Reference

What missed calls actually cost a home service business

The short version: across tens of millions of business calls, roughly four in ten callers do not reach a person; most missed calls are never returned; and in the US, eight in ten adults say they don't generally answer a call from a number they don't know, which is what a call-back is. The figures behind that are below, with their sources, so you can check them or cite them yourself.

Everyone selling in this category quotes the same handful of numbers, usually without saying where they came from. Each figure here says who measured it, how, and when we last read it at the source. Most come from companies that sell phone, sales or advertising services, and we sell one of those too.

Checked against the original source

Each of these was read at its source on 15 October 2026. Who measured it, and on whose data, is said beside each one.

56%

of calls to businesses are answered by a person Across more than 70 million calls in ten industries. Leave out calls under 15 seconds (misdials and quick hang-ups) and it is 65%; calls over 30 seconds, 71%. Put the other way, between 29% and 44% of callers don't reach a person, depending on how short a call you count. Invoca, 2026 Lead Conversion Benchmarks, July 2026 — Invoca's own customers' calls, not a national sample. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

69%

of missed business calls get no call-back within 48 hours From 16.7 million missed calls over three months. Of the 31% that were returned, nearly all were returned within 24 hours: if a missed call is not returned within a day, it mostly is not returned at all. Healthcare returned 41%, professional services 33%. Quo, “Small business callback statistics”, 20 August 2026 — Quo's own customers; a call-back here means a phone call, so text replies are not counted. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

80%

of US adults don't generally answer a cellphone call from an unknown number 67% let it go to voicemail and check the message; 19% say they generally pick up. This is why ringing a missed caller back so often fails: your number is the unknown one. A survey from the summer of 2020, so older than the rest of this list. Pew Research Center, 14 December 2020 — survey of 10,211 US adults, 13–19 July 2020. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

21×

higher odds of qualifying a web-form lead called within five minutes rather than thirty And 100 times higher odds of reaching the person at all. Measured on more than 15,000 people who filled in a web form at six companies, and over 100,000 calls their sales reps made to them across three years. It is about calling back web-form leads, not answering inbound calls, and it is one software company's data rather than a peer-reviewed study — but it is the original behind every “21×” you will see. InsideSales.com and James Oldroyd (MIT), Lead Response Management Study, presented 16 October 2007 — the study's own summary. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

37%

of companies replied to a web enquiry within an hour; 23% never replied An audit of 2,241 US companies, each sent a test enquiry: 16% replied within 1 to 24 hours and 24% took longer. Those that replied within 30 days took 42 hours on average. In a separate set of 1.25 million leads, firms that tried to reach a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that tried an hour later. Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, “The Short Life of Online Sales Leads”, Harvard Business Review, March 2011 (paywalled; figures checked as quoted by SmartCompany, 1 July 2011). Checked 15 Oct 2026 — HBR · as quoted

69%

of callers who reached voicemail hung up without leaving a message From a 2016 survey of 300 micro businesses and the call data of 10,000 businesses; a third of the businesses failed to answer their calls. Ten years old, and the report mixes British and American findings, so treat it as history. Moneypenny, Small Business Call Report, 21 November 2016 — an answering-service company's research. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

Industry estimates

Read these as estimates, not research.

They come from companies that sell answering, phone or advertising services — several of whom, like us, sell something that benefits if you believe them. Where a figure is a vendor's own model or an estimate with no study behind it, it says so. Check the source before you put any of them in a quote.

28%

of calls to plumbers missed, by one vendor's estimate Given as an estimate, with no study named. At 50 calls a week it would mean about 14 missed calls. Alliance Virtual Offices, 11 June 2026 — vendor estimate. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

$100

of expected revenue per missed call A model, not a measurement: a typical plumbing or HVAC repair of about $340–350 (Angi's 2026 cost data) times an assumed 30% chance that the caller would have booked. Put your own numbers into the calculator below instead. CallNeo, updated 22 September 2026 — vendor model, with its assumptions shown. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

$49–101

median cost of a lead from search ads, by trade Plumbing $48.91, heating and furnaces $62.18, roofing and gutters $101.49 (US dollars): what one local-marketing company's own clients paid between May 2020 and June 2021. Dated, so your own ad account is the better figure — but the point stands that you paid to make the phone ring. LocaliQ, Home Services Advertising Benchmarks — 4,595 North American client accounts; medians. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

$75–800+

a month for a contractor answering service, by call volume About $75–250 a month for up to 100 calls, $250–800 for 100 to 400, and $800 or more above that, before surcharges for after-hours, bilingual or emergency dispatch. Compiled by an answering-service seller from competitors' published prices. Alliance Virtual Offices, 11 June 2026 — based, it says, on 2025–26 prices from AnswerForce, Nexa, MAP Communications and industry surveys. Checked 15 Oct 2026 — source

The sum, on your own numbers

Averages are only useful until you have your own figures. Three sliders, no form, nothing sent anywhere: work out what your own missed calls are worth.

What changed on this page

15 October 2026. Every figure was re-read at its source, and the page now says when.

The “21×” figure was credited to a vendor blog and described as being about answering the phone. It now credits the 2007 study it comes from and says what that study measured: sales reps calling back web-form leads.
Taken off: “62% of calls missed by HVAC crews on site” and “$120,000 a year lost by a small contracting business”. Neither names a study. The 62% is usually traced to a 411 Locals study of 85 businesses (usually dated 2016), which we could not find at its source.
Taken off: a cost per lead of $45–79, which the page we cited no longer carries. Replaced by LocaliQ's own published figures, above.
Answering-service prices updated to what the source says now; the $100 model now gives the job value its source gives ($340–350).
Added: Invoca, Quo, Pew, the 2007 study, Harvard Business Review and Moneypenny.

Using these

Quote them freely. If you are writing about this and want to cite the page rather than chase every source, a link back is welcome and entirely optional. If one of these figures has moved or you have a better source for it, email support@phonepick.ai and we will update the page and say who told us.

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