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How much does a plumbing answering service cost? Sharrk answers every call 24/7 from $99 a month

By Sharrk Team · October 15, 2026

If you're pricing a plumbing answering service, Sharrk is the one to start with: it answers every call 24/7, sends burst-pipe emergencies straight to your on-call plumber, books the routine work, and texts and calls every new lead in under 30 seconds, from $99 a month with no contract. Plumbing answering services we checked run about $50 to $1,725 a month, and Sharrk's $99 Core plan does more than answer the phone: it follows up with every lead until they reply or book, includes a CRM, and comes with Mako, an AI assistant that builds all of it for you.

You don't set any of it up by hand. Tell Mako what you want in plain English and it builds your AI voice agent, your follow-up and your automations, shows you every step and waits for your OK. You can build and test it free with no credit card.

What does Sharrk cost for a plumbing business?

Self-serve plans, no contracts, no setup fees, cancel anytime.

Credits cover AI call minutes, texts, emails and voicemail drops, and the pricing page lists what each action costs (an AI call minute uses 150 credits). Every paid plan can be billed yearly for 2 months free, so Core is $990 a year, and your first payment comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, minus credits used. If you register for business texting, the carriers charge a one-time $5 brand fee and a one-time $20 campaign vetting fee, plus a small monthly campaign fee.

What you get for $99 a month

Every call answered, emergencies sent to your on-call plumber

Sharrk's AI voice agent picks up on the first ring, day or night, in a natural voice, and it answers many calls at the same time, so a hard freeze or a holiday weekend never means a busy signal. A few quick questions tell a dripping faucet from water coming through a ceiling. Burst pipes, sewer backups and no-water calls are flagged as urgent and transferred live to your on-call plumber, who hears the address and the problem before the caller is connected.

Keep your number, too: forward your business line to Sharrk for every call, or only the ones your team doesn't pick up.

Routine jobs booked while the caller is on the line

Drain cleaning, camera inspections, water heater repairs and replacement estimates go straight onto your schedule. Sharrk books into ServiceTitan during the call, checking open capacity and creating the job and appointment, or into Sharrk's built-in calendar, Calendly or Cal.com, and sends the caller a confirmation. On a water heater call it asks tank or tankless, gas or electric, how old it is and what's going wrong, so your tech rolls with the right unit. Every call summary comes to you by text or email.

Every new lead texted and called in under 30 seconds

Calls aren't the only way plumbing jobs come in. Leads from your website forms, Angi, Thumbtack, Networx, Jobber and any webhook get a text and an AI call from Sharrk in under 30 seconds. Then Strikes keep following up by AI call, text, email and voicemail drop, and stop the moment the lead replies or books. See how it works on our speed-to-lead page.

Old estimates turned into booked jobs

Hunts reach back out to past leads and customers you have permission to contact, like last year's unsold repipe or water heater estimates, inside the calling windows you set. Opt-outs, quiet hours and DNC checks are built in, and anyone ready to book goes straight back to you. Learn more about lead reactivation.

Your whole front office in one place

Unified inbox, CRM pipeline, AI booking calendar and booking pages, web forms, video SMS, voicemail drops and review requests, all in Sharrk and all buildable by Mako. That's contractor automation in one bill.

Sharrk has helped clients bring in six figures in revenue, including a single $30,000+ deal.

Mako builds it for you

Instead of a settings page, Sharrk hands you Mako, its AI assistant. Say "build me an AI receptionist for my plumbing company, send burst pipes to my on-call plumber and text every new Angi lead in 30 seconds" and Mako reads your website, builds your AI voice agent, writes the follow-up and wires up the automations. It shows you every step and waits for your OK before anything changes.

Need a change later? Ask Mako: a new after-hours greeting, a new transfer number for your on-call plumber, a review request after every Won job. Want the Sharrk team to build it for you? Sharrk Complete includes a done-for-you build every month.

Why do plumbers need 24/7 answering?

Plumbing emergencies don't wait for office hours. A burst pipe, a house with no water or a sewer backup at 11 p.m. on a Saturday is a call the homeowner makes to whoever answers first. If your line goes to voicemail, they keep dialing down the search results. An emergency call is often a same-night job at after-hours rates, and sometimes the start of a long-term customer relationship.

That's why the real test of a plumbing answering service is whether it does three plumbing-specific things well. Sharrk does all three on every paid plan:

1. Sorts emergencies from routine calls. A dripping faucet can be booked for Tuesday. Water coming through a ceiling can't, and Sharrk knows the difference.
2. Reaches the on-call plumber. Urgent calls are transferred live, with the details passed along, and the call summary goes to your office.
3. Books the routine work. Drain and water heater jobs land on ServiceTitan or your calendar, not in a notes field someone retypes in the morning.

Sharrk answers nights, weekends and holidays with no overtime and no sick days, and those calls come out of the same monthly credits as any other call. Many shops keep a daytime office person for walk-ins, dispatch and billing and let Sharrk take nights, weekends and overflow. For the full setup, see our guide to answering every call without a receptionist, and the HVAC answering service post covers a trade with the same night-and-weekend emergencies.

What should happen on an emergency plumbing call?

Here's a short script for an after-hours emergency:

• "Thanks for calling [Company]. Is water actively leaking, or is your home without water right now?"
• If yes: get the address, a callback number and what they see (burst pipe, sewer backup, no water). Tell them where the main shutoff usually is if they can reach it safely. Transfer live to the on-call plumber.
• If the transfer fails: tell the caller someone will call back, and alert the on-call plumber by text right away.
• If no: book the next open slot and confirm it by text.

Tell Mako to build these rules into your Sharrk agent, then call it yourself in the browser and say your basement is flooding. You'll hear exactly how it handles the call before it ever answers a real one.

What do other plumbing answering services charge?

Published prices from each provider's own pricing page, checked October 15, 2026. Taxes and add-ons are extra where the provider says so.

Per minute, Sharrk Core works out to about 31¢ if you use the credits only on calls, compared with about $1.75 on PATLive's 200-minute plan ($349) and about $3.60 on Ruby's 200-minute plan ($720). And Sharrk's credits also cover the texts, emails and follow-up that turn a call into a booked job.

The in-house figure is the BLS median annual pay for receptionists, $38,010 in May 2025, divided by 12; the median hourly wage was $18.27. That covers one shift, so nights, weekends and holidays would need more people or an on-call rotation. Our post on the cost of hiring a receptionist breaks down the full cost with benefits.

How do I price it for my plumbing business?

Use your own numbers. It takes about 20 minutes with your phone bill or call logs.

1. Count your calls. Pull last month's inbound calls and the average call length, and multiply to get minutes.
2. Price a normal month. On Sharrk, multiply minutes by 150 credits and check it against your plan's monthly credits.
3. Price your busiest week. Look at the week after a hard freeze or a holiday weekend and add those minutes.
4. Check every rate. Sharrk lists what each call minute, text and email costs on its pricing page. If another provider doesn't show an overage rate, ask before you sign.
5. Check booking. Sharrk books on the call into ServiceTitan, its own calendar, Calendly or Cal.com.
6. Test the emergency hand-off. Call at 10 p.m., say your basement is flooding, and see how fast it reaches your on-call plumber.

Here's a worked example with made-up numbers. Say your shop takes 60 calls a month at an average of 3 minutes, so 180 minutes. On Sharrk, 180 minutes uses 27,000 credits, inside Core's 47,500 a month, so the month costs $99. Now say a hard freeze adds 90 minutes in one week, so the month hits 270. That's 40,500 credits, still inside Core, still $99.

For comparison, on published prices, 180 minutes falls on PATLive's 200-minute plan at $349, Ruby's 200-minute plan at $720 or Rosie's $149 Scale plan. In the 270-minute freeze month, PATLive's 70 extra minutes at $1.99 add about $139, for roughly $488. Run the same math with your own call log.

Get Sharrk answering your plumbing calls today

Start free and Mako will build your first AI agent from your website in minutes, no card needed. Call it, hear it handle a burst pipe, and go live from $99 a month when you're ready. Prefer a walkthrough? Book a demo and we'll show you Sharrk taking an emergency call. See the AI receptionist for plumbing page for the full plumbing setup.

Garage door companies get the same late-night emergencies; here's what a garage door answering service costs.

Want the words your agent should use? Copy our plumbing emergency call script, from the water shut-off to the booked visit.

Sources

• PATLive pricing (checked October 15, 2026)
• Ruby plans and pricing (checked October 15, 2026)
• Smith.ai AI Receptionist (checked October 15, 2026)
• Rosie pricing (checked October 15, 2026)
• Goodcall pricing (checked October 15, 2026)
• BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook: Receptionists (checked October 15, 2026)

Related on Sharrk: AI receptionist for plumbers · Sharrk's AI answering service · AI voice agents · Speed-to-lead follow-up · Contractor automation

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