A homeowner with a leaking bathroom rings three contractors and hires the one who picks up. You were on a roof, under a sink, or driving — so it went to voicemail, and most of them do not leave one. Estiquik gives you a number that answers: it finds out what the caller needs, books the site visit straight into your schedule, and emails you the whole conversation before you have washed your hands.
HerThanks for calling Elm Kitchen & Bath, this is Nina. How can I help?
CallerHi — I’m looking to get my bathroom done.
HerHappy to help. Can I take your name?
CallerDana Whitfield. Rip the tub out, put a walk-in shower in.
HerGot it. Priya would come out and take a look before quoting — that’s free and takes about an hour. Wednesday at ten, or Thursday at two?
CallerWednesday morning works.
HerBooked — Wednesday at ten, 84 Riverside Drive East.
It is not a voicemail box that transcribes. It has a conversation, and it can put a real appointment on your real calendar.
You keep your own number and forward it with a short code from your mobile. Calls you do not pick up land here instead of your voicemail — nothing on your van, your website or your Google listing has to change.
It reads your actual availability — your jobs, your working hours, your notice period, even the busy times on your own calendar feed — and offers times you can genuinely make. The visit lands on your schedule and the caller becomes a client.
The same engine as your booking page →Name, number, address, what they want done, when they are hoping to start and any budget they mentioned — saved as it goes, not at the end, so a caller who hangs up early still leaves a record behind.
Set it to transfer when a caller asks for a person, or only when it is genuinely urgent. Your phone rings showing your own office number, and you hear a one-line summary of who is on the line before you say hello.
The outcome, the summary, the callback number and the full transcript — in your inbox, and written up in the app under Recent calls. It sends no text messages to you or to your customer.
It answers from what you typed in: your services, your service area, your hours, your own FAQ answers. Anything you have not told it, it says it does not know and takes a message — which is a good answer on a phone call and a lost job if it guesses.
Four steps. The app walks you through them the first time you open the page.
Pick the area code your customers would expect to see and press Get my number. It is yours in a few seconds, and it sits behind your own number rather than replacing it.
Give her a name and a voice, set your hours, list what you actually do and where you work, and add the questions you get asked most with the answers you would give.
Dial one short code from your mobile and calls you do not answer come here instead of going to voicemail. This is the step people forget — until you do it, nothing reaches her.
She answers, books what she can and takes a message for the rest. You get the email; the visit is already on your schedule and the client is already in your list.
Calls are answered by Twilio’s voice platform and the conversation is written by Anthropic’s Claude. Recording is off unless you turn it on, and turning it on adds a line to the greeting saying so.
A machine answering your phone in your name can lose you a job in ten seconds. Four rules are built in and cannot be switched off.
Minutes are bought in bundles and the price is the same whichever Estiquik plan you are on. Run out and it simply stops answering — there is no overage charge and no surprise invoice.
| Option | Monthly | What that buys |
|---|---|---|
| Estiquik · 100 minutes | $29 | CA$39.99. Roughly 35–50 calls at a typical two to three minutes. On top of any paid plan, from $19.99. |
| Estiquik · 300 minutes | $69 | CA$94.99. Change bundle any time; the difference is prorated. |
| Estiquik · 650 minutes | $129 | CA$174.99. Cancel the receptionist on its own without touching your plan. |
| Jobber Receptionist | $29 + overage | 30 conversations included, then $0.79 per extra conversation; free on Jobber’s top Plus plan. Requires a Jobber subscription on top. |
| A human answering service | $300+ | Typical for moderate call volume; per-minute and per-call plans make a busy month expensive and unpredictable. |
Full breakdown, including what a human answering service costs: how much does an AI receptionist cost?
Jobber’s figures were read from Jobber’s own help centre on 9 September 2026 and may have changed since. The human answering service figure is an indicative market range, not a quote from a named vendor. Estiquik prices are per month, add-on to a paid plan, and are shown in CAD to Canadian visitors.
It is a very good way to stop missing work. It is not a salesperson and it is not you.
Launched 2026. The receptionist is new, and we would rather tell you that than hide it. Ring the number yourself before you forward your phone to it — have a normal conversation, try asking what a kitchen costs, and see whether you would be happy with a customer hearing it. Every call is transcribed so you can read exactly what it said.
It answers, finds out who is calling and what they want done, gets the address and a callback number, and then either books a site visit from your real availability or takes a message. A booked visit creates the client and the job on your schedule exactly as if you had taken the call yourself, and the caller lands in your Leads pipeline. Afterwards you get an email with the summary, the number and the full transcript, and the call is written up in the app.
No. You keep your number and forward it. Estiquik rents you a second line, and you dial a short code on your mobile so that calls you do not pick up ring there instead of going to voicemail. Your number stays on your van, your website and your business listing.
Never. Not a number, not a range, not “usually around”. The only pricing it will ever say is a sentence you type in yourself, word for word, and most contractors leave that empty so it says pricing depends on seeing the job and offers the visit instead. It also never promises a start date or a completion date.
That is your choice, and there are two settings: announce it in the greeting on every call, or introduce her by name and say nothing unless the caller asks. What is not a setting is lying about it — in both modes she answers honestly the moment anyone asks and will never claim to be a person. Canada has no law requiring the announcement; several US states do, so choose the greeting version if you take calls from the States.
It stops answering and calls ring through to your own phone instead, exactly as they did before. You are never billed for going over and there is no overage charge. You get an email at four fifths so you can move up a bundle before it happens, and minutes reset on the 1st.
If a caller describes gas, fire, flooding, a collapse or an injury, it tells them to hang up and call 911 immediately rather than taking a message. You can also let it put urgent callers straight through to your mobile, with a whispered summary before the two of you are connected.
$29 a month for 100 minutes, $69 for 300, or $129 for 650 — the same price whichever plan you are on, because a minute costs the same to serve either way. It sits on top of any paid Estiquik plan and can be cancelled on its own at the end of the month.
Start free, set it up in about ten minutes, and ring it yourself before you trust it with a customer.