Your phone won't do this alone. Something behind it has to.
You're on a ladder, the phone buzzes, and by the time you're down it has stopped. You want that caller texted without touching anything. Three routes: your phone, a business phone system's auto-reply, or a managed agent that asks what the caller needs and answers.
The first mostly doesn't exist: as of September 2026, none of the phones below texts a missed caller on its own.
What your phone can actually do, checked in September 2026.
From each maker's own help pages:
iPhone
No automatic text to a missed caller; while a call rings you can tap Message and pick a canned reply. The Driving Focus has an Auto-Reply, but it only runs while Driving Focus is on and answers the contacts you allow, not every missed caller.
Source: Apple: answer or decline calls, Apple: Driving Focus
Android (Google Phone app)
Quick responses, sent by tapping Message on the incoming call screen. Nothing goes out on its own once the call has rung out.
Source: Google: make and receive calls, Google: change call settings
Samsung Galaxy
Quick decline messages: swipe up while the phone rings and choose one. Manual, like the others.
Source: Samsung: quick decline messages
Google Voice
Do not disturb, and missed-call alerts by email, but no documented setting that texts the caller back.
Source: Google Voice: call availability, Get email alerts for missed calls
Set the one-tap reply up tonight anyway. On an iPhone: Settings, Apps, Phone, Respond with Text, and replace the stock lines. In Google's Phone app: More, Settings, Quick responses. On a Galaxy: the Phone app's three dots, Settings, Quick decline messages. Write one line that names the business and says when you'll call back. It needs a free hand, which you rarely have.
One fixed message, sent every time. Often enough.
Internet phone systems often have the setting your cell lacks. Two, checked as of September 2026:
- Quo (formerly OpenPhone). Auto-replies fire on missed calls, new voicemails, and incoming texts, with separate wording in and out of business hours, at most one per contact every three hours. Set it in Quo's web or desktop app: Settings, Phone Numbers, the number, Automations, Auto-Replies. Quo's help page.
- Grasshopper. Its Instant Response feature texts callers automatically when a call is missed. Grasshopper's feature page.
Elsewhere, search the help center for “auto-reply.” It only works on a number that lives on that system, so a plain cell means moving the number or advertising a new one.
A fixed reply worth pasting
160 characters, 1 SMS segment. Tidewater Door & Glass is invented for this page. Name, automatic, one next step, opt-out line. Swap in your own name and link.
The limit is the word “fixed.” The caller who left a voicemail asking about weekend installs gets the same line as one who hung up, and has to ask again.
An agent that asks first, then answers the reply.
This is what I sell, so weigh it accordingly. The call rings your cell; twenty seconds unanswered and a spoken apology plays, promising a text; no voicemail is taken. The agent sends a first text from the toll-free number you forward to, asking what the caller needs, then answers from your prices and booking page.
First text: 183 characters, 2 segments, under the 300 cap. The $95 is the fictional business's configured trip charge; the review pass checks every price against that before sending.
The setup, step by step
- 01
Book a call and decide. Fifteen minutes on what you miss and what callers ask. If the numbers don't work, you hear it then.
- 02
One link, one intake. Terms, a typed-name signature, the $850 setup invoice, then your hours, prices, service area, booking page, and the promises you never make.
- 03
The number gets verified. Carrier verification for the toll-free number is filed under your business's name: about three business days.
- 04
Drafts before anything is live. The agent learns from up to 25 pages of your site plus the intake, then drafts sample replies. You mark the ones that don't sound like you.
- 05
Dial the forwarding code. From your cell: *61*, the new number, # on AT&T or T-Mobile (no answer), *67*, the number, # for busy; *71 and the number on Verizon. Or print the new number and skip this. Your cell gets a set 20-second ring; if your voicemail picks up first, that counts as answered and nothing is texted, which the test in step 06 catches.
- 06
Test it, then watch it. Call from someone else's phone, let it ring out, read what arrives. Until the replies settle, I review each outgoing text and correct anything off-key.
Two limits. A call outside 8 am to 8 pm gets no text, though the apology promised one. And when a reply asks something your material doesn't cover, the caller hears nothing more and you get a Slack alert with a drafted answer.
The three routes on the points that decide it.
| Your phone | Phone system | Managed agent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Nothing extra | Whatever your phone system charges | $249/mo + $850 setup + usage |
| Does it send by itself? | No, you tap it while the phone rings | Yes | Yes |
| Answers the caller's question | No | Mostly no: one message for everyone (Quo's Sona beta is the exception) | Yes: it asks, then answers the reply |
| Checks prices before sending | You do | Nothing to check, it's fixed | A second model checks every draft |
| After-hours calls | Only if you're holding the phone | Quo lets you set a separate after-hours reply | No text outside 8 am to 8 pm; you get a Slack alert |
| Where your number lives | Where it is now | On that phone system | Where it is now; calls forward to a new toll-free number |
All three routes text someone who just called. Twilio's messaging policy covers replying to someone who reached out and how opt-outs work; promotions need separate consent. Ask your own lawyer how that applies in your state.
Start with the cheapest route that answers your callers.
Example numbers, so use yours: you miss 25 calls a month and three would have booked. At a $350 average job, that's $1,050 at stake, against about $289 a month for the agent at the top of usage. One recovered job covers it.
Here's the catch. If your callers mostly want the same thing, a booking link or a call-back time, the fixed reply in route two does that job. Pick the agent only when callers ask questions a single line can't answer: prices, whether you cover their town. If fewer than a handful of missed calls a month are like that, skip it and paste the template above into your phone system.
Whether a text recovers callers at all: does missed-call text back work. On a wired office phone, the landline page has the forwarding codes. Trade-by-trade wording lives on the templates page. Controls and terms are on the Missed-Call Text Back page.