Blog

Voicemail is not free

10 September 2026 · 4 min read

Every business that cannot always answer its phone has already made a decision about it. Usually that decision was voicemail, and usually it was never really a decision at all — it is just what the phone came with.

Voicemail is the only option on the list with no invoice attached, which is why it feels like the free one. It is not free. It just bills you somewhere that does not show up in your accounting.

What it actually costs

Take your own numbers: missed calls a week, your average job, and the share of people you speak to who become customers. Multiply. Whatever that number is, voicemail recovers a small fraction of it, because the overwhelming majority of callers to a business do not leave a message. They ring the next number.

So the cost of voicemail is roughly the cost of every missed call, minus the few people patient enough to leave a message and still available when you call back.

The four options, honestly

• Voicemail. No invoice. Recovers very little. Every caller has to wait for you.
• An answering service with people. Typically $200 to $1,500 a month plus $1 to $3 per call. Real judgement, real conversation, one call at a time.
• Hiring someone. Around $2,500 a month part-time. Best experience for the caller. Also one call at a time, and they go home at five.
• Software. From about $14 to $99 a month depending on whose. Answers everyone at once, never has an off day, and cannot use judgement.

We sell the fourth one, so weigh that. The honest summary is that the first is worse than people think, the second and third are better than people think, and the fourth is cheap enough that the comparison is usually decided by whether you need judgement on the call.

When voicemail is genuinely right

If your phone rings twice a month, do not buy anything. If your work comes entirely by referral and everyone who calls you knows you personally, they will leave a message and voicemail is fine. If your average job is small and your margin is thin, the arithmetic may simply not support any of the paid options.

The point is not that voicemail is always wrong. It is that it should be a decision you made on purpose, having looked at the number — and for most businesses missing more than a handful of calls a week, it is the most expensive line item they have never counted.

Ours is $29 a month and we put our arithmetic against a competitor's in public, including the parts where they win.

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