The calls you miss after 5pm
are the ones worth money.
On a job site, under a sink, driving between appointments: your phone rings exactly when you can’t pick it up. fonea answers in seconds — evenings, weekends, and holidays included — answers questions, books appointments on your calendar, and transfers the urgent ones. Works with the number you already have.
What is an AI answering service?
An AI answering service picks up your business line with a natural voice: it greets callers, answers their questions, books appointments on your calendar, and transfers urgent calls to you — 24 hours a day, including after hours, weekends, and holidays, starting at $90 a month.
The missed-call problem
The caller who reaches voicemail calls the next company
You are the receptionist, and you are on the job
For a plumber under a sink, a moving crew loading a truck, or a property manager walking a unit, answering the phone means stopping the work that pays. So it rings out, the caller hears voicemail, and they call the next result on the map. The job goes to whoever picked up.
The first company to answer usually wins the work
Your customers call after hours — your office is closed
The water heater fails at 9pm. The tenant reports a leak on Saturday. The estimate gets chased on Sunday afternoon. A line that only works business hours quietly filters out exactly the callers with an urgent problem and a credit card.
After-hours calls go to whoever answers them
A full-time front desk does not pencil out
Covering one line through business hours, lunch, vacation, and sick days takes more than one salary — more than most US trades, home-services companies, and small offices can justify. So the phone gets covered by whoever is least busy, which on a good day is nobody.
One phone line takes more than one person to cover
What changes
What fonea does for your business
Every call answered in seconds
No voicemail, no ringing out, no hold music. Callers are greeted with your business name within seconds — at 2pm on a Tuesday and at 9pm on the Fourth of July alike.
Appointments booked while the caller is still on the line
Connected to Google Calendar or Microsoft 365, fonea sees real availability and books the estimate, the service call, or the walkthrough on the spot. No phone tag, no callback list.
Urgent calls transferred, everything else summarized
You decide what counts as urgent — a burst pipe, a lockout, a no-heat call in January. Those get transferred to your cell immediately. The rest arrive as a structured summary by email or text.
English and Spanish on the same line
fonea detects the caller’s language and answers naturally in English, Spanish, German, French, or Italian — one number, no separate Spanish line, no language menu to sit through.
Live within 24 hours
How it works with your existing number
Keep the number you have
Landline, VoIP, or cell — fonea works with any US carrier through standard call forwarding. No porting, no new number, no contract to unwind.
Set up forwarding
Forward all calls, only when busy, or only when unanswered. Most US lines set this in a couple of minutes, and you can switch it back off just as fast.
fonea answers, books, and transfers
The assistant greets callers with your business name, answers the questions you get every day, books appointments, and puts urgent callers through to you.
You get the summary
After every call: who called, what they wanted, what was booked or promised — by email or text. Nothing rings out unnoticed again.
Typical calls
How fonea handles real US calls
Property management — leak reported Saturday night
The emergency is triaged and escalated in under a minute — instead of sitting in a voicemail box until Monday morning.
Home services — no-heat call at 9pm in January
An after-hours emergency becomes a dispatched job or a booked morning slot — not a message someone finds at 8am.
Moving company — estimate request while the crew is loading
A quote request turns into a booked estimate while the crew stays on the truck — the call that would otherwise have gone to the next mover on the list.
Privacy and disclosure
Built to be transparent on every call
Callers are always told it is an assistant
At the start of every call, fonea discloses that the caller is speaking with a digital assistant. The disclosure cannot be switched off — no caller is ever left thinking they reached a person.
No voiceprints, no biometric profiles
fonea does not build voice profiles and does not identify callers by their voice. Calls are transcribed and the transcripts encrypted — there is no biometric identifier being created or stored.
You control recording and retention
Call recordings and how long transcripts are kept are configurable per account, so you can match the retention and consent practices your state and your industry require.
Encrypted, on European infrastructure
AI processing runs on European infrastructure and persistent data is stored in Switzerland, encrypted in transit and at rest. Your call data is not a training set for someone else’s model.
Pricing
Transparent pricing
Included
- 120 minutes AI talk time included
- EN, ES, FR, DE, IT
- Calendar integration & appointment booking
- AI answering machine 24/7
- Interactive AI for customer service
- Email & SMS notifications
- Cancel monthly, no commitment
- No setup fees
Included
- 500 minutes AI talk time
- 3 concurrent calls
- 3 phone numbers
- Unlimited assistants
- Unlimited users
Features
- Everything in Basic
- Outbound calls
- No setup fees
Included
- From 2,000 minutes
- Custom concurrent calls
- Custom phone numbers
- Unlimited assistants
- Unlimited users
Features
- Everything in Professional
- Custom voice
- Custom SLA
- No setup fees
Frequently asked
AI answering service — your questions answered
What does an AI answering service cost per month?
fonea starts at $90 per month and includes 120 minutes of talk time, with no per-call charges, no setup fee, and no annual contract — you can cancel monthly. Traditional answering services typically bill per call or per minute on top of a base rate, which makes a busy month unpredictable; a part-time human receptionist costs well over $2,000 a month in wages alone before you cover evenings and weekends.
What is the difference between an AI receptionist and a virtual receptionist?
A virtual receptionist is a remote person answering your line, usually shared across several businesses and billed per call or per minute. An AI receptionist answers every call instantly, never puts anyone on hold behind another company’s caller, works around the clock without a surcharge for nights and weekends, and costs a flat monthly rate. The trade-off is judgment: fonea handles your common calls, books appointments, and transfers the ones you have told it to transfer.
Does it work after hours and on weekends?
Yes, at no extra charge. fonea answers 24/7, including nights, weekends, and holidays — which is when a large share of emergency and high-intent calls actually come in. Many businesses answer their own calls during the day and forward to fonea after hours; others forward everything.
Does fonea work with my existing phone number and carrier?
Yes. fonea works through standard call forwarding, which every US carrier supports on landlines, VoIP lines, and cell phones. You keep your existing number — there is no porting and no new contract — and you choose whether calls forward always, when your line is busy, or when nobody answers. Turning forwarding back off takes seconds.
Can it answer calls in Spanish?
Yes. fonea detects the caller’s language and answers naturally in Spanish, English, German, French, or Italian on the same number — there is no separate Spanish line to publish and no “press 2” menu. For businesses with a significant Spanish-speaking customer base, this replaces a bilingual answering service on one line.
What happens with urgent calls?
You define what urgent means for your business — a water leak, a no-heat call, a lockout, a tenant emergency. When a caller describes one, fonea transfers them to your cell immediately; if you do not pick up, it captures the details and flags the message for priority callback. Routine calls are booked or summarized instead, so your phone only interrupts you when it should.
Are callers told they are talking to an AI?
Yes, always. fonea discloses at the start of every call that the caller is speaking with a digital assistant, and that disclosure cannot be disabled. fonea also does not create voiceprints or biometric profiles of callers. Call recording and transcript retention are configurable per account so you can align them with your state’s consent rules and your own policies.
Further reading
How Much Does an AI Receptionist Cost? (2026 Guide)
AI receptionist pricing explained: subscription vs per-minute vs per-call models, hidden fees to watch, and how the cost compares to hiring or outsourcing.
AI Receptionist vs Answering Service: Which Is Right for You?
AI receptionist, human answering service, or in-house reception? An honest, vendor-neutral comparison of cost, availability, and fit.
How AI Answers Business Calls, Step by Step
How AI answers business calls, step by step: speech-to-text, language models, sub-second latency, bookings, transfers, summaries — and where it still fails.
AI Receptionist for Moving Companies: Win Every Quote
Crews on the road, the line ringing out, evening callers hitting voicemail. How an AI receptionist captures every moving quote 24/7 and books the survey.
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