You're on a ladder with a nail gun when the estimate call comes in.
Remodel and project work comes in by phone, and it comes in while you're building something else. The person calling about a kitchen or an addition is often getting three bids, working down a list of names. If yours rings out, they call the next one, and whoever books the walkthrough first has the inside track.
Calling back at lunch doesn't fix it. By noon they may have talked to two other builders and set a time with one. What holds them is a text that shows up before they dial the next number, asks the one question you'd ask, and hands them a way to pick a walkthrough time without waiting on you.
I ran a field sales company of 120+ people before I wrote code. Getting back to a lead while they're still shopping is the one piece of that job this agent does for you.
Three replies to a remodeler's missed callers.
The caller has already heard the short spoken message and hung up without leaving a voicemail. The agent writes each message fresh from your service list, your hours, and whatever the caller texts back, so these are examples of the shape, not fixed wording. The first two start with a first text: each names the business, says it's automated, asks what the job is, and ends with the opt-out line, under the 300-character cap (the count below each is for that first text). The third hands the caller to you.
Estimate caller texts back about a deck
216 characters
Town and size are the two facts you'd ask first on the phone. Town tells you if it's in your radius; size tells you if it's worth a Saturday.
A menu instead of an open question
252 characters
Plenty of estimate shoppers ignore an open question. A menu of project types gets a one-word answer from someone who'd never type a paragraph.
Current customer, active job
107 characters
Linda sent this in answer to the first text. The agent doesn't answer job-site questions it has no information about. It tells her someone will get back to her, and her question reaches you in a Slack alert with what was sent and a note to call her back.
Notice what none of them do. They don't give a ballpark price for a deck. Project pricing depends on what you see at the walkthrough, and the reviewer blocks any figure you haven't put in your intake. If you do publish a starting price, the agent can quote that and nothing else. To see a thread like these run inside a finished trade website, tap Call on any of the trade website demos; each has the agent built in. More wording by trade is on the templates page.
Your lumber yard won't get a text. That's on purpose.
A contractor's missed calls aren't all homeowners. Suppliers, inspectors' offices, and the permit desk usually call from office landlines or desk VoIP. Before anything is written, one number lookup drops those lines, since they can't receive a text anyway. Withheld caller IDs, your own numbers, premium-rate numbers, and calls that failed the carrier's caller-ID check are dropped even earlier.
None of that disappears. Screened calls still land in your log, so the Tuesday afternoon you missed the tile supplier twice is visible next to the three homeowners who got a text. If the shop's own number is an office landline rather than your cell, the agent can still sit behind it. The page on missed-call text back for a landline has the carrier forwarding codes and the full list of caller lines that get screened.
Five rules the code holds it to.
A text answering someone who just called you sits on different footing from a marketing blast. That footing only holds if the reply stays a reply. All five are checked on every draft. The promo check looks for offer wording, so it catches “15% off,” not every sales idea a draft could carry.
| Rule | What it means on a job |
|---|---|
| Only callers get a text | The agent can only message a number that phoned you. It never works a list, so your old bid sheets and past-customer spreadsheet stay out of it. |
| The first text identifies you | Business name, the word automated, and the opt-out line go on every first text. Replies further down the thread drop them. |
| STOP is final | A STOP reply puts the number on a do-not-contact list that every agent on your account respects. |
| 8 am to 8 pm, your time zone | The window is narrower than the federal 9 pm because Florida, Oklahoma and Maryland stop at 8. A caller who rings at 9 pm is texted once at 8 am, and any voicemail they left reaches you right away. |
| No sales pitch | Offer wording such as '15% off', coupons, and promo codes is blocked in a reply. The answer stays about the call. |
The number runs under Twilio's messaging policy, which requires the sender to be identified and an opt-out in the first message, and allows only a single confirmation after someone opts out. If you ever want to text past customers about a fall promotion, that's marketing, it needs written consent you collect yourself, and it isn't this product. State rules differ; run your own setup past your counsel before you rely on any of this.
Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan: it sits in front, not inside.
The agent doesn't write into your field-service software. It attaches in two places. Your cell forwards unanswered calls to a toll-free number I provide, and the texts go out from that number (on AT&T or T-Mobile, *61* plus the number for no-answer; on Verizon, *71 plus the number). And the link in each text is whatever estimate request or booking page you already use, wherever it's hosted.
HubSpot gets a native record of every call and text; other tools can take the same record by webhook. Alerts reach you in Slack. Setup is about three business days of carrier verification, then a rehearsal where you read the drafts, then a few weeks of shadow mode, when I read each outgoing text as it leaves and fix anything that sounds off.
If you already run Jobber, look at its own option first. As of September 2026, Jobber lists its AI Receptionist as a $29 a month add-on, on plans from $49 (Core) to $499 (Plus) a month, on its pricing page. Jobber's receptionist answers calls and texts around the clock; this texts after the call rings out, 8 am to 8 pm. If your callers expect to talk to someone, the add-on is the cheaper and better fit.
If the phone is the small problem and the real drag is in the office, in estimating, submittals, change orders, or chasing receivables, that's custom work rather than a prebuilt agent. How I approach it is on the construction back-office automation page, written for North Carolina contractors.
Project work changes the arithmetic. One job covers a lot.
The agent is $249 a month, plus AI usage and phone line costs, typically $20–40 a month, with no setup fee. No long-term contract: give 30 days' notice for any reason, and the number ports out with you at no charge.
Example numbers, not yours
- You miss 6 estimate calls a month.
- One caller in three would have booked a walkthrough: 24 walkthroughs a year.
- You win one walkthrough in three: about 8 jobs a year.
- A $15,000 project that leaves you 20% is $3,000 to you in margin, after your costs.
- First year of the agent, with usage at the top of its range: $3,468.
Break-even: about 1.2 recovered jobs in the first year.
Swap in your own close rate and average job. A specialty contractor with smaller tickets, a fence or a bathroom refit, needs more wins to get there. A builder doing additions needs fewer.
Skip it if
- Someone at your office answers the phone all day. The agent only helps when a call rings out.
- Your work comes from general contractors and builders who email plans, not homeowners who call.
- You're booked six months out and turning down walkthroughs. Faster replies won't add capacity.
The full picture of the service, including the review pass that checks every draft, is on the missed-call text back page. What costs extra is on the pricing breakdown. Whether texting a missed caller actually wins them back is covered in does it work. Roofing contractors have their own page for storm-season calls.
