CooliCompare
Voicemail may be enough. Here is where text back helps.
Compare the job each option does, what it costs, and who has to handle the next step.
Prices checked September 14, 2026
The five options, side by side
Every price below is the number the provider published on the date above, linked so you can check it yourself. Where we do not know how something behaves, it says so instead of guessing.
The table scrolls sideways on a narrow screen.
| Option | Honest fit | Who handles the next step | Price shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voicemail | Good when customers leave enough detail and morning callbacks work. | You do, in the morning, by calling back and hoping they pick up. | Your existing phone plan. |
| Human answering service | Better when a person must handle the conversation immediately. | A person at the service, live, while the customer is still on the line. | Provider-dependent. Ruby starts at $250 for 50 minutes in the supplied research.ruby.com/plans-and-pricing |
| Yelp Receptionist | Worth checking if your business is eligible and wants Yelp's receptionist offering. | Check with provider. | $99 a month, first 30 days $0, up to 500 calls in the supplied research.blog.yelp.com announcement |
| Rosie | Worth checking for a voice-first, self-serve answering service. | Check with provider. | Starts at $49 a month for 250 minutes in the supplied research.heyrosie.com |
| Cooli | After-hours text conversations with founder installation and owner takeover. | Cooli answers from facts you approved, then hands you anything it should not answer. You can take over any thread and type as yourself. | $99 a month, setup from $199.cooli.ai/pricing |
Pricing can change, and often does. These are the numbers each provider published on September 14, 2026, read off their own pages. Check the source link before you decide anything. Where a row says "Check with provider," it means we have not verified that behaviour ourselves, and we would rather leave a gap than put a red mark next to a competitor.
Reasons not to buy this
Three cases where one of the other four rows is the better answer.
Voicemail already works
If your customers leave real detail and you call them back in the morning before they book elsewhere, voicemail costs nothing and you should keep it. Plenty of shops are in exactly this position.
The call has to be answered by a person
Emergencies, a caller who will not use text, a conversation that needs judgment in real time. A human answering service is the honest fit, and it costs what people cost.
You want to set it up yourself tonight
Cooli is installed by hand, on a call, which takes about a week. If you want a card form and a working line in an hour, the self-serve products are built for that.
What text back actually changes
The customer who called at 8pm gets an answer at 8pm, in writing, and can read it in the morning. Nobody hangs up on a text. Nobody has to leave a message and wait to find out whether you do that service at all.
What you get is a conversation you can read: what they wanted, when they want it, and their number, already typed out. You either confirm it or you take the thread over and answer yourself.
That is the whole product. It is not a receptionist, it does not pick up the phone, and it does not replace the person who knows your shop.
The demo is the real thing with sample facts. You play the customer.