Compare Grasshopper's current virtual phone system workflow against OnCrew contractor AI phone answering. OnCrew is configured for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing lines, with published included-minute pricing and team handoffs.
Hear a call it answered
What you'll hear: the receptionist answers for a plumbing shop, triages a burst pipe leaking through a ceiling, captures the address and callback number, and sends the details to the on-call team. 50 seconds.
Recorded October 3, 2026, in a test call to our demo receptionist, before today's name and voice. The caller is simulated and the call is edited for length; no customer's call is in it. Call the demo line to hear her today.
Grasshopper is a business phone system, not a call-answering service. It gives your calls somewhere to ring. Nobody picks up: that part is still you, so the honest framing is Grasshopper plus an answering service, not Grasshopper against one.
Billed per month, per phone system
We read Grasshopper's prices on October 2, 2026 and link to them rather than reprint them here. Its entry price is on Grasshopper's own pricing page.
Re-read October 2, 2026: the entry price is unchanged since July 29, 2026, and the page offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card required.
Read from grasshopper.com/pricing on October 2, 2026. Check it before you sign anything: vendors change plans and this page is a snapshot.
Billed per minute of answered calls
| Plan | Included | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | 150 minutes | $49/mo |
| Pro | 200 minutes | $149/mo |
| Multi-Truck | 500 minutes | $349/mo |
Minutes are added up over the month and rounded up once, not per call, and 2am costs the same as 2pm. OnCrew is young: a handful of contractors pay for it today, so treat this as a small company that publishes its numbers rather than a large one.
Compare current phone-system workflow, contractor intake, pricing terms, and team handoff behavior.
| Feature | OnCrew | Grasshopper |
|---|---|---|
| Product categorygrasshopper.com/pricing, checked October 2, 2026 | Contractor AI phone answering | Business phone system |
| Billing modelgrasshopper.com/pricing, checked October 2, 2026 | Included minutes with per-minute overage | Per month, per phone system |
| Entry pricegrasshopper.com/pricing, checked October 2, 2026 | $49/mo Starter (150 minutes) | Published on Grasshopper's pricing page |
| Forwarded call pickup | Configured answering workflow | Not verified |
| Contractor-specific intake (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing) | Configured trade fields | Not verified |
| Urgent-call review | Configured urgent categories | Not verified |
| Team handoffs | Configured team channel | Not verified |
| Business phone number | Forwarding supported | Not verified |
| Extensions and call forwarding | Works behind your phone system | Not verified |
| Business SMS / texting | Not a texting line. Your team gets each call by email and text; with SMS Follow-Ups on, callers get one confirmation or one hang-up text-back | Not verified |
| Virtual fax | Not the product | Not verified |
| 24/7 coverage | Configured coverage window | Not verified |
Rows with no Grasshopper value are terms we have not verified. Check grasshopper.com/pricing, or ask Grasshopper for them in writing, before you compare.
Try it on a real call first
Call the demo line and hear how OnCrew handles a live call, or start the trial and test it on your own number. Starter is $49/month with 150 included minutes after the trial, then $0.49/min overage.
Emily answers as a sample plumbing company. Talk to her like one of your customers would.
14-day free trial·No credit card to start·30-day money-back guarantee
Confirm what Grasshopper currently handles for numbers, extensions, forwarding, voicemail, texting, fax, apps, and any AI or receptionist options. Then compare that with OnCrew's configured pickup, intake, transcript, and handoff workflow.
Compare each quote against your real monthly call count, missed-call volume, after-hours share, included usage, forwarding needs, and any add-ons required to reach the workflow you want.
Run HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, estimate, warranty, and financing calls through the setup. Compare fields captured, transcript quality, caller context, and where the handoff goes.
For no-heat, active-leak, electrical, and roof-damage calls, ask where the details go, whether a transcript is included, who receives the handoff, and what happens if no one acknowledges the message.
If you already use Grasshopper, confirm forwarding, no-answer, overflow, after-hours, porting, and billing terms before connecting an answering workflow behind it.
Ask each workflow to show the exact message your team receives. OnCrew handoffs can include caller name, address, problem details, configured urgency flag, and transcript in the team channel you choose.
The contractor phone workflow to compare against a phone-system setup.
Keep your number. Forward your line full-time, after hours only, or on no-answer and overflow. OnCrew picks up calls when configured for that coverage window.
The caller hears a configured greeting in your business name. The AI asks contractor intake questions and captures trade, address, problem, and callback context.
OnCrew can flag configured urgent categories such as no heat, active leaks, electrical hazards, and roof damage for team review. Routine calls queue for normal follow-up.
Intake plus transcript lands in your chosen team channel. A person on your team decides next steps and calls back. OnCrew does not promise dispatch times or quote jobs.
Confirm Grasshopper's current monthly price, billing unit, included numbers, extensions, users, minutes, texting, fax, forwarding, voicemail, AI or receptionist options, and add-ons before comparing quotes.
OnCrew publishes included-minute plans: Starter $49/mo for 150 minutes, Pro $149/mo for 200 minutes, and Multi-Truck $349/mo for 500 minutes, with $0.49 per-minute overage on Starter, $0.99 on Pro and Multi-Truck after the plan's minutes.
Start by confirming Grasshopper's current number workflow, forwarding rules, no-answer behavior, voicemail behavior, texting, fax, app experience, integrations, and any answering add-ons.
OnCrew focuses on phone pickup, contractor intake fields, transcripts, configured urgent-call flags, and team handoffs for HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing lines.
A contractor demo should include no-heat, active-leak, electrical, roof-damage, estimate, warranty, and financing calls. Compare what each workflow captures and where the handoff goes.
OnCrew can be configured around contractor call patterns. During evaluation, review captured fields, transcripts, handoff timing, and the team message a technician or owner would actually receive.
If your primary need is a virtual phone system, number workflow, extensions, forwarding rules, texting, fax, or mobile and desktop apps, verify whether Grasshopper's current package matches that need.
For a contractor phone line that needs pickup, configured intake, transcripts, and urgent-call handoffs, compare OnCrew against the current Grasshopper quote, add-ons, and setup output.
OnCrew has three published included-minute plans. Confirm Grasshopper's current terms before comparing monthly cost.
OnCrew Starter
Solo contractors
$49/mo
150 minutes of answered calls included
Then $0.49/min overage
OnCrew Pro
Growing contractor teams
$149/mo
200 minutes of answered calls included
Then $0.99/min overage
OnCrew Multi-Truck
Multi-truck operations
$349/mo
500 minutes of answered calls included
Then $0.99/min overage
Grasshopper
Published on grasshopper.com/pricing
Grasshopper's prices are published on grasshopper.com/pricing (checked October 2, 2026); we link to them rather than reprint them here. Check the plan and add-ons there, and confirm included numbers, users, extensions, minutes, forwarding, voicemail, texting, fax, apps, and any AI or receptionist options before comparing quotes.
OnCrew Starter is $49/mo with 150 included minutes and $0.49 per-minute overage after the plan's minutes. For category context, read the Best answering service for contractors: 2026 buyer's guide buyer guide.
No contract and no cancellation fee: plans are month to month, and your plan price plus any extra minutes or texts past it is all OnCrew bills. The account owner cancels on the Billing page in three screens (a reason, an offer to pause instead that you can skip, a confirm), with no phone call and no email.
Cancelling stops the next charge, and your line keeps answering until the end of the month you already paid for. A business number you forward to OnCrew never leaves your carrier. A number OnCrew provides for you can be moved to another carrier at your request, at no charge from OnCrew, and if you cancel we hold it for 90 days.
The 14-day trial needs no card and ends on its own if you never add one. If OnCrew does not earn its keep in your first 30 days as a paying customer, email hello@oncrew.ai and we refund your subscription fee for that period. A person replies within one business day, once per company. The details on our pricing page.
Some will, on any line. Over the 30 days to November 1, 2026, 15% of calls to our paying customers' business numbers ended within 20 seconds with no more than a hello (22% if every silent call our robocall filter was unsure about was a real caller). On the voice system every line has used since October 27, it was 21% (31% counting the unsure ones) in its first 5 days. Robocalls and sales calls we could identify are left out; wrong numbers and pocket dials are still in it.
It runs higher, 50% (62% counting the unsure ones), on cell phones that forward to OnCrew only after ringing out: those callers have already waited through the rings. If you forward the calls you miss, set your phone to forward after a few rings.
Callers who ask usually stay. When a caller asks, she says she is an automated assistant and that a person from the business will call them back. In the 60 days to November 1, 2026, a caller asked whether they were talking to a real person in 21 calls: in 17 the caller then left their details, agreed to be called back or was put through to someone, and in 1 the caller hung up right after.
Your greeting is yours to write, and it can tell callers up front that they are talking to an automated assistant. On our lines a short greeting reaches its question in about 5 to 6 seconds, against 8 to 10 for the longest. And a caller who hangs up without a word can get one text back with your business name, so they can reply instead of calling the next company.
Contractors evaluating Grasshopper should confirm its current virtual phone system workflow, number options, extensions, forwarding rules, voicemail behavior, SMS or fax terms, apps, AI or receptionist features, and add-ons directly. OnCrew is a contractor phone-answering layer configured around HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and roofing intake patterns, transcripts, urgent-call flags, and team handoffs.
Confirm Grasshopper's current plan, billing model, included numbers, extensions, users, minutes, texting, fax, call forwarding, voicemail, AI or receptionist options, and add-ons before comparing quotes. OnCrew publishes included-minute plans: Starter $49/mo for 150 minutes, Pro $149/mo for 200 minutes, Multi-Truck $349/mo for 500 minutes, with $0.49 per-minute overage on Starter, $0.99 on Pro and Multi-Truck after the plan's minutes.
Confirm Grasshopper's current call-routing, voicemail, AI answering, receptionist, and add-on options before relying on it for missed-call coverage. OnCrew can be configured to pick up forwarded calls, ask contractor intake questions, capture transcripts, and send handoffs to the team channel you choose.
Confirm Grasshopper's current after-hours routing, voicemail, escalation, acknowledgement, and add-on options directly in setup. OnCrew can flag configured urgent categories such as no heat, active leaks, electrical hazards, and roof damage, then send a handoff to your chosen team channel.
Often, yes. Confirm Grasshopper's current forwarding, no-answer, overflow, and after-hours rules before connecting another answering workflow. OnCrew can sit behind a phone system as the configured pickup and intake layer for calls you choose to forward.
Setup timing depends on your current Grasshopper account, number workflow, forwarding rules, call flow, trade questions, and handoff configuration. Confirm Grasshopper's current number, porting, forwarding, and voicemail terms before choosing.
No charge today. No contracts. Configured for contractor phone lines.
Send a few details and Abe will email you setup help for your number, voice, and urgent-call rules.
Abe
Founder, OnCrew · Los Angeles, CA
“I built OnCrew after watching my brother’s plumbing crew miss two urgent jobs in one night because their answering service kept callers on hold. Setting up your line takes about 10 minutes on your own. If you get stuck, reply to any OnCrew email and I’ll walk you through it. I won’t hand you off to a sales rep, and I read every refund request myself.”
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If OnCrew doesn’t earn its keep in your first 30 days as a paying customer, email hello@oncrew.ai and we refund your subscription fee for that period. No phone tree.