See our Voice AI for Service Businesses hub for feature details, demos, and vertical-specific use cases.
- Monthly cost: $297-$497/month for a fully deployed voice AI agent (no per-minute or per-call fees)
- Setup cost: $1,500-$4,000 one-time depending on integrations
- Average payback period: 18 days for service businesses with moderate call volume
- Biggest ROI driver: After-hours call recovery, not daytime efficiency
- vs. hiring: 1 part-time phone person costs $2,200-$3,500/month with benefits
- vs. answering service: Similar cost, dramatically better outcomes
The three ROI levers that actually matter
Every business that calls me to talk about voice AI has the same question: "What is the return?" And every conversation starts the same way - with me asking them three questions:
- How many calls do you miss per month, and at what hours?
- What is the average value of a converted call?
- What are you currently spending on phone coverage?
Those three numbers determine 90% of the ROI equation. Let me walk through each one.
Lever 1: After-hours call recovery
This is almost always the biggest number. Most service businesses miss 30-50% of calls that come in after 6pm and on weekends. Those callers do not wait until morning - they call the next company on Google. Voice AI captures those calls in real time.
Example: A plumbing company gets 12 after-hours calls per month. Currently they miss 8 of them (voicemail). Average job value: $580. That's $4,640/month in recoverable revenue - before the voice AI costs anything.
Lever 2: Daytime overflow conversion
During busy periods - morning rush, right after a storm, your office staff at lunch - calls go to voicemail even during business hours. Voice AI handles overflow, answers immediately, and books the job or takes the lead while your team is occupied.
This is less dramatic than after-hours recovery but still meaningful. A 15% improvement in daytime call conversion often adds $800-$1,500/month for mid-sized service companies.
Lever 3: Staff time recovery
Your best office person probably spends 40-60% of their time on repetitive intake calls: scheduling, appointment confirmations, status checks. Voice AI handles that category of call, freeing your team to focus on complex customer issues, upsells, and relationship work that actually requires a human.
This lever is harder to monetize directly but it reduces hiring pressure and prevents burnout. For companies that were considering adding a part-time phone person, this becomes a direct cost avoidance.
What voice AI actually costs
Here is a transparent breakdown of what we charge at ResultantAI, and what drives the price variation:
| Cost Item | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly subscription | $297-$497/mo | Unlimited calls. No per-minute charges. Scales to any volume. |
| Setup / build fee | $1,500-$4,000 | One-time. Higher end = complex CRM integrations (ServiceTitan, Salesforce, custom). |
| Phone number | $0-$5/mo | We can use your existing number (call forwarding) or provision a new one. |
| CRM / scheduling sync | Included | Most major platforms: Jobber, HubSpot, ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Airtable. |
| Changes and updates | Included | Pricing changes, new call flows, seasonal adjustments - covered in subscription. |
| Year 1 total cost | $5,064-$9,964 | Setup + 12 months. Year 2+ is just the monthly subscription. |
The flat monthly pricing with no per-call charges is deliberate. A plumbing company during a winter freeze can get 60 calls in 4 hours. If pricing were per-minute, that would be a bill shock moment. With flat pricing, your busiest moments cost the same as your slowest month.
ROI calculator: run your own numbers
Here is the model I use with every prospect. Plug in your numbers:
Setup fee at $2,500 / $5,273 monthly lift = payback in 14 days. That is not a theoretical number - it is the median we see across our active clients.
Compared to the alternatives
Option 1: Hire a part-time phone person
A part-time receptionist or phone coordinator working 20 hours/week costs $18-$22/hour. Add payroll taxes, benefits, and hiring overhead and you are at $2,200-$3,500/month. And they still only cover business hours. The after-hours problem remains unsolved. And when they are on another call, the overflow still goes to voicemail.
Option 2: Answering service
$300-$800/month. They answer, they take a message, they relay it to you. No booking. No dispatch. No CRM sync. And call quality varies dramatically depending on who picks up. You still need to call back, and the customer has usually moved on by then.
Option 3: Voice AI
$297-$497/month. Answers in under 2 seconds. Books the appointment directly into your scheduling system. Dispatches your on-call tech for emergencies. Handles 50 simultaneous calls during a storm. Sends you a full transcript of every conversation. Costs less than a traditional answering service while doing 10x more.
| Option | Monthly Cost | After-Hours Coverage | Books Appointments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Part-time receptionist | $2,200-$3,500 | No | Yes (business hours only) |
| Traditional answering service | $300-$800 | Yes (message only) | No |
| Voice AI agent | $297-$497 | Yes (books + dispatches) | Yes (24/7) |
What actually moves the ROI numbers
After building these systems for a couple dozen service businesses, I can tell you exactly what separates the 6x ROI clients from the 2x ROI clients:
High ROI: High average job value
A roofing company capturing an after-hours call for a post-storm emergency is recovering $4,000-$12,000 per job. A dental practice capturing an after-hours appointment is recovering $200-$800. The math is dramatically better for roofing. Any business with average job values over $400 sees strong ROI within 30 days.
High ROI: High after-hours call volume
Emergency-adjacent businesses (plumbing, HVAC, electrical, pest control, restoration) get after-hours calls constantly. The AI pays for itself before dawn in a good week. Businesses that only get calls during business hours see lower (but still positive) ROI from overflow and efficiency gains.
High ROI: Replacing an existing answering service
If you are already paying $400/month for an answering service and replacing it with voice AI, the net incremental cost is $0-$100/month. The ROI math becomes extremely favorable extremely fast.
Lower ROI: Pure B2B consultative sales
If every incoming call requires a 20-minute discovery conversation to determine fit, voice AI is not a great fit for the top of that funnel. It works well for qualification and intake, but the human conversation happens earlier in B2B than in consumer service businesses. ROI still exists, but it is more modest.
The hidden ROI: what does not show up in the spreadsheet
Three things that are real and measurable but harder to quantify in a quick ROI model:
Customer experience and reviews: Customers who call at 11pm and get a helpful, human-sounding response that schedules their job are significantly more likely to leave a 5-star review. We have seen clients go from 3.8 to 4.6 average Google rating in 90 days after deploying voice AI simply because the after-hours experience improved so dramatically.
Team morale: Being on-call all weekend for emergency dispatch calls is rough. When the AI handles the intake and only escalates true emergencies that need immediate dispatch, your on-call team gets fewer 11pm calls for non-urgent issues. That matters for retention.
Competitive positioning: In local service markets, the company that answers fastest wins. If your competitor is going to voicemail at 9pm and you are answering instantly, you will take their customers. This is not just theoretical - it is what happens in markets where voice AI adoption is early.
The fastest way to get a real number for your business is a 20-minute call. I will ask you about your call volume, job values, and current coverage setup, and give you a conservative, mid, and optimistic ROI projection before we talk about whether or how to work together. No commitment required.
Common objections and honest answers
"What if customers hate talking to AI?"
Customer satisfaction data from our deployments shows the opposite. Customers who previously got voicemail at 9pm and now get an immediate, helpful response are happy. The comparison is not "AI vs. human" - it is "AI vs. voicemail." In that comparison, AI wins every time.
"What if the ROI does not materialize?"
We track call capture rates from day one. You see the number of calls handled, the calls that converted to appointments, and the jobs created. If the numbers are not there after 60 days, we know it immediately and can troubleshoot. The risk of sunk cost is real but small given the payback periods we see. We have not had a client where the ROI was negative after 90 days.
"Is this a 12-month contract?"
Month-to-month after the initial setup. If it is not working, you cancel. But realistically: once a business owner has seen 6 emergency calls booked at 2am in a month, no one cancels.