What 7,749 contractor websites say about who answers the phone
On October 29, 2026 we read the websites of 7,749 HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing and other trade businesses in 13 US metros and recorded what each one says about its phones: 32% advertise 24/7, 3.6% promise a live person, only 0.3% say an answering service or call center takes their calls, and 2 say an AI does. The numbers by trade and by metro are below, with the CSV.
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 she got today's name and voice. The caller is simulated and the call is edited for length; no customer's call is in it.
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Quick answer
How many contractors advertise 24/7, and who answers?
Of the 7,749 contractor websites OnCrew read on October 29, 2026 across 13 US areas, 32% advertise 24/7, but few say who answers: 3.6% promise a live person, only 26 say an answering service takes their calls, and 2 say an AI does. Of the office hours the script could read, 78% end by 6 pm.
Source: OnCrew's read of 11,753 contractor websites on , of which 7,749 could be read. Businesses came from Overture Maps places data; the method and the CSV are at the end of the page.
A third promise 24/7. Few say who answers the phone.
Each share below is of the 7,749 websites we could read, unless the card says otherwise. A website is not the phone: these are the promises the pages make, not a measurement of who picks up.
32%
2,465 of 7,749 websites say 24/7, 24 hours a day, 24-hour emergency or around the clock.
25%
The script found a line of office hours on 1,949 websites. A floor: many sites list hours in tables, structured data or images it could not read.
78%
Of the 1,682 office-hours lines with a closing time the script could read, 1,308 end at 6 pm or earlier.
3.6%
280 websites say a real person answers, or that they are not a call center and use no answering service or robots.
0.3%
26 websites say an answering service, virtual receptionist or call center answers their phones. 151 more name one only to say they are not one. A floor, not the true share.
2
2 of 7,749 websites say an AI receptionist or AI agent answers the phone; 3 more run an AI chat assistant on the site, which is not the phone.
What the 24/7 pages also say
Of the 2,465 websites that advertise 24/7, 562 publish hours we could read, and 419 of those (75%) close by 6 pm. 15 (0.6%) say an answering service or call center answers, 176 (7.1%) promise a live person, and 1 says an AI does. The rest make the promise and say nothing about who keeps it after the office closes.
Restoration and plumbing promise 24/7 most; roofing and pest control least
The 24/7 share runs Restoration 64%, Plumbing 45%, Garage door 43%, HVAC 34%, Electrical 24%, Appliance repair 20%, Roofing 16%, Pest control 12%. Trades with emergencies at night make the promise; trades whose work is scheduled do not. Software is a trade story too: HVAC and plumbing websites name field software several times as often as roofing or restoration.
| Trade | n | 24/7 | Live person | Service answers | Hours | By 6 pm | Software |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | 1,933 | 34% | 3.4% | 0.5% | 29% | 74% of 499 | 11% |
| Plumbing | 1,643 | 45% | 5.1% | 0.5% | 23% | 77% of 306 | 9.1% |
| Electrical | 1,429 | 24% | 2.0% | 0.3% | 21% | 89% of 257 | 3.6% |
| Roofing | 1,309 | 16% | 2.5% | 0% | 27% | 84% of 319 | 0.5% |
| Restoration | 454 | 64% | 6.8% | 0.7% | 12% | 79% of 48 | 0.9% |
| Pest control | 371 | 12% | 4.6% | 0% | 33% | 88% of 104 | 0.5% |
| Garage door | 286 | 43% | 3.5% | 0% | 31% | 43% of 81 | 8.7% |
| Appliance repair | 219 | 20% | 4.6% | 0.5% | 28% | 50% of 54 | 6.4% |
Columns: n = readable websites; 24/7 = advertise 24/7; Live person = promise a live person; Service answers = say an answering service or call center answers; Hours = an office-hours line was found; By 6 pm = share of the hours lines with a readable closing time, with that base after each figure; Software = name field-service software. Trades with fewer than 100 readable websites are left out.
The 24/7 share varies less by metro than by trade
Across the 11 metros with at least 100 readable websites, the 24/7 share runs only from Houston 38% to Austin 27%, a narrower band than across trades. The same trade can still run differently from one metro to the next: see the trade by metro table below.
| Metro | n | 24/7 | Live person | Service answers | Hours | By 6 pm | Software |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Los Angeles | 2,387 | 30% | 3.5% | 0.3% | 23% | 78% of 488 | 4.5% |
| San Diego | 930 | 31% | 3.9% | 0.2% | 23% | 73% of 185 | 5.9% |
| Dallas-Fort Worth | 829 | 34% | 3.4% | 0.4% | 29% | 69% of 196 | 7.8% |
| Inland Empire (CA) | 817 | 31% | 3.7% | 0% | 24% | 82% of 171 | 6.0% |
| Orange County (CA) | 635 | 35% | 4.4% | 0.6% | 23% | 75% of 126 | 8.0% |
| Central Connecticut | 504 | 35% | 3.0% | 0.8% | 26% | 92% of 111 | 3.8% |
| Austin | 434 | 27% | 4.4% | 0% | 28% | 77% of 110 | 8.3% |
| East Bay (CA) | 326 | 29% | 2.1% | 0.9% | 27% | 90% of 80 | 5.2% |
| Pittsburgh | 299 | 34% | 3.7% | 0% | 25% | 86% of 64 | 5.7% |
| Ventura County (CA) | 253 | 30% | 4.3% | 0.8% | 26% | 74% of 57 | 5.9% |
| Houston | 228 | 38% | 2.6% | 0.4% | 33% | 60% of 57 | 9.2% |
Metros are the business-list areas the study drew from: Southern California (Los Angeles, Orange County, Inland Empire, San Diego, Ventura County), the East Bay, Texas (Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin), Connecticut and Pittsburgh. Two more areas were read but had fewer than 100 readable websites and are counted only in the totals.
Where the 24/7 promise is most and least common
Every trade and metro pair with at least 100 readable websites, by the share that advertises 24/7. The same trade can run very differently from one metro to the next.
| Trade | Metro | Websites | Advertise 24/7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restoration | Los Angeles | 155 | 63% |
| HVAC | Pittsburgh | 101 | 49% |
| Plumbing | Los Angeles | 560 | 48% |
| HVAC | Central Connecticut | 132 | 48% |
| Plumbing | San Diego | 220 | 47% |
| Plumbing | Inland Empire (CA) | 189 | 47% |
| Plumbing | Orange County (CA) | 147 | 46% |
| HVAC | Dallas-Fort Worth | 425 | 39% |
| HVAC | Austin | 112 | 38% |
| Garage door | Los Angeles | 133 | 38% |
| HVAC | Orange County (CA) | 139 | 35% |
| HVAC | Inland Empire (CA) | 188 | 32% |
| Electrical | Central Connecticut | 131 | 29% |
| Electrical | Orange County (CA) | 110 | 28% |
| Electrical | Dallas-Fort Worth | 199 | 28% |
| HVAC | Los Angeles | 467 | 27% |
| Electrical | Inland Empire (CA) | 138 | 23% |
| Roofing | Central Connecticut | 134 | 23% |
| Electrical | Los Angeles | 390 | 23% |
| Appliance repair | Los Angeles | 119 | 22% |
| HVAC | San Diego | 141 | 21% |
| Electrical | San Diego | 147 | 20% |
| Roofing | Dallas-Fort Worth | 117 | 20% |
| Roofing | Inland Empire (CA) | 109 | 18% |
| Roofing | San Diego | 106 | 15% |
| Pest control | Los Angeles | 167 | 14% |
| Roofing | Austin | 145 | 13% |
| Roofing | Los Angeles | 367 | 13% |
6.1% name their field software, and two names take almost all of it
473 of the 7,749 websites name or link the software that runs the office. A website that does not name its software may still run one; this counts public mentions only. 55 websites (0.7%) were advertising a customer service, dispatcher or receptionist opening on the day we read them.
| Software | Websites naming it | Share of all 7,749 |
|---|---|---|
| ServiceTitan | 212 | 2.7% |
| Housecall Pro | 209 | 2.7% |
| Jobber | 29 | 0.4% |
| Workiz | 12 | 0.2% |
| Service Fusion | 5 | 0.1% |
| Successware | 3 | 0.1% |
| Kickserv | 2 | 0.1% |
| Service Autopilot | 1 | 0.1% |
Shops on this software weigh its own answering product against a separate receptionist. The comparisons: Housecall Pro CSR AI, Jobber Receptionist, and the full comparison hub.
If your website says 24/7, decide who answers at 2 a.m.
A third of these pages promise 24/7, and most of those say nothing on the site about who answers after hours. Four ways to keep the promise, with the honest cost of each. Whichever you pick, publish your real hours, and make the promise match what a caller gets.
Forward to your own cell
Free, and the person who knows the business picks up. The cost is every call at 2 a.m. being yours, and the calls that come while you are on a roof or under a sink. If this is your plan, say so on the site: a callback window is better than a 24/7 claim the phone cannot keep.
A live answering service
A person answers from a script and sends you the message. Priced by the minute or the call, so a busy season costs more. Ask what the operator says to a no-heat caller, how the message reaches you, and what happens when the operator is on another line.
An AI receptionist
Software answers in your business name, takes the name, callback number, address and the problem in the caller's words, flags urgent calls and texts your team. Priced by included minutes. Hear one handle a call for your trade before you forward a line to it, and read what it does when a caller asks for a person.
Voicemail with a text-back
A low-cost option. A caller who hangs up without leaving a message is gone, so pair it with an automatic text that gives a callback time, and publish the hours so the caller knows what to expect.
One way to make the phone agree with the website
OnCrew is an AI receptionist for contractors. When your business line forwards to it, Emily answers in your business name, takes the caller's name, callback number, service address and the issue in their own words, flags urgent calls on the caller's word, and texts your team within seconds of the call ending (measured median on oncrew.ai/trust).
It is one of the four options above, not the only one. Call the demo line first: it answers as a sample plumbing company, so talk to it the way your customers would. If it is not right, nothing changes on your line. Plans are published on the pricing page, and every plan starts with a 14-day free trial with no card to start.
- The caller's name, callback number and service address
- The problem in the caller's own words, flagged urgent on the caller's word
- A text and an email to your team within seconds of the call ending
- Routine jobs booked on your Google Calendar during the call, with the calendar connected and booking switched on
How the websites were found and read
Businesses came from Overture Maps Foundation places data (release 2026-10-21.0; CDLA-Permissive-2.0, with Foursquare-sourced places also under Apache-2.0) for 13 US metros, filtered to HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, restoration, pest control, garage door, appliance repair, chimney and a few smaller trades by category. On a script read up to three pages of each business's own website once (the home page, a contact page and a careers or about page), obeying robots.txt: 11,753 websites, 7,900 readable, 3,853 not. Most of those it could not reach over a secure (HTTPS) connection from the network it ran on; the rest were missing pages, server errors, bot challenges (never bypassed) and sites whose robots.txt asks readers to stay out. This is a sample, not every business: the 28,461 small trade businesses pulled for these areas list 21,760 websites, and the script read them in capped runs, so the areas were read to different depths, and pest control, garage door and appliance repair were read in Southern California only. Chains, franchises and suppliers were left out before the read, and 151 readable websites that turned out to be one lead-generation network (identical template text and title pattern, a different tracking number on each) were left out after it, which leaves 7,749. Trades and metros with fewer than 100 readable websites are counted in the totals only. Every sentence that matched the answering-service, AI or live-person patterns was then read and labeled against a written rubric: 151 of the 229 answering-service matches were denials such as "not a call center" and count as live-person promises, and only 2 of the 14 AI matches said an AI answers the phone (the rest were same-day service, chat widgets or a denial). We called nobody, so nothing here says who actually picks up.
What each column means
- Advertises 24/7
- The page says 24/7, 24 hours a day, 24-hour emergency or service, around the clock, or open 24 hours.
- Promises a live person
- The page says a real person or live operator answers, or that the business is not a call center and uses no answering service, phone tree or robots. A customer review saying a real person answered counts.
- Says a service answers
- The page says its phones are answered by an answering service, virtual receptionist, after-hours answering service or call center (its own or hired). A page that names one only to say it is not one counts as a live-person promise instead.
- Says an AI answers the phone
- The page says an AI receptionist or AI agent answers the business's phone; a customer review saying so counts. An AI chat assistant on the website does not.
- Office hours found, closes by 6 pm
- The script kept the first line of opening hours it found on the pages it read. Closes by 6 pm: the first afternoon or evening closing time it could read is 6:00 pm or earlier. Lines it could not read are left out of that share, and its base is printed next to it. Hours shown only in tables, structured data or images were not read, so the hours-found share is a floor.
- Names field software
- The page names or links field-service software such as ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber, Workiz or Service Fusion. A link to Jobber's Client Hub (its request form and customer portal) counts as Jobber.
- Hiring a phone role
- The careers text names a customer service representative, dispatcher or receptionist opening.
Limits
- Up to three pages per website, read once by a script. A claim on another page, buried in an image or a PDF, or added after October 29, 2026, is missed.
- The sample leans toward websites served over a secure (HTTPS) connection: most of the websites the script could not read were ones it could not reach that way.
- Websites, not phones. The study measures what businesses say, not what callers get.
- The answering-service and software shares are floors: most buyers never say so on the site.
- The metros were picked for OnCrew's own reasons (five in Southern California, six where OnCrew had paying customers, plus Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston), not as a sample of the country.
- Matches were checked by hand on a sample: 18 of 18 24/7 matches were genuine 24/7 claims.
- Hours were parsed from the first free-text hours line on the pages read. Hours shown only in tables, structured data or images were missed, so the hours-found share is a floor.
Quote the figures with a link to this page. No business names, phone numbers or URLs are published or shared.
Contractor phone coverage FAQ
Short answers, each built from the study's own numbers.
How many contractors advertise 24/7 service?
32% of the 7,749 contractor websites we read (2,465) say 24/7, 24 hours a day, 24-hour emergency or around the clock somewhere on the page. The spread by trade is wide: Restoration 64% down to Pest control 12%. By metro it is narrower, Houston 38% to Austin 27%.
Do contractors who advertise 24/7 staff the phone around the clock?
A website cannot tell us who picks up at 2 a.m., and we did not call anyone. What the same pages say: of the 2,465 websites that advertise 24/7, 562 publish readable office hours and 419 of those (75%) close by 6 pm; 15 (0.6%) say an answering service or call center answers; 176 (7.1%) promise a live person; 1 says an AI does. The rest say nothing about who answers after the office closes.
How many contractors use an answering service?
Very few say so. Only 26 of the 7,749 websites (0.3%) say an answering service, virtual receptionist or call center answers their phones. Far more say the opposite: 151 name a call center or answering service only to say they are not one ("not a call center"), and those count here as live-person promises. Treat 26 as a floor: most businesses that pay for a service never say so on the site.
How many contractors use an AI receptionist?
Almost none say so. 2 of the 7,749 websites say an AI receptionist or AI agent answers the phone, and 3 more run an AI chat assistant on the website, which is not the phone. 3.6% (280) go the other way and promise a live person, or say they are not a call center and use no answering service or robots.
What office hours do contractor websites publish?
The script found a line of office hours on 1,949 of the 7,749 websites (25%). That is a floor: many sites list hours in tables, structured data or images the script could not read. Of the 1,682 hours lines with a closing time it could read, 78% end at 6 pm or earlier. The trades differ: see the table on this page.
Which field-service software do contractor websites name?
6.1% (473) name one: ServiceTitan 212, Housecall Pro 209, Jobber 29, Workiz 12, Service Fusion 5, Successware 3, Kickserv 2, Service Autopilot 1. HVAC and plumbing websites name software far more often than roofing, restoration or pest control. A website that does not name its software may still run one; this counts public mentions only.
Where does the data come from, and can I reuse it?
Businesses were found in Overture Maps Foundation places data (release 2026-10-21.0; CDLA-Permissive-2.0, with Foursquare-sourced places also under Apache-2.0) for 13 US areas (chains, franchises and suppliers left out), and on October 29, 2026 a script read up to three pages of each business's own website once (home, contact, and careers or about), obeying robots.txt. It was a sample read in capped runs, not every business: 11,753 of the 21,760 websites listed were attempted, 7,900 could be read (most of the rest could not be reached over a secure HTTPS connection), and 151 of those were one lead-generation network and are left out, which leaves 7,749. Every sentence that matched the answering-service, AI or live-person patterns was then read and labeled against a written rubric, so a denial such as "not a call center" counts as a live-person promise. The aggregate figures are free to reuse with a link to this page; download them as a CSV from the method section. No business names, phone numbers or URLs are published.
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See the forwarding stepsHear it answer before you forward a call
Call the demo line and talk to Emily the way your customers would, or start the 14-day free trial and forward your own line. If it is not the right fit, turn forwarding off and your number rings the way it always has.
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