An AI phone answering service picks up the calls you can't. When you compare them, skip the demo voice and ask the practical questions: when does it answer, what will it say, what won't it say, and what lands on your phone afterward. This page answers those for ours, including the parts that might rule us out.
Our AI receptionist comes with the Receptionist plan. It sits behind call screening, which runs first on every plan. The plan only changes where a call goes after it passes: to you, to the AI, or to voicemail.
When the AI answers
It depends on the time of day, and you set the hours. Business hours are a per-day schedule in your time zone, and you can also set weekday hours by texting something like HOURS 8-18 to your VettedCalls number from your cell.
- During business hours, your phone rings for 12 seconds. If you don't pick up, the AI answers.
- Outside business hours, callers who pass screening go straight to the AI, and so do callers on your 60-day verified list.
- Saved contacts still ring you after hours, unless you mark that one contact to go to the AI after hours.
- Priority calls and saved contacts you miss go to voicemail, not the AI, at any hour.
Before the AI says anything, the caller hears one line from us: "Let me connect you to the receptionist. This call may be recorded."
What the AI does on a call
Picture a caller who gets through screening after your business hours. The AI takes over from the handoff line, working from instructions written for your trade. It gets their name and what they need, confirms the number to call back by its last four digits, and asks what days work. Then it tells them someone from the team will reach out to lock in a time.
Two tools sit behind it. One texts you "AI MESSAGE from [name] ([number])" with a summary. The other sends you an "AI escalation" text when something's urgent. Its instructions don't require a text on every call, so treat those as a bonus. The record you can count on is in your dashboard: each AI call's summary and transcript go into the AI call history.
What it won't do
A few limits worth knowing before you sign up:
- Quote prices. It never gives prices, ranges, hourly rates or minimums, and never offers a "free estimate." It tells the caller your team will go over pricing when they call back. The one exception is a flat trip charge, and only if you've set one; otherwise it says it doesn't have that on hand.
- Book the appointment. More on that below.
- Ask for an email address. It doesn't ask callers for one.
- Call anyone back. VettedCalls only handles incoming calls. You return calls from your own cell.
Booking: the AI takes the details, you set the time
The AI does not book appointments. Its instructions are to gather details and timing only, and never to tell a caller "I've got you booked." It takes the caller's details and the days that work for them, and you confirm the appointment when you call them back. The AI call history gives you what they asked for and when they're free.
If you need a service that puts jobs straight onto your calendar in the middle of the call, ours isn't that, and it's better you know before you pay.
Questions owners ask before they buy
Will it tell callers it's an AI?
If a caller asks, it neither confirms nor denies it. Before the AI starts talking, the caller hears: "Let me connect you to the receptionist. This call may be recorded."
Does it answer every call I miss?
Not every one. On Receptionist, a call that rings you and isn't answered goes to the AI, in or out of business hours. Priority calls and saved contacts you miss go to voicemail instead.
What happens with a priority call?
Priority Passthrough lets customers who say one of your selected priority words ring straight through to you, regardless of the time of day. They skip the text question and your phone rings right away for up to 40 seconds, on every plan. Your priority words are six universal ones (urgent, emergency, help, asap, right now, today), the defaults for your trade, and up to 20 you add yourself.
Will I get a text after every AI call?
Don't count on one. The AI can text you "AI MESSAGE from [name] ([number])" with a summary, and it can send an "AI escalation" text for urgent issues, but its instructions don't require a message on every call. Every AI call's summary and transcript do show up in your dashboard's AI call history.
How are AI minutes counted?
Time the AI spends on calls counts as AI minutes, tracked separately from voice minutes. Receptionist includes 250 AI minutes a month; past that, AI time is $0.25 a minute.
Does it know my trade?
It works from instructions written for the trade you pick at signup. There are 58 trades and professions, plus a general set for any business that isn't one of them.
Is the AI receptionist on Pro?
No. Pro has no AI receptionist, so the only AI on Pro is the screening step, and a call you miss goes to voicemail.
What is it built on?
The receptionist's voice agent runs on ElevenLabs. The screening step in front of it uses Anthropic's Claude, and call summaries use Claude Haiku.
Recordings and transcripts
On Receptionist, calls that connect to you are recorded by default, both sides, and only after the caller hears "Connecting you now. This call may be recorded." Each recorded call gets a transcript split into "Caller" and "You" lines, plus a one-to-two-sentence summary, and it stays in your call log for 90 days. You can switch recording off in your dashboard settings.
Calls the AI handles have their own summary and transcript in the AI call history. Voicemails work the same on every plan: you get a text alert and an email with the full transcript and a link to play the message.
Law offices get different defaults. On an account set up with the attorney trade, calls that connect to the attorney are never recorded, the dashboard switch can't turn that on, and voicemail transcription is off; they play the recording instead. Calls the AI receptionist answers are still recorded and transcribed, as on any account, and the caller hears that before the AI picks up. More on the call recording and call transcripts pages.
Which plan includes the AI receptionist
One of our two plans. Here's what each one gets you:
- Pro, $29.99 a month: no AI receptionist. You get screening, the shared spam registry, Priority Passthrough, voicemail with transcripts, and missed-call texts to callers who pressed 1. A missed call goes to voicemail.
- Receptionist (coming soon), $99.99 a month or $1099.89 a year: the AI receptionist around the clock, 1,500 voice minutes and 250 AI minutes a month, one app login, recorded calls with transcripts, and a 7am text summarizing yesterday's calls. Extra minutes are $0.07 for voice and $0.25 for AI.
- Team answering is an add-on to Pro. Add up to 4 more people for $10 a month each. Everyone's phone rings together and you share the minutes. The first to answer gets the call.
Our take: if you answer most calls yourself and mainly want the junk gone, Pro is enough. If you're on a roof or under a sink when the phone rings, Receptionist (coming soon) is the one. If two or three people should be able to grab the same line, add Team answering to Pro. A monthly Pro customer who upgrades gets 7 days free before the new plan is charged, and every plan has a 14-day money-back guarantee. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
Picking the best AI answering service for your business
Whichever service you look at, these are worth asking, and here's how we'd answer them for ours:
- Does spam reach the AI? On VettedCalls, screening and the shared spam registry sit in front of it, so a call we block ends before the AI picks up and uses no AI time. It still counts toward your voice minutes, usually as one minute.
- How are minutes counted? Each call rounds up to the next whole minute, with a 1-minute minimum, and AI minutes are counted apart from voice minutes.
- Will it talk price? Ours won't, apart from a flat trip charge you set.
- Does it book, or take details? Ours takes details and you confirm.
- What do you get afterward? A summary and transcript for every AI call, and texts when it uses its message or escalation tools.
- What if it isn't a fit? Ask within 14 days of your first payment and we refund everything you've paid, from the Refund page in your dashboard (once per customer).
If you're weighing people against AI, our answering service page covers that, our virtual receptionist guide sets human services, AI and call screening side by side, and after-hours answering covers nights and weekends. You can also see the comparisons, the trades the AI is written for on our industry pages, and the rest of what's included, like voicemail to text and missed-call text back.