{
  "$schema": "https://soudcoh.com/tools/data/index.json",
  "slug": "missed-call-calculator",
  "name": "Cost of missed calls",
  "category": "Sales and conversion",
  "url": "https://soudcoh.com/tools/missed-call-calculator",
  "dataUrl": "https://soudcoh.com/tools/data/missed-call-calculator.json",
  "currency": "AUD",
  "updated": "2026-08",
  "summary": "Work out what unanswered calls cost your business a year — the calls gone for good, the jobs behind them, and the gross profit that walks out with them.",
  "whatItDoes": [
    "Counts the calls that ring out, then removes the share you genuinely win back by calling them straight away.",
    "Converts what is left into lost jobs, lost revenue and lost gross profit, monthly and annually.",
    "Prices the advertising you spent buying calls that nobody answered, which is a separate loss on top of the revenue."
  ],
  "howToUse": [
    "Get the missed-call count from your phone system, call tracking or handset log. Do not estimate it — this is the number people are most wrong about.",
    "Enter the share you call back and actually reconnect with. Reaching voicemail does not count.",
    "Set a booking rate, or use one of the published trade figures and read the caveat.",
    "Enter your average job value and gross margin, then read the annual figure."
  ],
  "formula": [
    "Missed calls = calls × missed rate",
    "Calls gone for good = missed calls × (1 − callback recovery rate)",
    "Jobs lost = calls gone for good × booking rate",
    "Gross profit lost = jobs lost × job value × gross margin"
  ],
  "interpret": [
    "Compare the annual loss against what an answering service or an extra part-time person costs. In most trade businesses the loss is larger, which makes this the easiest decision on the site.",
    "The advertising figure is a second, separate loss. You paid for those calls at the same cost per lead as the ones that connected.",
    "If the missed rate is above about a quarter, no amount of extra advertising will fix the business. It will just buy more calls to miss."
  ],
  "limitation": "Not every missed call is a lost customer — some ring twice, some are suppliers, some are people who were always going to call three businesses. Set the callback recovery rate honestly rather than optimistically, and treat the answer as the size of the problem rather than a debt someone owes you.",
  "inputs": [
    {
      "key": "calls",
      "label": "Inbound calls a month",
      "kind": "number",
      "default": 150,
      "min": 1,
      "max": 1000000,
      "unit": "count",
      "help": "From the phone system or call tracking, not from memory.",
      "sourceId": null,
      "sourceNote": null,
      "options": null
    },
    {
      "key": "missedPct",
      "label": "Share that ring out",
      "kind": "percent",
      "default": 22,
      "min": 0,
      "max": 100,
      "unit": "percent",
      "help": "Anything that went unanswered, including after hours if you advertise as available then.",
      "sourceId": null,
      "sourceNote": null,
      "options": null
    },
    {
      "key": "recoveryPct",
      "label": "Called back and reconnected",
      "kind": "percent",
      "default": 35,
      "min": 0,
      "max": 100,
      "unit": "percent",
      "help": "Actually spoke to them. Leaving a voicemail is not reconnecting.",
      "sourceId": null,
      "sourceNote": null,
      "options": null
    },
    {
      "key": "bookingRate",
      "label": "Booking rate on a connected call",
      "kind": "select",
      "default": 43,
      "min": 1,
      "max": 100,
      "unit": "count",
      "help": "Use your own if you know it.",
      "sourceId": "servicetitan-2022",
      "sourceNote": "ServiceTitan, more than 3,000 trade businesses across the United States and Canada, June 2022. Inbound call to booked job. No Australian equivalent exists.",
      "options": [
        {
          "label": "Plumbing — 43%",
          "value": 43
        },
        {
          "label": "Electrical — 41%",
          "value": 41
        },
        {
          "label": "Air conditioning and heating — 38%",
          "value": 38
        },
        {
          "label": "Garage doors — 31%",
          "value": 31
        },
        {
          "label": "Water treatment — 31%",
          "value": 31
        },
        {
          "label": "All trades — 42%",
          "value": 42
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "key": "jobValue",
      "label": "Average job value",
      "kind": "currency",
      "default": 1200,
      "min": 1,
      "max": 10000000,
      "unit": "AUD",
      "help": "Average invoice excluding GST.",
      "sourceId": null,
      "sourceNote": null,
      "options": null
    },
    {
      "key": "margin",
      "label": "Gross margin",
      "kind": "percent",
      "default": 40,
      "min": 1,
      "max": 100,
      "unit": "percent",
      "help": "After labour and materials, before overheads.",
      "sourceId": null,
      "sourceNote": null,
      "options": null
    },
    {
      "key": "cpl",
      "label": "What a call costs you to buy",
      "kind": "currency",
      "default": 90,
      "min": 0,
      "max": 100000,
      "unit": "AUD",
      "help": "Your cost per lead. Set it to zero if the calls are all organic or word of mouth.",
      "sourceId": null,
      "sourceNote": null,
      "options": null
    }
  ],
  "defaults": {
    "calls": 150,
    "missedPct": 22,
    "recoveryPct": 35,
    "bookingRate": 43,
    "jobValue": 1200,
    "margin": 40,
    "cpl": 90
  },
  "exampleResult": {
    "headline": {
      "label": "Gross profit lost a year",
      "value": "$53,127",
      "note": "110.7 jobs that were never booked"
    },
    "outputs": [
      {
        "label": "Calls missed a month",
        "value": "33",
        "note": "22% of 150"
      },
      {
        "label": "Won back by calling",
        "value": "11.5",
        "note": "35% of the missed calls"
      },
      {
        "label": "Gone for good",
        "value": "21.5",
        "note": "Reached somebody else instead"
      },
      {
        "label": "Revenue lost a year",
        "value": "$132,818",
        "note": "110.7 jobs at $1,200.00"
      },
      {
        "label": "Advertising spent on calls that rang out",
        "value": "$35,640",
        "note": "396 calls a year at $90.00"
      }
    ],
    "workings": [
      {
        "label": "Calls missed",
        "expression": "150 × 22% = 33"
      },
      {
        "label": "Gone for good",
        "expression": "33 × (100% − 35%) = 21.5"
      },
      {
        "label": "Jobs lost",
        "expression": "21.5 × 43% = 9.2"
      },
      {
        "label": "Revenue lost a month",
        "expression": "9.2 × $1,200.00 = $11,068"
      },
      {
        "label": "Gross profit lost a year",
        "expression": "$11,068 × 40% × 12 = $53,127"
      }
    ]
  },
  "shareableExample": "https://soudcoh.com/tools/missed-call-calculator?calls=150&missedPct=22&recoveryPct=35",
  "faqs": [
    {
      "question": "How much does a missed call cost a trade business?",
      "answer": "It costs the gross profit on the job you did not book, plus the advertising you spent to make the phone ring. On a $1,200 job at a 40% gross margin and a 43% booking rate, one permanently missed call is worth about $206 in gross profit. If the call came from advertising at $90 a lead, that is another $90 gone. Twenty permanently missed calls a month at those numbers is a little over $49,000 a year of gross profit, before counting the advertising."
    },
    {
      "question": "Do missed calls really turn into lost customers?",
      "answer": "Some do and some do not, which is why the callback recovery rate is an input rather than an assumption. Urgent work is the clearest case: someone with a burst pipe rings the next business while your phone is still going to voicemail. Quoted work is more forgiving — a callback within the hour often still lands. Set the recovery rate for the kind of work you do rather than taking the default."
    },
    {
      "question": "Is an answering service worth it?",
      "answer": "Compare the annual gross-profit figure this tool returns against the annual cost of the service. That is the whole decision. The comparison usually favours answering, because the loss scales with your advertising spend while the cost of a service does not — the more you spend on ads, the more expensive each unanswered call becomes."
    },
    {
      "question": "How quickly do I need to call back?",
      "answer": "For emergency work, minutes. There is no Australian study we could find that puts a number on this for trades, and we are not going to quote the widely circulated response-time statistics because none of them trace to a dataset we could check. What is not in doubt is the mechanism: the customer's problem does not wait, so a callback competes against whoever answered in the meantime."
    },
    {
      "question": "Should I count after-hours calls as missed?",
      "answer": "Only if you advertise as available then. If your ads say 24/7 and the phone goes to voicemail at 9pm, that call is missed and it was expensive — emergency searches are the dearest ones in the account. If your ad schedule matches your opening hours, an after-hours call is a bonus you never paid for."
    }
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "servicetitan-2022",
      "label": "ServiceTitan, Data Report: Average Call Booking Rates",
      "publisher": "ServiceTitan",
      "year": "2022",
      "market": "US & Canada",
      "method": "More than 3,000 trade businesses across the United States and Canada, June 2022.",
      "confidence": "medium",
      "caution": "Measures inbound CALL to booked job, not lead to job, and the fieldwork is from 2022. There is no Australian equivalent.",
      "url": "https://www.servicetitan.com/blog/data-call-booking-rates"
    }
  ],
  "relatedTools": [
    "https://soudcoh.com/tools/lead-to-job-calculator",
    "https://soudcoh.com/tools/cost-per-lead-calculator",
    "https://soudcoh.com/tools/capacity-planner"
  ],
  "licence": {
    "terms": "Free to reuse with attribution to SoudCoh and a link to the page it came from. Third-party figures remain the property of the publisher named on each row and must keep their market and year attached.",
    "attribution": "SoudCoh — https://soudcoh.com/tools"
  }
}