When you are the business, you are also the receptionist.
Chime takes the phone off you while you work, and hands back the jobs already qualified and booked. Flat monthly price, no per-call billing, cancel whenever.
A normal Tuesday
Illustrative day on one line
Called while you were driving
Booked for Thursday morning
Called while you were under a house
Quote request captured in full
Cold sales call
Handled, never reached your mobile
Called after knock-off
Qualified, no evening phone shift
Illustrative view
An answering service for a small business answers the calls the owner cannot get to, so enquiries are not lost to voicemail while the work is being done. For a sole trader or a small team, the phone competes directly with billable work: every call taken on site is an interruption, and every call missed is a job that goes to the next business on the list. Chime Labs answers on the first ring in the business name, qualifies the enquiry, books the job into Google Calendar (or ServiceM8 and SimPRO on Pro), and escalates urgent work to the owner. It starts free, with Essential at $99 AUD per month + GST and Pro at $399 AUD per month + GST, and no lock-in.
The phone rings when your hands are full.
Small businesses do not miss calls because they do not care. They miss them because they are up a ladder, under a sink, on a tool or driving between sites.
The callback happens at seven that night, which is an unpaid shift, and half the time the job has already been booked with someone else.
Built for businesses without a front desk
No minimum call volume
A quiet week costs the same as a flat-out one. There is no per-call meter running in the background and no bill that spikes in your busiest month.
Set up in an afternoon
Divert your existing number, write your greeting and the questions you want asked, and connect your calendar. No new hardware, no phone system project.
Handles two calls at once
A small business is the most likely to lose the second caller. Chime answers every simultaneous call, so a busy morning does not become a queue.
You still own the relationship
Urgent jobs and anything outside your rules come straight to you, with the notes, so the customer talks to you when it matters.
One recovered job usually pays for the month.
Work out what an average booked job is worth to you, then count the calls you did not get to last week. For most small trade and service businesses the answer makes the decision on its own.
The reason to prefer a flat price is not just the number. It is that a per-call rate charges you most in the weeks you can least afford the distraction.
Where the cost sits
Illustrative structure
$99/month + GST
All hours covered, 100 minutes included
$399/month, teams
Same price in a storm week
Nights and weekends
No after-hours loading
Per-call or per-minute fees
Volume does not change the bill
Illustrative view
Works with the tools you already run on
We sit on top of the system you already run. We do not replace it.
Want the full picture on call answering? Back to the call answering service hub