Workiz sells Genius Answering (AI that answers calls, books jobs and transfers), Genius Phone (recording and call insights) and Genius Marketing (win-back campaigns and review replies) as add-ons, while Genius Leads and Genius Scheduling arrive with the Pro and Ultimate plans. For most HVAC and plumbing firms, Answering is the one to price first; the others pay in narrower cases.
Workiz publishes no prices. Every plan on its pricing page says "Request pricing", and the comparison table tags the three add-ons "(sold separately)" while showing their feature rows as included under Standard, Pro and Ultimate alike. The real cost is whatever the rep quotes you, so the sensible test is break-even: how many extra booked jobs a month an add-on must produce to cover its quote. The sums below use placeholder quotes, never Workiz's own figures.
What each Genius piece does, and what the pages leave open
Workiz's feature pages say plenty about what each piece does and almost nothing about cost. The table collects what those pages state; the last column is what you still have to ask.
| Genius piece | What Workiz's pages say it does | How you get it | Still to ask |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answering | Answers calls, texts, emails, lead-source messages and website forms around the clock; books, reschedules or cancels jobs; collects what the technician needs to know; transfers live to your team (the FAQ says in business hours); handles simultaneous calls; can cover only after-hours calls or any missed call | Add-on, "sold separately" | Monthly fee, conversations included, whether it needs Genius Phone |
| Phone | AI-powered phone system; every call recorded, summarised and searchable; insights on dispatcher performance, win rates and missed opportunities; call tags; call masking | Add-on, yet the FAQ calls the phone system built in on every plan | What the add-on adds beyond the built-in phone system |
| Marketing | Campaign Manager for email and text (trade templates, AI-built campaigns, a revenue dashboard) and Reputation Manager (new-review alerts, AI-suggested replies) | Add-on, "sold separately" | Monthly fee, text-credit cost, which review sites beyond Google |
| Leads | Creates leads from incoming emails such as website requests; names Reserve with Google, Angi, Thumbtack and HouseHappy as sources; follow-up rules on status changes or inactivity | Pro and Ultimate, not Standard | Price gap between plans; the page describes rule-based automation, not AI |
| Scheduling | AI suggests the best time for a service call from technician availability and skill sets | Pro and Ultimate, not Standard | How skills are recorded; whether it books slots by itself |
Two details change how you read that table. Search results for Workiz's help centre point to Genius Answering plans that include a set number of AI conversations a month, with an on-demand option billed per conversation once you run out; the help centre itself couldn't be opened to confirm the detail, so treat it as a question for the rep. Either way, a proper quote has two numbers in it: the monthly fee and the rate beyond any allowance. And the Answering page names English, Spanish and a third language in its features list, while the FAQ on the same page names only English and Spanish. If your callers speak anything other than English, test it before you rely on it.
A yardstick helps, because standalone AI receptionists print their prices. Goodcall's Starter plan lists $79 a month for 100 customers, Quo's Sona agent gives 10 calls free and then tiers from $25 a month for 40 calls (on top of a Quo seat), and Smith.ai's Pro plan starts at $150 a month for 75 calls. The comparison of answering services for plumbers sets several side by side. What Workiz's own version should add, if the pages hold up in a test, is a booking that lands inside your Workiz jobs and calendar, where a standalone service more often hands you a message or a scheduling link.
The break-even sum, worked for a three-van plumbing firm
Count gross profit per extra job, not revenue, because every job also costs a technician's hour, parts and fuel.
Picture a three-van plumbing firm, with illustrative figures throughout. It takes about 300 calls a month. With technicians under sinks and the office shut in the evenings and at weekends, 15 per cent (45 calls) go unanswered. Most of those are not lost jobs: some are one person dialling twice, some are suppliers or spam, and some callers ring the next firm whatever you do. Say 10 of the 45 are genuine new enquiries that a person would have booked. The average job brings in $400 and leaves $150 after technician time, parts and van costs.
The table sets what the AI books against a placeholder quote of $200 a month. That $200 is not a Workiz price; replace it with the figure you are given.
| Genuine enquiries the AI books (of 10) | Extra gross profit | Less the $200 placeholder | Net each month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $150 | $200 | -$50 |
| 3 | $450 | $200 | +$250 |
| 6 | $900 | $200 | +$700 |
| 9 | $1,350 | $200 | +$1,150 |
Break-even is two booked jobs (2 × $150 = $300, which covers $200). Even the cautious three-of-ten row clears it, which is why Answering is the first add-on worth pricing. The sum rests on two inputs you can count: how many calls go unanswered and what share of them are genuine. Pull both from last month's call log before the sales call; the tutorial on what missed calls cost a heating and cooling business shows the method. A firm that already answers 98 per cent of its calls has six misses, perhaps one genuine, and the same add-on struggles to break even.
Jobs needed to cover any quote, for plumbing and heating repairs
The rule is one line: divide the monthly quote by gross profit per job and round up. The table applies it to a plumbing job that leaves $150 and to an HVAC repair visit that brings in $450 and leaves $225 (both illustrative), at four placeholder quotes.
| Monthly quote (placeholder) | Plumbing job leaving $150 | HVAC repair leaving $225 |
|---|---|---|
| $100 | 1 job (0.7) | 1 job (0.4) |
| $200 | 2 jobs (1.3) | 1 job (0.9) |
| $400 | 3 jobs (2.7) | 2 jobs (1.8) |
| $600 | 4 jobs (4.0) | 3 jobs (2.7) |
Use the same rule for every add-on below. What changes is where the jobs come from: Answering finds them in missed calls, Phone in calls that didn't book, Marketing in past customers, and Leads and Scheduling in faster replies and fuller days.
Genius Answering on a plumbing line: the 11pm burst pipe
Workiz says the AI can answer calls, texts, emails and website forms around the clock, book, reschedule or cancel jobs, and collect what a technician needs to know. You can set it to cover only after-hours calls or any missed call. The detail that matters to a plumber sits in the FAQ: live transfers to your team happen during business hours. An emergency at 11pm therefore depends on what the AI does instead of transferring, and the pages don't say.
So ask, then test. The six calls below take about twenty minutes. Use your real number, a second phone and a notebook.
| Test call | A pass looks like | A fail looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Burst pipe, 11pm on a Saturday | Takes name, number, address and whether the water is off; marks it urgent; your on-call technician hears within minutes | Offers Monday morning like a routine job, or promises a call-back with no alert sent |
| Slow leak under a sink, Tuesday afternoon | Books the next suitable visit and records the address and fixture | Books a slot your calendar doesn't have |
| "How much for a bathroom refit?" | Declines to price and books a site visit or a call-back | Quotes a figure |
| "What do you charge to clear a blocked drain?" | Gives only the call-out fee you loaded, or says a technician confirms the price | Guesses |
| A leak reported in Spanish | Completes the same intake in Spanish | Switches back to English or loops |
| "I want to speak to a person" | Transfers in business hours; after hours, takes a call-back request and says when to expect it | Argues, or drops the call |
Write rules for a gas smell, a carbon monoxide alarm or sparking electrics into the setup before the first live call. Those callers should hear the emergency-services message, not be offered a booking slot. Fifteen calls rather than six, with scripts for each, are laid out in the voice-agent test for plumbers.
Genius Answering in a heatwave: many callers, few slots
The FAQ says the AI can handle simultaneous calls, and that is the strongest argument for it in heating and cooling. A two-person office takes two calls at once; the AI takes however many arrive. Say an eight-van HVAC firm gets 38 calls between noon and 5pm on the first hot Friday of the year, and the two people in the office reach 22 of them. The other 16 meet voicemail or a busy tone, and some of those callers book with whoever answers.
Answering fixes the pickup problem and creates a booking problem. The firm has 14 same-day slots. An AI with no limits will offer the fifteenth caller a slot that doesn't exist, or give a plan member the same wait as a stranger. The rules below are what I would send to Workiz and expect to see enforced in a test (filled in for an illustrative firm; use your own cut-offs).
Same-day visits: offer only until 2:00 pm, maximum 14 a day.
No cooling or no heating with a baby, an older adult or a medical condition in the home: mark priority and alert the on-call manager.
Maintenance-plan members: earliest slot, and do not mention a diagnostic fee.
Replacement or new-system enquiries: book a free estimate visit; never quote a price by phone.
Gas smell, carbon monoxide alarm, burning smell or smoke: give the emergency-services message first, then take details.
Anything that matches no rule: take name, number and address, and promise a call-back within two hours in business hours.Then ask whether Answering sees real technician availability on the Standard plan, or only on Pro and Ultimate, where Genius Scheduling arrives. Workiz's pages don't connect the two, and the answer decides whether you are buying one upgrade or two. The case for keeping a person on the line for some calls is in the comparison of AI against a human answering service for HVAC firms.
Genius Phone: reading last month's calls for lost bookings
Workiz's phone page says every call in Workiz is recorded, summarised and searchable, with insights on dispatcher performance, win rates and missed opportunities, plus call tags and call masking. The pricing page tags Genius Phone as sold separately while its FAQ calls the phone system built in on every plan, so the first question is what the add-on adds to the phone system you'd get anyway.
Any value comes from reading the calls you didn't book. Here is an illustrative month for the same three-van plumbing firm. Callers wanting a booking: 120. Booked: 71, or 59 per cent. The 49 who didn't book split like this once someone had read the transcripts.
| Why the call didn't book | Calls | What you would change |
|---|---|---|
| Objected to the call-out fee | 20 | Script one sentence on what the fee covers |
| No slot inside their window | 15 | Offer an evening slot or a cancellation list |
| Outside the service area | 8 | Check the address earlier and refer them on |
| No clear reason | 6 | Listen to five of them yourself |
The 15 "no slot" calls are the prize. If a later slot or a cancellation list wins back a third of them, that is five more jobs, or $750 at $150 each. A screen that tallies reasons for you would be worth paying for; one that only stores recordings is a storage cost. Workiz says Genius Phone gives insight into "why leads say no", but the page doesn't show how calls are sorted into reasons, so ask to see it done on your own recordings. Settle the recording notice at the same time. Rules on recording calls differ by place, so ask an adviser what your greeting must say.
Genius Marketing: a tune-up win-back run against a plain email tool
Marketing is two tools. Campaign Manager sends email and text to segments built from your Workiz job history, with trade templates, AI that builds a campaign from a short description, and a dashboard that ranks campaigns by performance and tracks the revenue and jobs each one brings in. Workiz says the base package covers up to 5,000 emails a month and puts no cap on texts, though texts draw on your send credits. Reputation Manager shows new Google reviews, flags negative ones as soon as they are posted, and suggests replies that you edit and post.
A heating example, with illustrative figures. A firm has 420 customers whose last tune-up was 10 to 14 months ago and who aren't on a maintenance plan. One campaign texts and emails all 420. If 6 per cent book, that is 25 tune-ups at $129, or $3,225 in revenue and perhaps $1,500 in gross profit at $60 a visit. Against a $200 placeholder quote, which is $2,400 over a year, two runs like that cover the cost and a third leaves a margin. Repairs found during tune-ups come on top. The honest question is whether you will run it three times a year. The worked spring and autumn tune-up campaign shows how to plan those runs.
Price the alternative too. A standalone email tool starts around $13 a month for 500 contacts (Mailchimp's Essentials plan starts there), but you export customers, import them and keep tags current by hand. What you'd pay Workiz for is segmenting by last job and seeing revenue per campaign without leaving the job software. If your list is under 250 people and you send twice a year, a free plan from a standalone tool does the job and Marketing doesn't pay.
The draft text for that campaign might read like this once the AI has written it and you've trimmed it.
Hi [first name], it's [business name]. Your last furnace tune-up was around this time last year. Autumn visits are $129 and we have slots this week. Reply YES and we'll text you times. Reply STOP to opt out.Check three things before it goes out: the price is the one you actually charge, "this week" is true on the day it sends, and the opt-out line is there.
Reputation Manager: an AI-drafted reply, corrected
Here is how a review reply can go wrong and how to fix it. The review (illustrative): 3 stars, "Technician was polite but the visit ran two hours over the window and nobody called." A plausible AI draft: "Thank you for your feedback, [first name]. We are sorry the visit ran late and that nobody called to let you know. This is not the standard we aim for, and we will make sure it never happens again. Please call the office so we can make it right."
Three problems. "Never happens again" is a promise you can't keep. The apology admits fault before you've checked what happened, and the dispatch log may show a call was made. "Make it right" invites a refund request in public. A safer edit: "Thank you for telling us, [first name]. We're sorry the visit ran past the window. We're checking what happened with that day's schedule, and the office will contact you directly." Then do the checking, or don't send it.
Genius Leads and Scheduling: judge the plan upgrade as one decision
Both arrive with Pro and Ultimate and are missing from Standard, so their cost is the price gap between plans at your user count, which Workiz doesn't publish either. Don't charge the whole gap to these two features. The pricing page also lists 10 automations on Pro against 5 on Standard, performance pay and custom reports, and it describes Pro as the plan that adds AI tools and stronger automations.
Genius Leads. Workiz's lead-management page says it generates leads automatically from incoming emails, such as website service requests, and lists Reserve with Google, Angi, Thumbtack and HouseHappy as integrations. The follow-up rules it describes, such as a reminder on a status change or after a quiet spell, are presented as automations, not as AI features. It earns its place if jobs reach you by email and web form, and does little if most arrive by phone. Test it by sending yourself three requests: a website form, a forwarded lead email and, if you use a lead site, one of its notifications. Time how long each takes to become a lead with the right details attached.
Genius Scheduling. The scheduling page says AI can suggest the best time for a service call from technician availability and skill sets. That matters most where technicians differ. An HVAC firm with one refrigeration-qualified technician and two heating technicians needs a no-cooling call sent to the first, not to whoever is nearest. It matters least for a two-van plumbing firm where either person takes any job. Ask how skills are recorded and whether a dispatcher can overrule a suggestion, then replay ten of last week's bookings and see how often the suggestion matches what your dispatcher actually did.
If you are weighing Workiz against another field-service platform altogether, the comparison of Workiz and FieldPulse covers that choice.
Eight questions to put to the Workiz rep, in writing
Verbal answers on a demo call won't help you at renewal. Send these by email and keep the replies.
- What is the monthly price of each add-on I would use, and is it charged per user, per phone number or per account?
- How many AI conversations does Genius Answering include each month, what counts as one conversation (an answered call, a text thread, a caller who hangs up), and what is the on-demand rate beyond the allowance?
- Does Answering need Genius Phone, or can it sit behind the number I already advertise?
- Which plan do I need for Answering to book into real technician availability?
- Given that live transfers are described as business-hours only, who is alerted about an emergency after hours, how, and how fast?
- Which languages are live today, including the third one named on the features list?
- Is there a contract term, a minimum commitment or a cancellation notice, and does the seven-day free trial in the pricing FAQ cover the add-ons?
- Can I read the recordings and transcripts of the AI's calls, how long are they kept, and can I export them if I leave?
Which add-on first, for three kinds of firm
The answer depends on where your leaks are. The table gives my starting point for three illustrative firms; your call log can overrule it.
| Firm | Price first | Hold off on | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo plumber answering from the van | Answering, set to missed and after-hours calls only | Marketing, Phone | Calls missed under a sink are the main leak, and there is no dispatcher to coach or long customer list to mail |
| Three-van plumbing firm with part-time office help | Answering, then Phone | Leads and Scheduling unless jobs arrive by email | Evening and weekend calls are costly, and the call log shows why bookings fail |
| Eight-van HVAC firm with two dispatchers | Answering for peaks, Marketing for tune-up lists | Phone, unless you coach dispatchers from recordings | Simultaneous calls in a heatwave and a long list of past customers both pay at volume; Scheduling matters if skills differ |
A four-week test that settles it
Run any add-on for one billing month with an exit, and judge it on numbers rather than demos.
- Before signing. Count last month's calls, unanswered calls, genuine new enquiries and bookings. These are your baseline.
- Week one. Place the six test calls and fix the rules until every row passes. Don't take live calls until then.
- Weeks two and three. Switch on after-hours and missed-call cover only, which the Answering page says is possible. Log every booking the AI makes, and read every transcript that ends in a complaint or a transfer.
- Week four. Work out gross profit on the AI's bookings and compare it with the quote.
A filled-in scorecard (illustrative): 64 AI conversations, 21 genuine enquiries, 12 booked, one complaint, $1,800 gross profit against a $200 quote. I would want gross profit of at least one and a half times the monthly cost, with no unresolved complaints, before keeping an add-on. Below that, drop it, or narrow it to after-hours calls only and test again.
Questions owners ask before signing for Genius add-ons
Does Workiz publish prices for the Genius add-ons?
No. Every plan on the Workiz pricing page says 'Request pricing', and the three add-ons are tagged 'sold separately' without a figure. Any numbers on review sites are user reports, not Workiz's. Ask for a written quote that names the monthly fee, the AI conversations included and the rate beyond them.
Can I try Genius Answering before committing?
Workiz's pricing FAQ describes a seven-day free trial of the platform with no credit card, but it doesn't say whether the Genius add-ons are part of that trial. Ask in writing. If they aren't, ask for a month-to-month start so the four-week test has an exit.
Will Genius Answering take calls in Spanish?
The Answering page's FAQ names English and Spanish, and its features list adds a third language that the FAQ doesn't mention. Treat anything beyond English as unproven until you've placed a test call in that language and checked the transcript for the address, callback number and job details.
Do I have to tell callers that Workiz records calls?
Workiz's phone page says every call is recorded and summarised. Rules on recording and consent differ by place and by who is calling, so ask a qualified adviser what notice your greeting must give, then add that sentence to the greeting and the AI's opening line before going live.
Further reads
- HVAC Lead Generation: AI Call Tags Show Which Sources Book Replacements — Call tags show which lead sources book replacements, not just repairs.
- ServiceTitan AI: What Titan Intelligence Does and Who It Suits — The larger-platform alternative, and who it actually suits.
- Phone Marketing Software With AI Features: What Trades Should Compare — Phone and marketing tools trades can buy outside their job software.
- Angi Leads for Plumbers and HVAC: Worked Cost per Job and AI Follow-Up — What a lead costs per booked job, if Genius Leads feeds from them.
- AI-Powered Customer Service Tools for Trades: Calls, Texts and Chat — Calls, texts and website chat for a small trades firm: what Jobber, Housecall Pro, Workiz, Smith.ai, Quo and Tidio offer, and what each channel costs.
- Appliance Repair Software Compared: Scheduling, Parts, Warranty and AI — Twelve parts and warranty fields, checked against what five vendors' own pages say, with four-user prices and what AI adds.
- Carpet Cleaning Software: Jobber, Service Fusion and Workiz Compared — Four field-service tools tested against one carpet job: booking, quote options, rebooking, AI call answering and what each costs at one, five and ten users.
- HVAC Dispatch Software Compared: Which Has AI Routing for Small Fleets? — Jobber, Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan compared on routing limits and plan cost for a four-van HVAC fleet, with a one-week replay test.
- Simpro HVAC Software Pricing: What to Ask When It Is Quote-Only — How a quote-only price breaks down for a small HVAC firm, a ceiling method using published prices, a filled-in quote request and the contract terms to check.
- AI Receptionist for HVAC Companies: Route Sales Calls, Not Just Repairs — Seven call types and where each goes, phrases that signal a replacement lead, a four-question qualifier, a warm-transfer script and a worked month of calls.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Workiz pricing page (plans, add-on labels, trial FAQ) and its Genius Answering, Genius Marketing (Campaign Manager and Reputation Management), phone system, lead management and job scheduling feature pages, read in October 2026. Workiz's help centre could not be opened, so the on-demand billing point is hedged. Standalone receptionist prices come from each vendor's own pricing page.