Call volume estimator
Start from the calls you see on a normal open day. Add your own guess at the after-hours share, and get a weekly and monthly total you can plan around.
Estimated inbound calls a month
677
An estimate you control. Change the share and watch how far it moves.
- Calls a week in opening hours
- 125
- Calls a week after hours
- 31.3
- All calls a week
- 156.3
- After-hours calls a month
- 135
Sanity check on your share
- Calls per open hour
- 3.13
- Calls per closed hour
- 0.24
Lowest GreetKeeper bill
- Every call: Professional
- $149
- After hours only: Starter
- $49
If the closed-hour rate looks as busy as your open hours, the share is probably too high. Lower it until the two numbers look like your phone.
Why you'd estimate at all
Every answering service asks how many calls you get. Most owners know the daytime number by feel, and have no idea about the rest. Calls that arrive while you're closed ring out, and nobody writes them down.
This estimator bridges that gap with one assumption, and it shows you the assumption. You enter what you see on an open day. You choose what share of all calls you think arrive after hours. It does the scaling and nothing else.
Treat the output as a first number for choosing a plan. It's a guess with its working shown, and a month of real data should replace it.
The formula, in plain words
Why divide instead of adding a percentage on top? Because the share is a slice of every call, daytime and night together. If a fifth of all calls come after hours, then your daytime count is the other four fifths. Dividing by 0.8 rebuilds the whole.
After-hours calls are the total minus the daytime calls. A month is the week times 52, divided by 12. The share is capped at 90%, because at 100% the sum would divide by zero.
Two more lines act as a check. Calls per open hour is your daily count divided by your daily hours. Calls per closed hour is the after-hours estimate divided by the hours you're shut. Closed hours should look much quieter. If they don't, your share is too high.
A worked example
The estimator opens on these inputs. The 20% is a placeholder for you to replace.
The open-hours week
25 calls a day over 5 days is 125 calls.
Scale up for after hours
With a 20% share, 125 is the other 80%. 125 divided by 0.8 is 156.25 calls a week, of which 31.25 come after hours.
Make it a month
156.25 times 52, divided by 12, rounds to 677 calls a month. The after-hours part alone is 135.
Check the share
25 calls over 8 hours is 3.13 an open hour. The 31.25 after-hours calls spread over 128 closed hours is 0.24 an hour. Far quieter, so the share passes the smell test.
Match a plan
677 calls a month is lowest on Professional at $149. Sending only the 135 after-hours calls fits Starter at $49.
One input here is a guess
Swap the guess for a measurement
Your phone provider is the first place to look. Most keep a log of every inbound call with a time stamp, answered or not. Export a month, sort by time, and count the rows outside your opening hours. Divide by the total and you have your real share.
Voicemail is a weak stand-in. It only records the people who waited for the beep and chose to talk. Anyone who hung up sooner is missing, so a voicemail count sets a floor and the true figure sits above it.
Got your number? Put it into the plan picker to see the bill, or the missed call cost calculator to see what those unanswered calls may be worth.
Questions about estimating calls
How do I estimate call volume for an answering service?
Count the calls on a normal open day and multiply by the days you open. That's your open-hours week. Then scale it up by the share of calls you believe arrive while you're closed. Multiply the week by 52 and divide by 12 for a month.
What after-hours share should I use?
We don't supply one. Start from your phone provider's call log if you can. If you can't, try a low guess and a high one. On the example inputs, 10% gives 602 calls a month and 30% gives 774, and both land on the Professional plan, so the guess doesn't change the decision.
Why does a 20% after-hours share add 25% to my calls?
Because the share is a slice of all calls, and your daytime count is the rest. If 20% come after hours, your daytime calls are the other 80%. Divide the daytime count by 0.8 and you get the total, which is 25% more.
Does the estimate include robocalls and wrong numbers?
Only if your daily count does. The estimator scales whatever you give it. If you want a figure for billing, count the calls where a real person wanted something, and leave out the junk.
How many calls do GreetKeeper plans include?
Starter includes 200 calls a month for $49. Professional includes 750 calls a month for $149. Scale includes 2,000 calls a month for $349. Extra calls are billed at each plan's published overage rate.
A guess today, a real count in a month
Every call the assistant takes arrives as a transcript and a summary, so the counting does itself.