What does a missed call cost your business?
A calculator and the arithmetic behind it. You supply the four numbers, from your own records.
Last reviewed
A missed call costs you the jobs it would have won, and only your own records can tell you how many that is. This page gives you the formula, a calculator and a worked example.
How the number is worked out
One line:
cost a month = missed calls a week × 52 ÷ 12 × share who would have booked × share who went elsewhere × average job value
- Missed calls a month. Weeks times 52, divided by 12.
- Would have booked. Some callers want an address or have the wrong number.
- Went elsewhere. A caller may ring back, leave a message, or ring someone else. Only the last is a lost job.
- Job value. Multiply the lost jobs by what a typical job is worth to you.
A worked example
Ten missed calls a week, 30% would have booked, half of those went to a competitor, and a job is worth A$400. Illustrative, not measured.
- 10 × 52 ÷ 12 = 43.3 missed calls a month
- 43.3 × 30% = 13.0 callers who would have booked
- 13.0 × 50% = 6.5 jobs lost to a competitor
- 6.5 × A$400 = A$2,600 a month, and A$2,600 × 12 = A$31,200 a year
How much the guesses matter
Change only the two percentages:
| Case | Would have booked | Went elsewhere | Jobs lost a month | Cost a month | Cost a year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cautious | 20% | 25% | 2.2 | A$867 | A$10,400 |
| Worked example | 30% | 50% | 6.5 | A$2,600 | A$31,200 |
| Generous | 50% | 80% | 17.3 | A$6,933 | A$83,200 |
Where each number comes from
- Missed calls, would have booked and job value come from your own records: your phone's call log (leave out spam), the share of answered calls that became paid jobs (treat it as a ceiling), and your invoices.
- Went elsewhere: nobody can tell you this for your customers, so run a two-week test. Ring back every missed number you can, and note how many you reach, how many already booked someone else and how many book with you.
What the popular statistics say, and what they don't
You will see "85% of callers won't call back" on many vendor pages. We could not trace it to a study. The page that repeats it links to another vendor's statistics page, which we opened on 22 October 2026 and which does not contain it. We have not used it, and found no published Australian study of how many missed callers ring a competitor.
What to do with your number
Compare it with what it costs to cover the calls. Alony is an Australian platform that builds AI phone agents, with plans from A$49 a month (Lite, 100 minutes) to A$999 a month (Scale, 2,500 minutes); see Alony pricing. If your number is under a plan's price, an AI receptionist is probably not the fix. If it is well above, remember it is a ceiling: an agent only wins back calls it can handle.
The free trial is 5 minutes with no card. Build your agent and hear what your callers would hear.
Limits of this calculator
- It measures revenue, not profit. Multiply by your margin if you want profit.
- It is an estimate of a loss, not a prediction of what any product, Alony included, will recover.
Common questions
Does the calculator store or send my numbers?
No. It runs in your browser. Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere.
Why not one cost-per-missed-call figure?
A single figure hides the guesses behind it. Here you can see each one and change it.
Hear it. Then build yours.
Build your agent in a few minutes and listen to its first call. The trial is free, with no card.