Guides · By Hyrum Stanger · October 2026

How many calls do contractors miss, and what does it cost?

You'll see a lot of scary numbers about missed calls online. Some are solid, some are old, and some get repeated so often that nobody remembers where they came from. Here's what I could actually trace back to a source, and what I'd take from it.

What the research says

About half of home services calls reach a person. Invoca, a call-tracking company, published a 2026 benchmark from its home services customers (HVAC, plumbing, restoration, pest control and others). Across all inbound calls, 52% were answered by a person. Counting only calls longer than 15 seconds, which filters out misdials and quick hang-ups, it was 65%. They also found answer rates ranged from 32% to 74% depending on the sub-industry. Source: Invoca Home Services Lead Conversion Benchmarks Report 2026.

An earlier Invoca analysis put unanswered calls to home services businesses at 27%. Source: Invoca blog.

Owners think they answer far more than they do. Service Direct, a lead-gen company, listened to 1,000 recorded calls across 94 home service businesses in 2019. Owners guessed they answered 97% of calls. The real number was 66%. Source: Service Direct 2019 Home Service Call Performance Report.

Most people don't leave a voicemail. Moneypenny, a call-answering company, surveyed 300 micro businesses and looked at call data from 10,000 businesses. 69% of callers who reached voicemail hung up without leaving a message. That study was UK-focused, but it matches what most contractors tell me. Source: Moneypenny small business call report.

A fair caveat: every one of these companies sells something related to phones, me included. The numbers vary a lot depending on who measured and how. Treat them as a range, not gospel.

What it costs you

There's no honest single number for this, because it depends entirely on your business. But the math is simple:

Say you miss 6 calls a week, normally win 40% of the people you talk to, and your average ticket is $450. That's about $4,600 a month in work you might be missing. Not all of those callers are lost for good, and some were never going to hire you. But even recovering a small share usually adds up. There's a calculator on the home page if you want to plug in your own numbers.

How to find your real number

1. Check your call log for one normal week. Count missed calls from numbers that aren't already in your contacts.
2. Count how many of those left a voicemail. This is usually the eye-opener.
3. Count how many you called back, and how many of those had already hired someone.

A week of honest counting will tell you more than any industry report, mine included.