Do you need 24/7 answering, or just after-hours?

Put a number on the hours before buying any of them. The missed-call cost calculator takes your own average ticket and your own count of unanswered calls from a real week's phone log; run it twice — once for calls missed during working hours, once for evenings and nights — and the split tells you which coverage you are actually shopping for.

The trade-by-trade arithmetic is on this site already: the after-hours case for plumbing, with what each shape of coverage does with the 2am call, is in after-hours answering for plumbers; the quoted-trade case, where queue position is the product, is in answering services for painters, compared. The pattern across both: the hours you need covered are the hours your hands are busy, and for a one-person shop that is most of the working day before it is any of the night.

The practical consequence: after-hours-only coverage is not a plan you buy, it is a forwarding rule you set. Forward your line on no-answer, or on a schedule, and the meter runs only on the calls you sent — which makes a minute-metered plan cheap for a shop that only needs nights, and makes 24/7 AI coverage cheap for a shop that needs every hour, because the unit cost is low and the clock is irrelevant. What the meter does to a bill in a busy month — overage, the billable minute, premiums, the per-call unit — is worked on published prices in why your answering service bill comes in higher than the quote, and every figure above is in the sourced reference table.

Rivet's answer to the hours question is to remove it: it answers whenever you can't, triages urgency from what the caller says, books against your real calendar, and drafts the confirmation, quote and invoice as typed proposals that send nothing until you tap approve — one flat monthly price, no meter, so a 2am call costs the same as a 2pm one, which is nothing extra. Early access; deepest in HVAC, plumbing and electrical; the price on a short call. The full comparison, including when the metered human service is the better choice, is in AI vs. an answering service.

Does a small trades shop need a 24/7 answering service?

It depends on what a night call is worth in your trade. Plumbing and HVAC get genuine emergencies — a burst pipe, no heat in January — where the after-hours call is the most valuable one all week, so yes. Painting and most electrical work are quoted, not dispatched: the evening call is an estimate request that can be booked for tomorrow, so what you need is coverage during the hours you are on the tools and can't answer, which is daytime, plus evenings.

Is after-hours-only answering cheaper than 24/7?

Rarely as a published plan. Among the providers we track, the AI services answer 24/7 on every tier by construction (Rosie, SkipCalls, Sophiie, Goodcall, Sameday — read 2026-08-26 and 2026-08-05), and the live services meter minutes or calls whenever they happen rather than selling an hours window. So the cost of the hours is decided by the meter, not the clock — forward your line only after hours and you pay for after-hours minutes only.

How do I set up after-hours-only coverage?

With your phone carrier's conditional call forwarding: forward on no-answer, or on a schedule, to the service's number. Every provider we track supports being the forwarded destination. The meter then only runs on the calls you actually forwarded. Ask the provider to confirm there is no minimum and no after-hours premium in writing first.

What does Rivet do about hours?

Rivet answers whenever you can't — 24/7 by default — and books, triages and drafts the follow-up as proposals you approve, at one flat monthly price with no meter, so the hours question disappears: there is no per-minute cost to a 2am call and no reason to leave any hour uncovered. It is early access; the price is told on a short call, which is why it is not in any table here.