I run OpsJuice. Every figure below names who published it and when, and links to the page it came from. Where the data is thin I say so on the line rather than in a footnote. At the end you put in 3 of your own numbers and get your own figure.
You were under a sink, on a roof, or driving between jobs. The phone rang out. The common belief is that the call comes back later. The measured behaviour says it does not.
Put those 3 together and an unanswered call is not revenue arriving late. It is a job that went to whoever picked up.
That last figure is the one worth sitting with. A caller who reaches a person books close to a coin flip of the time. A caller who reaches voicemail mostly hangs up and rings the next name on the list.
Tell me which trade you are in and I will show you the worked sum for it below, using published average job values, plus the 3 things worth checking this week. No call, no charge.
The sum, on 20 calls in a normal week
3 things to check this week
The calculator asks for 3 numbers and no email address. You have already given me yours, so this is the part where you get something back.
Want a view of the whole operation rather than the phone alone? Take the free readiness scorecard →
You will find pages saying missed calls cost the average small business a specific 6 figure sum a year. I am not repeating those, because every one I followed traced back to another blog rather than to a study, and a number with nobody behind it is worth nothing to you.
What is honest is the arithmetic. Your unanswered call count, your average job value, your win rate. 3 numbers you already have. The published figures above tell you the count is probably higher than you think and that those callers are not coming back. Your own numbers tell you what that is worth, and nobody else average can do it for you.
These are third party figures as published by the organisations named, read on 12 September 2026. I did not run any of these studies. The Invoca figures are that company own platform and survey data, so they describe the businesses on its platform rather than a random sample of the trade. The HomeAdvisor job values are a marketplace own aggregated cost guide and do not publish a sample size. Both are the best current public numbers I could open and verify, and neither is an academic result.