating the lowest subscription as a complete answering service.
Speed to lead describes how quickly your business acts on a new inquiry. For an owner working on a job site, the practical question is whether the phone, form or message reaches someone who can move the request forward. A notification arriving is not the same as a reply, and a reply is not necessarily successful contact.
Keep five outcomes separate: first response, successful contact, lead qualification, appointment booking and completed sale. First response records your initial action. Successful contact establishes that you reached the prospective customer. Qualification determines whether the request fits the service you can provide. Booking creates an appointment; a completed sale records the later business result. Combining these stages makes it difficult to see where inquiries stop progressing.
The distinction matters when evaluating response-time claims. The original 2007 report explicitly did not examine close ratios. Its qualification findings cannot tell you how many home-service jobs were completed or what revenue they generated. Similarly, a vendor's undefined conversion metric should not automatically become your booked-job forecast.
Revcore's September 27, 2026 playbook recommends a five-minute target, a named response owner, channel playbooks, and tracking median response time and booking rate. Those are operating recommendations. Apply them as choices for your business, then inspect whether faster handling produces more successful contacts and appointments under your actual coverage.
The strongest reason to respond promptly is the repeated association between delay and weaker contact or qualification outcomes. The size of that association depends on the study, its population and its definition of the result. Keep the original comparisons attached to their figures rather than combining them into one universal sales promise.
The 2007 InsideSales.com and James Oldroyd study used three years of data from six companies, more than 15,000 web leads and more than 100,000 call attempts. Calling at five rather than 30 minutes produced a 100× difference in contact odds and a 21× difference in qualification odds. Qualification odds fell 4× between five and 10 minutes. Definitions of qualification differed by company, and no home-service-specific or closed-job multiplier was published.
The March 2011 article by Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington reported a 42-hour mean among businesses responding within 30 days. Qualification was nearly seven times higher for contact within an hour compared with an hour later, and more than 60 times higher compared with 24 hours or more. HBR exposes a short introduction; an author-uploaded full-text copy is available through ResearchGate, linked by BYU's repository. The 42-hour figure is not a home-service median.
InsideSales' 2021 study page reports conversion rates more than eight times higher when the first attempt occurred within five minutes rather than after five minutes and within 24 hours. It covers more than 55 million sales activities, 5.7 million inbound leads and over 400 companies. The page does not give a precise conversion definition or a home-service subset. It also says 57.1% of first call attempts happened after more than a week and only 0.1% were engaged within five minutes.
| Publication | Published comparison | Population and interpretation |
|---|---|---|
InsideSales.com / James Oldroyd, 2007 | Five versus 30 minutes: 100× contact odds; 21× qualification odds. Five to 10 minutes: qualification odds fall 4×. | Six companies; three years; over 15,000 web leads and 100,000 call attempts. Qualification varied by company; close ratios were not examined. |
Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, March 2011 | 42-hour mean among responders within 30 days; nearly 7× qualification within one hour versus an hour later; over 60× versus 24+ hours. |
Valve+Meter's report tested 466 U.S. home-service companies through website inquiry forms and followed responses for five days. Its branding identifies Valve+Meter as the report owner even though ConXpros hosts the PDF. The file path shows a 2019 upload, but the study date is not visible. The test found that 95% did not respond within five minutes, 71% within an hour and 55% within a day.
The narrative says 60% responded within five days and 40% never responded. Here, never means no response during the five-day observation window. The chart also places 151 companies in a category labeled 5+ days/never; that count does not reconcile with 40% of 466. Keep the narrative and chart discrepancy visible rather than using either to calculate a more precise abandonment rate.
Jobber's 2026 Home Service Trends Report uses a different method. Conjointly surveyed 1,050 U.S. home-service owners in December 2025. The stated margin of error is ±3 percentage points at 90% confidence. Owners reported their own response timing; this was not a mystery-shopping experiment. Its response categories total 101%, so preserve the displayed values without adjusting them into a new distribution.
Jobber also states that 25% cite initial response speed as a hiring factor. Its customer-expectation chart reports 28% immediate, 28% within one hour, 15% within four hours, 25% within 24 hours and 5% within 48 hours. The methodology identifies an owner survey rather than a separate consumer sample. Describe these as Jobber's reported expectations, without implying that an independent homeowner panel supplied them.
Trade comparisons need the same care. Jobber reports 26% of cleaning businesses responding within an hour. Its HVAC figures differ internally: 11% in the Speed to respond section and 17% in the HVAC spotlight. The published range is therefore 11%–17%, with the two sections giving different figures and no reconciliation.
An answering budget needs both a unit of usage and a definition of the work included. A call-based allowance and a minute-based allowance cannot be compared solely by monthly subscription. Intake, calendaring and transfer requirements can change the cost even when the number of incoming inquiries stays the same.
Smith.ai's AI Receptionist lists a free plan with 25 calls, Pro with 75 calls and Enterprise with 300 calls. Higher-volume variants appear in its selector. Enterprise includes custom prompting and integrations. The page describes month-to-month service with 30 days' cancellation notice; no publication or update date is visible.
Smith.ai's human Virtual Receptionist lists Starter, Basic and Pro call allowances, each with its own overage rate and included transfer destinations. Custom calendaring adds $1 per call and extended intake adds $1.50 per call. Additional transfer destinations cost $15 monthly and tracking numbers $5 monthly. Enterprise pricing is custom and unpublished.
Ruby's human receptionist plans use minutes and share the same feature set. Scheduling, bilingual answering and intake are available. Ruby says there are no activation, onboarding, setup, customization or time-of-coverage fees. Its pricing page does not publish an overage rate; larger offerings require contact. Ruby also publishes standalone and bundled live-chat tiers.
The observed paid entry points are $150 monthly for AI answering and $250–$300 for human answering. These are specific vendor offers rather than a representative market-wide price survey. For an employee comparison, BLS reports a national median receptionist wage of $18.27 an hour in May 2025. That occupational wage is neither total employer cost nor a home-service-specific wage.
| Service and plan | Monthly price |
|---|
Field-service software can organize requests and appointments, but its subscription price does not by itself establish the cost of live answering. Choose the functions you need at each stage: request management, online booking, reminders, quote follow-up, two-way messaging or a receptionist offering. Then check the plan, users and billing commitment attached to those functions.
Jobber Core includes online booking and request management. Connect adds automated reminders and quote or invoice follow-ups. Grow includes two-way SMS and custom workflow automation. Plus includes Receptionist, Pipeline and Marketing Suite. The one-user and five-user options shown below have different prices; the lowest monthly equivalent requires annual billing. Applicable sales tax is excluded.
HighLevel lists Starter with three subaccounts, Unlimited with unlimited subaccounts, Agency Pro and custom Enterprise pricing. Users and contacts are unlimited. Phone, SMS, email and certain AI features incur usage charges beyond the subscription. AI Employee Growth costs $50 monthly per subaccount; Unlimited costs $97 monthly per subaccount. Those add-ons should remain separate in your comparison.
A basic field-service software entry price of $29 monthly equivalent is therefore a different purchase from the observed answering entry plans. Match the software to the workflow and price the coverage separately where needed, rather than assuming a request-management subscription answers every incoming lead.
| Plan | Users | Monthly, no commitment | Monthly, one-year commitment |
|---|
When an inquiry comes from advertising, the lead cost helps explain why answering and routing deserve attention. It does not tell you the cost of an appointment or a completed customer unless those later outcomes are measured. Keep campaign lead costs and answering-service costs in separate lines of your budget.
SearchLight publishes Local Services Ads results for February 1–28, 2026, updated in March 2026. The figures cover 1,774 campaigns, $6.72 million in spend and 126,650 leads. The blended row covers 888 contractors and reports $53 per lead. Its published blended booking rate is 43.9%, cost per paying customer $233 and average ticket $1,826.
Trade categories use channel names. The water-heater result comes from only two accounts, so it should not carry the same weight as the larger HVAC or plumbing categories. The figures describe vendor-observed campaigns, not a representative national tariff or a guarantee of your own costs.
Google does not publish a fixed nationwide home-service lead price. Its help page says pricing considers estimated booking likelihood, lead type, requested service and previous engagement. Message leads are typically cheaper than phone leads, but not always. Use your actual campaign and outcome records when deciding whether an answering arrangement pays for itself.
| Trade or grouping | Cost per lead | Accounts |
|---|---|---|
Google identifies responsiveness as a Local Services Ads auction factor and says missed calls may negatively affect it. It publishes no numerical weight for responsiveness and no mandatory five-minute threshold. Better handling is relevant to paid LSA placement, but it cannot be translated into a promised ranking gain.
An estimated message response time may appear after two or more message leads in 90 days. Google calculates a recency-weighted average during stated business hours; if hours are unspecified, it uses 7 a.m.–9 p.m. Check both the notification destination and published hours when the displayed estimate differs from what you expect. U.S. message notifications can use email, SMS or both.
The current missed-call rule deserves a phone-system check. A missed call during business hours can be valid and charged when the caller remains for more than 20 seconds. If you have a separate ad schedule, both windows must be active. Google defines business hours using the hours set in Google Business Profile. Ads can be paused or scheduled, giving you an editable control when coverage changes.
For an interactive menu requiring a key press, the timer begins with the first key press. Further presses do not reset it. A voicemail or greeting without a key press can be charged after 20 seconds during business hours whether or not the caller leaves a message. Answered calls are evaluated by the conversation rather than ring duration. These distinctions make the greeting and routing path part of the coverage review.
Google's public help page confirms the rule but does not display its effective date. PPC Land's announcement reporting identifies October 1, 2026. Keep that reported date separate from the current official rule itself.
| Topic | Current guidance |
|---|
Organic Maps and local results use a different framework from Local Services Ads. Google names relevance, distance and popularity or prominence as the main factors. Complete business information, reviews and positive ratings matter, and better local ranking cannot be purchased. Its organic guidance does not publish speed to lead as a ranking factor.
Older instructions to monitor Google Business Profile's native chat inbox are obsolete. Native chat and call history ended July 31, 2024. Eligible accounts can offer text messaging or WhatsApp. Verify which current messaging option your account offers and keep its ownership distinct from LSA message notifications.
Hours also belong on your website. Google's LocalBusiness structured-data documentation allows hours and business details to be described, although rich-result appearance is not guaranteed. The same attention to accurate information should extend to your service and inquiry pages so customers can understand when the business is available.
For published advice, Google asks for original reporting, clear sourcing, expertise and substantial value. It says there is no preferred word count and warns against cosmetic date changes. An updated date should accompany meaningful changes such as current pricing, current phone-billing rules or corrected study definitions, rather than making an old claim appear newly measured.
Review listings can help compare a company or product, but they do not isolate home-service lead-response performance. Keep the platform, count and observation date attached to the rating. Different platforms and dated indexed pages can show different populations of reviews.
Smith.ai's own reviews page displays 4.7 stars labeled Trustpilot without an associated count. Its direct Trustpilot listing showed 4.3 out of five from 375 reviews on October 10, 2026. Use the vendor's displayed 4.7 figure when describing its own page, while making the direct-platform difference explicit. An older indexed UK page showed 4.7 from 284 reviews, but its index was marked crawled about 1.3 years earlier; it is not the current direct-listing count.
Ruby Receptionists' G2 listing showed 3.8 out of five from 12 reviews, with metadata modified September 28, 2026. Jobber's Capterra listing showed 4.6 from 1,487 reviews and an update date of September 29, 2026. The Jobber figures were visible in search retrieval, while direct opening failed. Treat these as dated observations rather than measurements of response speed or booked-job outcomes.
| Listing | Rating | Reviews | Date and caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
Smith.ai own reviews page |
Practical playbooks can help organize capture, qualification, routing and follow-up even when their statistical claims need correction. Separate a suggested deadline or script from a measured industry result. There is no verified universal home-service response-time average, proven five-minute closed-sale multiplier, published Google five-minute ranking requirement or fixed nationwide Google lead tariff in these comparisons.
The pages below appeared among the first seven web-tool results for the target query on October 10, 2026. That order is not a verified location-specific Google ranking and does not establish any business's first-position or top-three share. Their useful operational coverage can be assessed independently of unsupported numerical claims.
The frequently repeated claim that 78% of home-service customers hire the first responder lacks a traceable primary study here. Inconsistent attributions do not validate it. Likewise, trade response averages, after-hours shares and precise conversion ladders need a stated population and measurement method before they can support a business forecast.
| Page and visible date | Useful coverage | Limits or corrections |
|---|---|---|
Revcore, September 27, 2026 |
Questions
Keep reading
Vendor pages change. Figures are as published on the capture date; confirm before deciding.
| Core provides online booking and request management; Plus includes Receptionist, Pipeline and Marketing Suite |
| These plans differ in functions and users; subscription prices alone do not establish live coverage cost. |
| Automation platform | HighLevel Starter | $97/month or $970/year; three subaccounts | Account needs, workflow setup and metered communication use | Phone, SMS, email and certain AI features add usage charges; AI Employee add-ons cost extra. |
|---|
Online-sales findings; do not label the mean a home-service median. Publisher introduction and author-uploaded full text are available. |
Valve+Meter, file hosted on a 2019 upload path | 95% not within five minutes; 71% not within an hour; 55% not within a day. | 466 U.S. home-service website inquiries, followed for five days. Study date is not visible. |
InsideSales, 2021 | More than 8× conversion within five minutes versus five minutes–24 hours; 57.1% first attempts after a week; 0.1% engaged within five minutes. | Over 55 million activities, 5.7 million inbound leads and 400+ companies. Conversion definition and home-service subset are not published. |
Invoca, April 6, 2023 | 27% of inbound home-service calls missed; 47% of calls are leads; 29% of those leads convert. | Analysis described as thousands of calls. Exact home-service sample, observation dates and conversion definition are not published. |
Checked October 10, 2026. Original study: https://content.marketingsherpa.com/heap/DG07SFSlides/LeadResponseManagementReport.pdf; 2011 article: https://hbr.org/2011/03/the-short-life-of-online-sales-leads; author copy: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/298137032_The_short_life_of_online_sales_leads; BYU: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/9711/; Valve+Meter: https://conxpros.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Speed2Lead-case-study.pdf; InsideSales: https://www.insidesales.com/response-time-matters/; Invoca: https://www.invoca.com/blog/how-many-phone-calls-are-you-missing.
| Displayed response category | Share |
|---|
Within an hour | 20% |
Same day | 60% |
Within two days | 18% |
After more than two days | 2% |
Unsure | 1% |
Jobber 2026 Home Service Trends Report; December 2025 fieldwork; 1,050 U.S. owners; ±3 percentage points at 90% confidence. Displayed percentages total 101%. https://www.getjobber.com/home-service-trends-report/
| Expected response | Displayed share |
|---|---|
Immediate | 28% |
Within one hour | 28% |
Within four hours | 15% |
Within 24 hours | 25% |
Within 48 hours | 5% |
The report's methodology identifies an owner survey, not a separate consumer panel. Displayed shares total 101%. https://www.getjobber.com/home-service-trends-report/
| Included usage |
|---|
| Published extra usage or limits |
|---|
Smith.ai AI Free | $0 | 25 calls | $3 per additional call |
Smith.ai AI Pro | $150 | 75 calls | $2.50 per additional call |
Smith.ai AI Enterprise | $500 | 300 calls | $2.17 per additional call; custom prompting and integrations |
Smith.ai human Starter | $300 | 30 calls; one transfer destination | $11.50 per additional call |
Smith.ai human Basic | $810 | 90 calls; two transfer destinations | $10.50 per additional call |
Smith.ai human Pro | $2,100 | 300 calls; 10 transfer destinations | $8.50 per additional call |
Smith.ai human Enterprise | Custom; not published | Not published | Contact for pricing |
Ruby receptionist 50 Minutes | $250 | 50 minutes | Overage price not published |
Ruby receptionist 100 Minutes | $395 | 100 minutes | Overage price not published |
Ruby receptionist 200 Minutes | $720 | 200 minutes | Overage price not published |
Ruby receptionist 500 Minutes | $1,725 | 500 minutes | Larger offerings require contact |
Ruby live chat, 10 chats | $143 standalone; $115 bundled | 10 chats | Bundle requires receptionist service |
Ruby live chat, 30 chats | $335 standalone; $268 bundled | 30 chats | Bundle requires receptionist service |
Ruby live chat, 50 chats | $520 standalone; $416 bundled | 50 chats | Bundle requires receptionist service |
U.S. receptionist labor | $18.27 median hourly wage | May 2025 national occupational figure | Excludes total employer cost |
USD prices observed October 10, 2026; vendor pricing pages show no publication/update date. Smith.ai human extras: calendaring $1/call, extended intake $1.50/call, additional transfer destinations $15/month, tracking numbers $5/month. https://smith.ai/pricing/ai-receptionist; https://smith.ai/pricing/receptionists; https://www.ruby.com/plans-and-pricing/; https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Office-and-Administrative-Support/Receptionists.htm
| Monthly equivalent, billed annually |
|---|
| Listed functions |
|---|
Core | 1 | $49 | $39 | $29 | Online booking and request management |
Connect | 1 | $139 | $119 | $99 | Automated reminders and quote/invoice follow-ups |
Connect | 5 | $199 | $169 | $149 | Connect functions |
Grow | 1 | $199 | $169 | $149 | Two-way SMS and custom workflow automation |
Plus | 5 | $499 | $439 | $399 | Receptionist, Pipeline and Marketing Suite |
USD; applicable sales tax excluded. Checked October 10, 2026; no update date visible. https://www.getjobber.com/pricing/
| Plan or add-on | Monthly | Annual | Allowance or condition |
|---|---|---|---|
Starter | $97 | $970 | Three subaccounts |
Unlimited | $297 | $2,970 | Unlimited subaccounts |
Agency Pro | $497 | $4,970 | Published Agency Pro tier |
Enterprise | Custom; not published | Custom; not published | Contact for pricing |
AI Employee Growth | $50 per subaccount | Not published | Add-on |
AI Employee Unlimited | $97 per subaccount | Not published | Add-on |
Unlimited users and contacts. Phone, SMS, email and certain AI features carry usage charges. Checked October 10, 2026; no update date visible. https://www.gohighlevel.com/pricing
Electrical
$39 |
112 |
HVAC | $51 | 409 |
General / all trades | $54 | 464 |
Plumbing | $57 | 230 |
Drain / sewer | $59 | 23 |
Water heater | $71 | 2 |
Blended | $53 | 888 contractors |
February 1–28, 2026; updated March 2026. Dataset: 1,774 campaigns, $6.72 million spend, 126,650 leads. Blended booking rate 43.9%; cost per paying customer $233; average ticket $1,826. Channel categories and small samples limit generalization. https://searchlightdigital.io/google-local-service-ads-cost-per-lead/; Google pricing guidance: https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435?hl=en
| Action for the owner |
|---|
LSA responsiveness | Auction factor; missed calls may negatively affect it | Review call answering without assuming a published weight or five-minute requirement |
Message response estimate | Two or more leads in 90 days; recency-weighted average in stated hours | Check notifications, ownership and hours; default is 7 a.m.–9 p.m. if hours are unspecified |
Missed-call billing | More than 20 seconds during business hours; separate ad schedule also active if used | Compare Business Profile hours, ad schedule and actual coverage |
IVR timing | Starts at first key press; later presses do not reset it | Test the complete menu path |
Voicemail or greeting | Without a key press, charged after 20 seconds whether a message is left or not | Inspect greeting behavior and unanswered routing |
Notifications and coverage | U.S. email, SMS or both; ads can be paused or scheduled | Assign notification destinations and edit schedules when coverage changes |
Checked October 10, 2026. https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7527305?hl=en; https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/6224859?hl=en; https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435?hl=en. Effective-date reporting: https://ppc.land/google-charges-local-services-advertisers-for-missed-calls-over-20-seconds/
4.7 stars, labeled Trustpilot
Not displayed |
Vendor figure differs from direct Trustpilot listing |
Smith.ai direct Trustpilot | 4.3/5 | 375 | No aggregate-update date displayed |
Smith.ai older indexed UK Trustpilot | 4.7/5 | 284 | Index marked crawled about 1.3 years earlier; not current direct count |
Ruby Receptionists, G2 | 3.8/5 | 12 | Metadata modified September 28, 2026 |
Jobber, Capterra | 4.6/5 | 1,487 | Updated September 29, 2026; figures exposed in search retrieval; direct opening failed |
Broad company/product ratings, not home-service lead-response measurements. https://smith.ai/customers/reviews; https://www.trustpilot.com/review/smith.ai; https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/smith.ai?b=MTYxMTYwMDU2OTAwMHw2MDBmMTJiOTY3OWQ5NzA2N2NmYTEzOWQ; https://www.g2.com/products/ruby-receptionists/reviews; https://www.capterra.com/p/127994/Jobber/reviews/
Five-minute target, named owner, missed calls, after-hours trade differences, channel playbooks, median response time and booking rate; uses Jobber's owner survey
Deadlines are operating targets; no substantiated causal closed-job multiplier. Repeats Jobber's 11% HVAC figure without the conflicting 17%. |
Hawk Guru benchmark, May 20; updated May 27, 2026 | Trade averages, top-10% times, emergency/non-emergency handling, source-specific deadlines and manual audit | HVAC 3–4 hours, plumbing 2–3, roofing 6–12, electrical 3–6 and landscaping/remodeling 24–48 lack a corresponding dataset/sample. A 63% remodeling conversion-lift attribution lacks a supporting linked report. |
Slaidel, updated June 2026 | Response chart, trade targets, routing, acknowledgment, qualification script and measurement | Labels 47 hours a home-service median; calls 100× qualification instead of contact; gives 8× decay from five to 10 minutes instead of the original 4×; combines the six-company study with a 1.25-million-lead sample. |
Hawk Guru playbook, May 11; updated May 26, 2026 | Capture, qualification, routing, automation and cross-channel follow-up | Claims 35%–45% of calls arrive after hours without an underlying sample or measurement period. |
CallJolt, displayed October 20, 2026 | Response-time/conversion ladder, missed calls and AI answering | Future-dated relative to October 10. Claims 42% conversion at one second, 28% at five minutes and 12% at 30 minutes without a reproducible study; recasts 21× qualification as conversion. |
SumRev, October 3, 2026 | Search-visible definition, first-response urgency, five-step system for owners on job sites and mention of HBR | Full page failed to open; detailed omissions cannot be established. |
FlashCrafter, captured October 1, 2026 | Statistic provenance, costs, Google guidance, weak claims and a source list | Its article said the hosted PDF and official 20-second rule could not be confirmed. Both were readable October 10. It also overlooked Valve+Meter branding when attributing the PDF to ConXpros. |
Web-tool result coverage assessed October 10, 2026, not verified local Google rankings. https://www.revcorepro.com/blog/speed-to-lead-home-services; https://www.hawkguru.com/speed-to-lead/speed-to-lead-benchmark-home-services; https://slaidelconsulting.com/resources/speed-to-lead-benchmarks; https://www.hawkguru.com/speed-to-lead; https://calljolt.com/blog/industry/home-service-lead-response-time-data; https://sumrev.co/blog/speed-to-lead-home-service. Corrections: https://content.marketingsherpa.com/heap/DG07SFSlides/LeadResponseManagementReport.pdf; https://conxpros.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Speed2Lead-case-study.pdf; https://support.google.com/localservices/answer/7195435?hl=en.