There are a dozen of these now and the pricing pages are deliberately hard to compare. Here is the checklist we would use, including the questions that make vendors uncomfortable. Ours included.
Joe is answering as Sunshine Plumbing & Gas, a fictional business on the Sunshine Coast. Call or text her like a real customer would, then compare that to what the alternative gives you.
+61 485 067 607No registration. Real Joe. Real responses.
Monthly price is the least useful number on the page. What matters is what happens when you get busy, what happens when a customer texts instead of calls, and what happens when you want to leave.
Most providers price per minute or per call on top of a base fee. That is fine until you have a good month, at which point your bill goes up exactly when you can least be bothered dealing with it. Ask what a busy month actually costs.
Ask whether texts are covered. A lot of these products are voice only, and for trades a large share of enquiries arrive as SMS.
Ask what happens to the transcripts. Ask whether your conversations are used to train models. Ask how you export everything if you leave, and whether there is a minimum term.
Then ring the demo line. Not the sales line. If they will not give you a number you can test like a real customer, that tells you something.
| Ask | Why it matters | Workbench answer |
|---|---|---|
| What does a busy month cost? | Per minute and per call pricing punishes you for growing. | $150 flat. 500 customer messages a month included. |
| Are texts covered? | For trades, a big share of enquiries arrive as SMS. | Yes. Calls and texts on the same AU mobile number. |
| Is there a lock-in term? | Annual contracts are common and hard to exit. | Month to month. Leave whenever. |
| Is it an Australian number? | Customers do not trust overseas or virtual numbers. | Dedicated Australian mobile number. |
| Who sets it up? | Self-serve setup means a generic bot that knows nothing. | We onboard you. Your services, area and pricing. |
| Does it qualify the job or just take a message? | A name and number still leaves you doing the work. | Qualifies the job and flags urgency before it reaches you. |
| Does it connect to invoicing? | Most stop at the lead and leave the admin to you. | Accepted quotes become Xero draft invoices. |
| Where does my data live? | Some vendors train on your conversations. | Your own Google Sheet. We do not sell data or train models on your conversations. |
| Can I try it before paying? | Demos on a sales call are stage-managed. | Public demo line. Ring it right now, no registration. |
| What if it does not work? | Nobody wants to argue for a refund. | 30 days. No job caught, you do not pay for that month. |
We are not the cheapest per month and we do not pretend to be. Providers in the Australian market run from around $91 to $650 a month depending on what is bundled. What we do differently is flat pricing, texts treated as first class, real triage and escalation rather than message taking, and invoicing that finishes the job.
One price, everything included. Compare it to whatever you are paying now.
Run Workbench for a month. If Joe hasn't caught you at least one job you would have missed, tell us and you don't pay for that month. No forms, no argument.
Prices in AUD. GST not yet applicable.