Guide
What do missed calls actually cost a tradie?
Updated July 2026
The short answer
Industry figures widely reported for Australian trades suggest about 1 in 3 calls to a trade business go unanswered, roughly 60% of calls land outside 9–5, and around 85% of callers who hit voicemail never ring back. At a typical call-out value of $150–$400+, even a couple of missed jobs a week adds up to tens of thousands of dollars a year in work that went to whoever answered.
Why the calls get missed
Not because anyone's lazy. You're under a sink, up a ladder, on another call, or driving. The phone rings precisely when you're doing the work that pays — that's the structural problem, and it's why 'just answer more' never works as a plan.
Why voicemail doesn't catch the loss
A caller with a burst pipe or a dead aircon is solving a problem right now. Voicemail asks them to wait on your schedule; the next listing on Google offers to solve it on theirs. That's why the large majority of missed callers never leave a message and never call back — the job isn't lost later, it's lost in the first sixty seconds.
The after-hours blind spot
Evenings and weekends are when hot water systems die and switchboards trip — and when nobody in the industry picks up. A business that answers at 8pm isn't competing with every tradie in town; it's often competing with no one.
Working out your own number
Don't take an industry average as your truth: count your own missed calls for a week, multiply by your average job value and a realistic booking rate. The calculator on our homepage does this arithmetic with your numbers and shows the assumptions it uses — it's an estimate, not a guarantee, but it's your estimate.
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