Questions people ask before they sign up

Yes — call (249) 496-5966. That’s PhonePick answering its own phone, any time. Ask it what it does, or ask it for a demo: it will play the receptionist for a made-up restaurant, plumber or clinic while you play the caller, and nothing you order or book in the demo is real. There’s no open free trial (a trial code from us is the exception), and you can also hear six demo calls on the home page.

Yes. Every call opens by saying it is an AI and that the call is recorded, and it answers honestly the moment anyone asks. There is no setting that changes either. The law here is more specific than most articles about it suggest, so we wrote up what the rules actually say.

It answers in your business's own language, the one you choose in Settings, which is English unless you change it. If a caller speaks another, it switches to theirs mid-call and carries on in it.

It speaks 85 languages: Afrikaans, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Asturian, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cantonese, Catalan, Cebuano, Chichewa, Chinese (Mandarin), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Korean, Kyrgyz, Latvian, Lingala, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Occitan, Odia, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sindhi, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh and Yoruba. In 32 of them the call itself switches over; in the others it answers in the caller's language directly, and a reply can take a second or two longer. Texts, emails and the app are in English.

Only what you gave it: the sentence you wrote yourself, word for word, or the prices printed on a price list or menu you uploaded. It never works a number out. A figure you never saw, said to a customer as though it came from you, is worse than no figure at all — so if you have given it nothing, it says it can't quote over the phone and offers to have someone call back.

It says so and takes a message. Anything outside what you put in Settings and what it read from your website is treated as unknown. That is a good answer on a phone call. Guessing is not.

It also writes the question down. Your dashboard shows what callers asked that it couldn't answer, and how often — type the answer once and the very next caller hears it. It gets better every week it answers your phone.

It books times your calendar actually has free. Everything else is "someone will confirm" — because a promise a machine made is a complaint, not a job.

You set the shape of it. It only offers times inside your working hours, you can cap how many bookings a day it may take, and you decide how soon is too soon — anything from straight away to three days' notice — and how far ahead it is allowed to go. Call backs don't count against the daily cap.

Yes. "Have someone ring me tomorrow at five" goes into your diary as a fifteen-minute appointment with the caller's name, number and what it's about — on your calendar and in the summary email as an invite. It sits there without using up a booking or blocking a time another customer could book: call backs don't count towards your daily limit and don't close the slot they sit in. A promise to ring someone only exists once it has a time.

Yes, as an add-on to any plan, and Growth includes 200 calls a month, drawn from its minutes. It makes four kinds of call: it rings back callers who asked for a call back, returns calls nobody answered, reminds people about an appointment (a day before, unless you change it) and confirms bookings. On a reminder or a confirmation they can move the appointment or cancel it, and your diary changes with them.

These calls go only to people who called you or booked with you — never anyone from a list. On Growth it can also make sales calls, to people who agreed to hear from you; those are below. It says it's an AI at the start of every call, calls on weekdays between 9 and 6 where the person is unless you change the hours, and never outside the hours the law allows. It leaves a voicemail if it reaches one, and anyone who says not to call again is taken off for good. The calls come from your PhonePick number. You'll find the prices on the pricing page, and six demo calls on the outbound demos page.

Yes, and it talks like your business rather than a trade. The first thing you pick in Settings is what kind of business this is: Trades & home services, Clinic or health practice, Law office, Office or professional services, Insurance broker or agency, Salon, spa or studio, Garage or auto shop, Food truck or takeaway, Restaurant, café or bar, or Something else. Wherever people come to you it books them in instead of arranging site visits, and never asks a caller for their home address. For a practice that serves patients it is also deliberately discreet: it takes who called, how to reach them and what they said they need, and never presses for symptoms or history.

PhonePick is PHIPA compliant for Ontario clinics: it acts as your agent under PHIPA, keeps no call audio, puts no patient details in emails or texts, and requires two-step sign-in (details). Being straight with you: it is not HIPAA compliant and does not sign a Business Associate Agreement. It is the front desk, not the chart — booking, hours, directions and messages, never triage or medical records.

Yes. Pick "Restaurant, café or bar" and it books tables instead of appointments. It asks how many people before it looks at times, because how many there are changes what is free; it says the day, the time and the party size back to them before it books; and anything the kitchen or the floor needs — an allergy, a birthday, a high chair — goes onto the booking in the caller's own words. You set how many parties and how many guests can start in the same half hour, the largest party it will book, and how late the last reservation can be.

It never answers an allergy question. Not "is it gluten free", not "is the kitchen nut-free" — what a recipe says is not what happens in a kitchen on the night. It says it can't answer that, writes it on the booking so the kitchen sees it, and asks them to mention it to their server as well. It never books a call back about an allergy. A party bigger than the largest you allow does get a call back, rather than a table it booked on its own.

Yes, for a restaurant, café or bar. Turn on phone orders in Settings, choose pickup, delivery or both, and give it your menu — a PDF, a photo or a link. It prices every order from that menu rather than adding anything up itself, asks for a name, reads the whole order back with the total, and places it only once the caller says yes. Save your sales tax rate and the total it reads back includes the tax.

Each order lands on your Orders page and in your email, there's a kitchen screen you can open on a tablet, and a text goes to the kitchen's phone if you want one. If the caller hangs up before saying yes, you're told the order was not placed so someone can ring them. It doesn't take card payments, and an allergy goes on the ticket for the kitchen — it never says a dish is safe.

You tell it, and you can paste your website address and let it read the site. It picks up what you do, where you work, and what you don't do — that last part is what stops it accepting a job you can't take. Anything you type yourself always wins over what it read.

Yes. On Operations and Growth you get a page of your own at phonepick.ai/book/your-name, where a customer picks a time, leaves their details and gets a confirmation. It offers only times that are really free — your hours, your notice and how-far-ahead rules, minus what's booked and what's on your connected calendar — and it books into the same diary your receptionist uses, so the phone and the page can never give one time away twice.

Put the link on your website, as the Book button on your Google Business Profile or Instagram, or print the QR code for the counter. Each booking lands on Appointments marked Booked online and in Leads, you get an email with the invite attached, and the customer has a link to cancel. How it works.

Yes. Once a time is agreed it says the deposit out loud and texts a pay link while the caller is still on the phone. The money goes straight into your own Stripe account, and the receipt carries your name. You set it per service: a fixed amount, a percentage of that service's price, or none.

It never takes a card number — the link is the only way to pay. And an unpaid deposit never cancels a booking: it's flagged, and what happens next is your call.

Before each appointment — the day before, unless you pick anything from two hours to three days — it texts: "Reply Y to confirm, or N if you can't make it." Y confirms. N cancels and frees the time. Anything else lands in your inbox for a person.

One word is special: CANCEL is a carrier opt-out, so anyone who replies it is unsubscribed by their phone company from every text you send. That booking is flagged for you to ring, never cancelled. Switch on the waitlist and a freed time is offered to one waiting person at a time, who replies Y to take it. The waitlist isn't offered to restaurants, where tables are paced by party size.

Yes. Add invoices one at a time, or import the CSV from QuickBooks, Wave or FreshBooks. Once one is overdue a reminder text goes on the schedule you set — first after so many days, then every so many, then it stops. Connect Stripe and each reminder carries a pay link, and paying by it marks the invoice paid.

Reminders go only between 9am and 8pm local time. The wording is fixed: never a threat, a fee or "collections", and always "Already paid? Thank you, please ignore this."

Text a photo of the receipt to your PhonePick number from your own phone, or from a staff phone you've listed. A text comes back with the total, the tax and the net, and it's filed on your Expenses page with the photo. At month end, download the CSV for your bookkeeper.

Adding one by hand? Attach the photo or a PDF: it's read the same way and fills in the amounts for you to check before you save. Every receipt's photo can be viewed and downloaded.

The tax it records is the tax printed on the receipt — it never applies a rate, because claiming tax that isn't on the receipt is the mistake that costs you. iPhone photos work. Photos are kept shrunk, with the GPS location removed (the rare one that can't be opened is kept as it was sent). A customer's photo is an ordinary inbox message and is never filed as your expense.

Yes. One line of code adds a chat button to your site — Wix, Squarespace, WordPress and Shopify all have a box for it. It answers from the same hours, services, prices and FAQ as your phone, and every chat sits in your inbox beside your texts.

It says it's an AI, and it can't book: an anonymous visitor could fill your diary with junk. When someone wants a time or a quote it takes their name and number, and that lands in Leads and in your email.

If you switch it on, a couple of hours after each booked visit (you can pick anything from an hour to a day) it texts a thank-you with your Google review link. Everyone gets the same text: no "were you happy?" first and nothing offered in return, both of which Google bans. Never the same number twice in 90 days, and never outside 9am to 8pm.

Yes, on the Growth plan — but only to people who gave you their consent: in writing, or by ticking the call box on your website form when they asked you to get in touch. It isn't for cold calling, and bought or scraped lists aren't allowed: nobody is imported without their own record of agreeing.

Every call starts by saying it's an AI calling for your business, before anything else, and a sales call says straight after how to opt out. Before a list is called, you confirm that everyone on it agreed in writing to calls from your business made with an AI voice, and each person carries their own record: when they agreed, the words they agreed to, and where. Do-not-call and STOP always win: anyone who says not to call again is taken off there and then, and a number on your do-not-call list is never rung.

That is what the product enforces. Whether the consent you hold is enough where you and your customers are is yours to answer — we're not lawyers, and this isn't legal advice. The terms say what you agree to.

Switch on sales calls and tell it what you sell and who to, up to six questions you'd ask a buyer, and the next step to aim for: a booking or a call back. When a caller wants to buy, it asks your questions the way a person would — one at a time, never an interrogation, never pushy — answers only from what you gave it (it still never invents a price), and takes them to that next step.

Each sales call gets a score from 0 to 10 — hot, warm or cold — and the next step in one line, on its call summary. When a lead scores at or above the bar you set, you hear straight away: an email and, while you have texts left, a text to your mobile, or, if you'd rather, it offers to put them through to you while they're still on the line.

Yes. Put PhonePick's form on your site, or send your own form's leads to your private lead link. Someone who ticks the call box is rung back within minutes when it's inside calling hours, while they still remember asking; someone who doesn't tick it is saved as a lead for you to ring. It can follow up a quote they asked for the same way.

Yes, if everyone on it agreed in writing to hear from you. Upload up to 2,000 people at a time, each with a name, a number, when they agreed, the wording they agreed to and where. A row missing any of those, or whose wording doesn't cover calls made with an AI voice, is turned away with its line number so you can fix it. You confirm the consent in the app before anything is called, and you can pause or stop a list at any time.

It calls on weekdays between 9am and 8pm and Saturdays between 10 and 6, in the person's own time zone, never on Sundays or national holidays, and paces itself. If too many of the people it reaches ask not to be called, say it's the wrong number or hang up straight away, calling pauses by itself. Past customers are called the same way, and only the ones who opted in in writing: having booked with you before isn't consent to a sales call.

No. You get a second, local number and forward your own line to it, so nothing changes for anyone who already has your number. You can forward everything, only when you don't answer, or only when your phone is off.

You dial one short code from your mobile, like a phone number. We show you the exact code. They're the standard GSM codes and work on most Canadian and US carriers.

Porting an existing number to PhonePick isn't self-serve yet. Email us and we'll tell you honestly whether it's worth doing for your setup — for most people, forwarding is simpler and reversible in one dialled code.

Three plans, a month each: Front Desk $75 with 300 minutes and 300 texts, Operations $149 with 600 minutes and 750 texts, and Growth, your AI sales rep, $449 with 1,500 minutes, 2,000 texts and 200 outbound calls drawn from those minutes. No contract, no setup fee, and no open free trial: if we've given you a trial code, enter it when you choose a plan and the first days are free. The pricing page has every feature, plan by plan.

Front Desk is the phone: it answers, books, takes messages and phone orders, puts the urgent ones through, texts booking confirmations, keeps a transcript of every call it answers, shows what the phone earned and includes the CRM.

Operations adds the rest of the front office: deposits on the call, confirmation texts and a waitlist, invoice chasing, expenses by text, a staff time clock, review requests, website chat, intake forms, an on-call rota, a morning brief and a list of customers who haven't been back. Growth is your AI sales rep: everything in Operations plus sales calls. It qualifies and scores the buyers who ring, alerts you to hot leads, calls back website leads and calls people who agreed in writing to hear from you, with 200 outbound calls a month drawn from its minutes, 1,500 minutes and 2,000 texts.

If you take bookings, start on Operations. If you sell, Growth. If you only need calls answered and messages taken, Front Desk does that.

Yes, on Operations and Growth. Your staff clock in when they arrive at one of your sites and out when they leave, from their own phones: it installs from a link like an app, and each person signs in once with their mobile number and a code. You add each place once with a pin, your own locations or the care homes and client homes you visit regularly. The phone's location is checked at the tap and at no other time, and nobody is stopped from clocking in: anything off is flagged for you. You get hours by person and by site for any week or month, and a timesheet CSV for payroll. It doesn't run payroll. How it works.

Yes, any time, on the Plan page. Moving up starts straight away and is prorated to the day, so you can start small and move up the day you need to; this month's minutes go up by the share of the month that's left. Moving down takes effect at the end of your billing period, and you keep the bigger plan until then. Your settings for the Operations features are kept on any plan, so moving back up brings them straight back.

Out of minutes, it stops answering and your calls ring through to your own phone instead, exactly as they did before you signed up. You are never billed for minutes you didn't buy. Out of outbound calls, it stops calling. Both start again on the 1st.

In whole minutes, the way your phone bill counts them — a forty-second call is a minute.

By the call. A call counts when it reaches someone or leaves a voicemail, and each one includes up to three minutes — a longer call counts once for every three minutes started. Unanswered tries and busy lines are free. When a month's calls are used up it stops calling until the 1st; it never charges you extra.

In segments. A long message costs more than one, and emoji or curly quotes cut a segment from 160 characters to 70 — the app shows you the count before you send. Replies you receive are never counted.

Yes. No contract, no setup fee. The plan runs to the end of the period you have already paid for.

Canadian prices for Canadian customers, US prices otherwise. The pricing table has a toggle if we guess wrong from your browser.

It's encrypted, walled off from every other business, and never sold. Our security page lists every company that touches it, their audits, and straight answers on what we haven't done yet.

Yes. Every call is recorded, and the caller is told so at the start of the call, every time, which is required in some places and only fair everywhere. That announcement can't be switched off. A written transcript of every call it answers is kept too.

No, and neither can you. They have to text START themselves. That one is the law rather than a setting.

It's screened rather than deleted — you can see everything that was screened, so you're never left wondering what we swallowed on your behalf.

Into the app, into your email, and to a webhook if you set one, and you can export them as a CSV any time — a lead that only exists in our database is a lead you never got. The CRM pipeline is included on every plan.

Yes. Add another number in Settings → Your number, for a second location or to see which ad people called from. The same receptionist answers every number, with the same plan, and your minutes and texts are shared. Calls, texts and leads say which number they came in on, and a reply goes back from the number they rang. Each number can have its own greeting, receptionist name, opening hours, address and number for urgent calls, so a second location answers as itself. Each extra number is $10 a month.

Yes. Invite them from Account → Team; each person signs in with their own email. An Admin can change settings and invite staff; Staff handle the calls, inbox, leads, bookings and orders without touching settings or billing. The plan, billing and phone numbers stay the owner's. Front Desk includes 2 logins, Operations 5 and Growth 10, counting yours. Past that, each extra login is $10 a month, on any plan; your minutes and texts are shared by everyone.