AI answering services for home services
Six options, what each one actually does when the phone rings, and the one structural difference that decides which shape is right for your shop.
If your field service software is working and only the phone is broken, buy an add-on. Avoca is the most established, Sameday the closest rival, and Broccoli AI the option if you want separate agents for separate call types.
If the handoff keeps failing, an add-on will not fix it, because the problem is that the AI cannot see your schedule. Two platforms put answering and the work in one system. Workiz is the cheaper one and suits a smaller shop, though its work side is starter-tier and its AI handles calls rather than running intake. Notifi is the one built for a shop past starter software, where the AI reads the live schedule, the customer history and the equipment at the address before it books. We make Notifi, so weigh that, but the structural difference is real and easy to test.
The one distinction that matters
Every vendor in this category will tell you they answer every call, book jobs and sound human. By 2026 that is mostly true of all of them, so it is not a useful way to choose.
The real split is structural. An add-on sits outside your field service software and talks to it through an integration. It answers, qualifies, and pushes a booking across. An AI front office that is part of the platform is reading the same schedule and customer record the office is looking at.
That difference shows up in one specific place: what happens on a call from an existing customer. An add-on knows what the integration exposed. A built-in operator knows the unit at that address is fourteen years old, that you were there in March, that the customer is on a service agreement, and that the only technician certified for that equipment is already booked until Thursday.
Neither is better in the abstract. If your software is fine and your phone is the problem, an add-on is the smaller, cheaper, faster fix and you should buy one. If the handoff keeps breaking, the add-on is the wrong shape.
What these actually cost
Published pricing in this category is unusually slippery, so treat any number you read, including ours, as a starting point for a conversation:
- AI answering add-ons generally price on call volume or a monthly platform fee, and the commonly quoted range for a small to mid-size shop runs from the low hundreds into the low thousands per month.
- Human answering services typically price per call or per minute, which is predictable at low volume and painful during a heat wave.
- Platforms with answering included fold it into the software cost, so compare against your current software bill plus your current answering bill rather than against either one alone.
Six questions to ask every vendor on the demo
- What exactly does the AI know about a repeat customer at the moment it picks up?
- Can it see real capacity, or is it booking into a slot and hoping?
- What happens when it does not understand? Who picks up, and how fast?
- Show me a recording of it failing, not just the good ones.
- How is the booking rate measured, precisely?
- If we cancel, what do we keep? Recordings, transcripts, the customer records it created?
| What it is | Books into | Best when | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Avoca | AI front office for the trades, the category leader by spend and awareness | Your existing FSM, ServiceTitan first | You are happy with your software and only the phone is broken |
| Sameday | AI receptionist, heavy on booking-rate proof | Your existing FSM | You want the most aggressive booking-conversion pitch |
| Broccoli AI | Suite of named AI phone agents for CSR, sales and estimates | Your existing FSM | You want several specialised voices rather than one |
| AnswerForce | Human receptionists with AI-assisted scripting | Your existing FSM | You want a person on the line and will pay for it |
| Workiz | Starter-tier field service software with call handling built in | Itself | You are a small to mid-size shop and want the phone inside the software |
| Notifi | Field service platform where the AI operator is the front office | Itself, with full job context | You are replacing the software anyway, or the handoff is what keeps failing |
01Avoca
The most visible name in the category and, on the evidence of how hard they market, the best funded. Answers inbound, qualifies, books into your system, and does outbound lead work well.
Shops already running ServiceTitan or similar who are losing calls and do not want to change software. Outbound reactivation is genuinely their strong suit.
It is an add-on by design, so it works from what your software exposes through an integration. It does not run your schedule, so booking accuracy depends on how much context the integration passes through.
02Sameday
Direct rival to Avoca with the most numbers-forward pitch in the category. Strong vertical coverage beyond the core trades.
Owners who want to be sold on a specific booking rate and hold the vendor to it.
Same structural limit as any add-on. Also worth asking exactly how the quoted booking rates are measured before you sign to them.
03Broccoli AI
Ships a set of named agents for different jobs, so the CSR voice, the sales voice and the estimate follow-up are separate personalities rather than one assistant.
Companies that want to hand distinct call types to distinct agents.
Thinner on non-voice channels like web chat and email, and no money handling. Still an overlay on someone else’s record.
04AnswerForce and human services
Real people, with scripting tuned to the trades. The old answer, and still the right one for some shops.
High-stakes or emotionally loaded calls, and owners who do not want a robot answering at any price.
Cost scales with volume in a way software does not, availability is uneven at 2am, and the message still has to be re-entered by your office.
05Workiz
The incumbent field service platform that took the phone seriously, with VoIP and call handling in the product.
Mid-size shops that want one vendor for the phone and the schedule.
The AI leans toward handling and tracking calls rather than operating the whole front office, and dispatch depth is modest at scale.
06Notifi
Ours. The distinction that actually matters is not voice quality, because everyone’s voices are good now. It is what the AI can see. An add-on sits outside your software, so it answers with a script and hands you a message. Iris is inside the system that holds the schedule and the history, so when the phone rings it already has the caller, the equipment at that address, the last visit, the service agreement and today’s board. It books the right job with the right technician into real capacity instead of taking a message.
Shops where the handoff is the failure point: the AI books something the schedule cannot actually support, or the office re-does the work anyway. Also anyone replacing their software regardless.
If your field service software is working well and you like it, replacing it to fix the phone is a bigger project than buying an add-on, and you should weigh that honestly. Avoca or Sameday on top of what you have is the smaller move.
Where these numbers come from
Pricing and review figures checked August 2026. List prices are before annual discounts and add-ons, and vendors change them without notice. Verify anything you are about to make a decision on.
Common questions
What is the best AI answering service for HVAC contractors?
If you are keeping your current field service software, Avoca is the most established choice and Sameday is the closest competitor to it. If you want the phone and the software from one vendor, Workiz is the option for a smaller shop and Notifi for one past starter software. If you want humans, AnswerForce is built for the trades.
Can AI actually book HVAC jobs, or does it just take messages?
It genuinely books, but the quality depends on what the AI can see. Booking into real capacity requires access to the live schedule, technician skills and drive time. An assistant that only has a calendar feed will book things your dispatcher then has to undo, which is worse than a message.
Is an AI receptionist cheaper than hiring a CSR?
Almost always, on pure cost per call handled, and the gap widens on nights and weekends when a human would be on overtime. The comparison people get wrong is assuming it replaces a CSR outright. In practice it absorbs overflow and after-hours, and your CSR moves to the calls that need judgment.
Do these work with ServiceTitan?
Most of the add-ons are built to. Avoca, Sameday and Broccoli all lead with ServiceTitan integration. That is exactly what makes them the right choice if you are staying on ServiceTitan.
What happens to calls the AI cannot handle?
Every serious vendor has an escalation path to a human, and this is the single most important thing to test. Ask what triggers it, how quickly it hands over, and what the caller hears in between. Ask to hear a recording of a real escalation.
Hear it answer your own calls
Bring a real week of calls. We will run Iris against them so you can hear how it handles your customers rather than a script.