Free calculator

What are your missed calls costing you?

Pick your trade, enter the calls that go unanswered, and see a monthly range for the jobs that may be going to the next company. The starting numbers are examples. Change them to match your books.

Your numbers

Your trade

Calls per week

Optional. Shows your answer rate.

Unanswered

Calls per week nobody picked up.

Average job value ($)

An example. Change it to what a typical job brings in for you.

Missed calls that become another company's job (%)

Nothing you type leaves this page. These are estimates for planning, not a promise of what you will lose or earn.

Revenue at risk

Enter how many calls go unanswered in a typical week and the estimate appears here.

How the calculator works

The math is four short steps. You can check every one with a pencil, and the calculator above does exactly this.

Unanswered calls a month. Calls nobody picked up in a typical week, times about 4.3 weeks in a month.
Jobs that went elsewhere. That monthly count, times the share of missed calls that end up as another company's job.
Revenue at risk. Those jobs, times your average job value. This is the middle estimate.
The range. The low end uses half your share and the high end uses one and a half times it, because the share is a guess.

Example numbers

Say 6 calls a week go unanswered. A month has about 4.3 weeks, so that is about 26 unanswered calls a month.

Say 35% of those end up as another company's job. That is about 9 jobs.

At an average job of $350, that is about $3,190 a month, with a range of $1,590 to $4,780.

These are made-up numbers to show the steps. Yours will differ, and that is the point of editing them.

Example numbers by trade

Picking a trade fills in the two numbers below. They are cautious starting points we chose, not survey results or market data. Emergency trades are set higher because a caller with a leak, a lockout or a broken spring tends to ring the next company quickly. Big-ticket trades are set lower because buyers there often wait for a callback. Replace them with your own.

Editable examples, not data
Trade	Example average job	Example share that go elsewhere
Plumbing	$350	35%
HVAC	$450	35%
Electrical	$300	30%
Roofing	$900	20%
Garage door	$350	35%
Locksmith	$150	40%
Pest control	$150	30%
Appliance repair	$250	30%
Handyman	$200	25%
Landscaping	$200	25%
Cleaning	$160	25%
Pool service	$150	20%
Pressure washing	$300	25%
Tree service	$700	20%
Painting	$1,200	15%
General contracting	$3,000	10%

How to count your own missed calls

The estimate is only as good as the unanswered count. Ten minutes with your call log gives you a real figure.

Pull a normal week. Not a holiday and not your slowest week. List every call you did not answer.
Cross out the noise. Spam, vendors, family, and numbers you know are not customers.
Cross out the ones you won. If you called back and booked the job, that call was not lost.
Count what is left, and enter it as unanswered calls per week. If you are unsure, round down.

For a longer walk through, with a worksheet, read what one missed call really costs a trades business.

What the number leaves out, and what it overcounts

It leaves out the value of the customer after the first job: the repeat work at the same house, the neighbor they would have told, and the review they might have left. A missed call can cost more than one ticket.

It may overcount when some of your missed callers would have waited for a callback, were existing customers who reach you another way, or were never going to book. That is why the range goes down to half your share, and why you should keep the share on the low side if you are unsure.

Treat the result as a rough size of the problem, good for deciding whether it is worth fixing. It is not an accounting figure.

What you can do about missed calls

Forward calls you miss to a number that someone or something answers. One dial code from your phone does it, and you keep your number. See the forwarding codes by carrier.
Compare the options before you pay for one: voicemail, a live answering service and an AI receptionist each fit different shops. The side by side covers the tradeoffs.
Use a short voicemail greeting that asks for the address and the problem, so a callback starts further along.
Return calls fast, in the order they came in. The guide to never missing a service call has a simple routine.

Booked is one option. It answers the calls you forward to it, gets the caller's name, number and address, offers only your open windows, and flags urgent calls. Pick your trade to see how it handles your calls.

Questions owners ask

How many calls do I actually miss?

Look at your phone's call log for a normal week, not a holiday. Count calls from numbers that could be customers and that you did not answer or return the same day. Leave out spam, vendors, family and customers you reached later. If you have no log, use a rough count and keep it on the low side.

What share of missed callers really call another company?

It depends on the trade, the season and how urgent the problem is. Someone with water on the floor tries the next name quickly, while someone planning a paint job may wait for a callback. The starting numbers here are cautious examples we chose, not statistics. Replace them with what you see in your own business.

Why does the calculator show a range instead of one number?

The share of callers who go elsewhere is a guess, and small changes to it move the result a lot. The low end uses half your share and the high end uses one and a half times it, so you can see how sensitive the answer is. Treat the middle figure as a rough size, not a forecast.

Is this what Booked would earn me?

No. It estimates what unanswered calls may cost you today, not what any service would win back. Booked answers the calls you forward to it and books jobs into your open windows, but it cannot turn every missed call into a job. Some callers will still hang up or want to talk to you directly.

Does the calculator save or send my numbers?

No. The math runs in your browser and nothing you type is stored or sent. Like the rest of our site, we may log that the calculator was used, with the page, the trade you picked and a random visitor id. Where the law asks first, that happens only after you accept, and never if you decline or your browser sends Global Privacy Control.

What does Booked cost, and can I hear it first?

You can hear it first. Dial (561) 571-4498 or tap Try the demo for a free demo call with no signup. To run Booked for your business it is $15 to activate, then $79/mo after 14 days, with no contract. The demo answers as a sample plumbing shop, and yours answers as your business.