Answer every call after hours with an AI answering service

Capture every lead and answer common questions from your customers 24/7 with Sona, Quo's AI answering service. Sona handles calls right inside your business phone system so no details ever get lost. 

Try Sona with 10 free calls each month on any Quo plan

Get started today
Trusted by over 90,000 businesses
"Highest Satisfaction" business phone system (VoIP), rated by 3,200+ reviews G2

What is an after hours answering service?

An after-hours answering service answers your business calls around the clock. Calls that arrive at night, on weekends, or over holidays reach a person or an AI agent instead of voicemail. A live call answering service uses remote receptionists and typically bills by the minute or the call, often with a surcharge for overnight hours. An AI answering service built into your business phone answers on the first ring at any hour, for a flat cost. The best answering services can detect urgent calls and route them to on-call team members.

Why your business needs an after hours answering service

Here’s how Sona helps your business capture leads and serve customers even after business hours:

1. Works directly in your business phone

Quo is a collaborative business phone designed for small and growing businesses to communicate with their customers. You can make calls, send texts, and work with your team more efficiently using Quo's platform. 

‍Sona answers calls directly in Quo. Team members with access to your workspace can view Sona's call recordings, summaries, and transcripts, minutes after a call ends. 

On the other hand, traditional call answering services handle calls on their own platforms. You’ll need to use another app to track their conversations and your team has to spend additional time mapping these calls to your contacts. 

2. More cost-effective

Save thousands of dollars a month with Sona. Many live answering services charge 5x-10x the cost of Sona. They have expensive plans based on a limited number of call minutes. And on top of that, additional charges apply for calls that come after 7 p.m.  Some providers also use 60 second billing increments, which means a 12 second call costs the same as a 50 second one. 

Sona is available for a flat fee for the first 50 calls it handles every month. After that, you're charged a fixed fee for every call, not every minute. If a call runs for less than 15 seconds, like a spam call or a wrong number, you won't get billed for it. Sona is designed to give you the most value from your virtual receptionist service.

3. Routes urgent calls to the right person

Most after-hours services take a message and send it to you in the morning. That’s fine for a pricing question but doesn’t help someone with a burst pipe or a lockout. 

Sona can be trained to recognize an emergency call and route it straight to whoever is on call that week. It uses the custom Sona job you set up and your existing Quo call flow. Change the on-call person in the call flow builder and the routing changes with it, so no one has to pass a physical phone around.

Handled by Sona

Smarter than voicemail, cheaper than a live answering service

Sona greets callers, answers questions, and captures messages at any hour, without the overnight surcharge most live answering services add after 7 p.m.
Hear Sona in action
What your team sees
What your team sees:
Text summary of a sprinkler system issue where Paul Taggart called about his sprinkler not turning on at 45 Maple Street, with a note that Sona will pass the message for troubleshooting.
What your team sees:
Chatbox titled 'Rent payment option' with AI summary and transcript link, explaining rent can be paid online via tenant portal using credit card or ACH transfer, or by mailing or dropping off a check.
What your team sees:
Business law assistance summary showing message details: Peter Smith is starting a business and needs help with formation documents and ongoing legal support.

Handle more calls after hours

Train Sona in seconds. Add it to your after-hours call flow in minutes.

Add Sona to call flows

Drag and drop Sona into your call flow that runs when your office is closed. Set your business hours and Sona picks up everything outside them, including weekends and holidays. No need for you to switch anything on at the end of the day.

Train Sona on your answers 

Most overnight calls ask the same few things: Are you open? How much does it cost? How soon can someone come out? Upload your hours, pricing and policies and Sona answers them directly, so those callers don’t need a callback at all.

Route urgent calls to on-call staff

Sona can collect the details on an urgent call and transfer it to whoever’s on call that night. Update the on-call person in your call flow when the rotation changes and the routing will follow. No shared phone, no forwarding a personal cell, no morning surprises.

Sync Sona-handled calls with your CRM

Sona's call summaries, transcripts and messages appear in your Quo inbox right after the call ends. Push them into your CRM or job software with the Zapier and Make integrations. That way, an overnight lead is already in the system before anyone opens a laptop.

After hours services compared

See how Sona compares to live after hours answering services.

Features

Quo (formerly OpenPhone) Logo - Quo

Sona

Live after-hours service

Starting price

Free for the first 10 calls/month, then $25/month for 40 calls

$250–$1,725+/ month

Overnight surcharge

None

Common. Check the terms.

Answers questions

Yes, trained on your answers

Yes, trained on your business

Routes urgent calls to on-call staff

Yes

Yes

Monitoring

100% in Quo

Custom solution or daily email summary

Setup time

1–2 hours — drag into your call flow

2–4 weeks

Where call transcripts and summaries live

Your Quo inbox

Your provider’s portal

Try Quo for free

How to set up Sona in three steps

It only takes three steps to get started with Sona:

  1. Start with a free trial of Quo.
  2. Configure your Sona settings and test Sona in Quo's call flow builder.
  3. Once you’ve confirmed it’s a good fit, activate your Quo account and get the Sona add-on.

“Prior to adopting Sona, we struggled with consistently capturing after-hours communications, resulting in missed opportunities. We now have absolute assurance that every incoming call is handled promptly.” 

Jon Christensen

Co-founder

No hidden fees

Find out how much you’re investing in your business phone solution upfront on our pricing page.

View pricing

Frequently asked questions

Can’t find the answer here? Check out our Resource Center.

Do answering services charge more for after-hours calls?

Some do. Several live answering services define core business hours as a weekday daytime window and apply a surcharge to calls handled outside it. Check the terms for the words "after-hours surcharge" and check whether per-minute plans round each call up to a whole minute. Sona bills per call at the same rate at every hour.

How much does an after-hours answering service cost?

Sona is an AI receptionist included on every paid Quo plan with 10 calls per month at no extra cost, then $25 for 40 calls, $49 for 100 calls, $99 for 250, and $199 for 600. Per-call overages range from $1.00 to $0.45 as the tier rises. Dive deeper into answering service costs. 

Can an answering service transfer urgent calls to my on-call staff?

Yes, and this is the question worth asking before you sign up. Live agents handle it with call scripting: they ask a set of questions and transfer when the answers match your emergency criteria. Sona handles it inside your call flow. The setup should be: If the caller describes an urgent issue, offer transfer to the urgent/on-call team, with that team’s number set as the transfer destination.

What's the difference between an after-hours answering service and a virtual receptionist?

The terms overlap. A virtual receptionist usually describes the whole front-desk role, including during and after business hours. After-hours answering service describes coverage for the hours you’re closed. Some providers may charge extra for answering after a certain time.

Is there a free AI answering service?

No, there is no free AI answering service you can trust to take calls reliably for your business. 

The best AI answering services are only available on paid plans. Sona, Quo’s AI answering service, is included with every Quo plan and is free for your first 10 calls. You can try it out for yourself before signing up for a paid Sona plan.