![local voice logo [recovered]](https://mylocalvoice.io/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Local-Voice-Logo-Recovered-250x56.png){kind=logo}
Local Voice research
After 6 p.m., Small Shops Book Just 9% of Calls: The 6 p.m. Cliff
ServiceTitan data shows small trade shops book 9% of calls after 6 p.m., down from a 26% peak. See what the evening drop costs per job.
By Adam Brewer, founder of Local Voice. Figures checked October 10, 2026.
After 6 p.m., small trade shops book just 9% of their calls, down from a 26% peak, according to ServiceTitan's 2022 data from more than 3,000 trade businesses. Large shops fall from 61% to 21%.
Both sizes keep about a third of their peak rate, a Local Voice calculation. At those rates, a small shop needs about 11 evening calls to book one job. At its peak, it needs about 4.
Every figure was checked at its source on October 10, 2026. Derived figures are marked as Local Voice calculations, with the math shown in the methodology.
Key findings
Small trade shops booked 9% of calls after 6 p.m., down from a 26% peak, in ServiceTitan's 2022 data from more than 3,000 trade businesses.
Large trade shops fell from a 61% peak booking rate to 21% after 6 p.m. in ServiceTitan's 2022 data.
Both shop sizes keep about a third of their peak booking rate after 6 p.m.: 35% for small shops and 34% for large (Local Voice calculation from ServiceTitan 2022).
After 6 p.m., a small trade shop needs about 11 calls to book one job, against about 4 at its peak (Local Voice calculation from ServiceTitan 2022).
Per 10 evening calls, the gap between peak and after-6 booking rates is about $2,292 of water heater work for a small shop (Local Voice calculation, Angi 2026 job costs).
14.1% of inbound calls to residential HVAC shops came outside business hours in June 2025, and 9.8% in October (ServiceTitan, 2026).
How much does the booking rate drop after 6 p.m.?
By about two thirds, a Local Voice calculation. ServiceTitan's 2022 data from more than 3,000 trade businesses in the U.S. and Canada showed small shops booking 26% of calls at their peak and 9% after 6 p.m. Large shops went from 61% to 21%.
Mornings had the highest booking rates, according to ServiceTitan. It didn't publish the peak hour. Pat McManamon reported the findings on ServiceTitan's blog on October 25, 2022.
Figure 1. After 6 p.m., small shops book 9% of calls, down from a 26% peak
Call booking rate at peak and after 6 p.m., by shop size. ServiceTitan data from 3,000+ trade businesses, 2022.
ServiceTitan says mornings had the highest booking rates but doesn't give the peak hour. It labels the groups large and small without defining them in this finding.
Source: ServiceTitan, "Typical call-booking rate for ServiceTitan users?" (October 25, 2022).
ServiceTitan published them as one bullet: "61% peak to 21% after 6 p.m. for large; 26% to 9% for small." The time is stated once, after the large-shop pair. We read the small-shop pair the same way. The bullet also doesn't define large and small. Elsewhere in the same article, shops with 25 or more techs booked 59% of calls overall and shops with fewer than 5 booked 24%.
Small and large shops lose about the same share after 6 p.m.
Both keep about a third of their peak rate. Small shops keep 35% (9 ÷ 26) and large shops keep 34% (21 ÷ 61), both Local Voice calculations. Size sets the starting point. The evening drop is about the same for both.
Large shops book about 2.3 times the small-shop rate both at peak and after 6 p.m., a Local Voice calculation. Even so, a large shop after 6 p.m. books 21% of calls, below the 26% a small shop books at its peak.
ServiceTitan didn't say why rates fall in the evening. Its numbers show the drop hits both sizes of shop, so a bigger crew alone doesn't fix it.
Another way to see the drop is the number of calls it takes to book one job. That's 1 ÷ booking rate.
Figure 2. After 6 p.m., a small shop needs about 11 calls to book one job
Calls needed per booked job, at peak and after 6 p.m., by shop size.
Source: Local Voice calculation. 1 ÷ booking rate, using ServiceTitan's 2022 rates (small 26% peak, 9% after 6 p.m.; large 61% peak, 21% after 6 p.m.).
What the 6 p.m. cliff costs, by job
For a small shop, every 10 evening calls book about 1.7 fewer jobs than the same calls would at peak. At Angi's 2026 average of $1,348 for a water heater replacement, that's about $2,292 of work per 10 calls.
The 10 calls are an example. Use your own numbers. Each row multiplies 10 calls by the booking rate and by Angi's national average cost for the job.
Table 1. Booked work per 10 evening calls, at peak and after-6 booking rates (Local Voice calculation)
Booking rates: ServiceTitan (2022), small shops 26% peak and 9% after 6 p.m., large shops 61% peak and 21% after 6 p.m. Job values: Angi cost guides (2026). Revenue, not profit. Per 10 calls, an example volume.
For an HVAC replacement, a booked evening call is usually a sales visit, not a signed job. Read that row as work put in play.
Evening calls per month × (peak booking rate minus your evening booking rate) × average ticket = booked work lost to the evening drop
A small shop gets 40 calls after 6 p.m. in a month.
At its 26% peak rate: 40 × 26% = 10 jobs (10.4, rounded).
At the 9% evening rate: 40 × 9% = 4 jobs (3.6, rounded).
10 minus 4 = 6 jobs × $1,348 water heater replacement = $8,088 of work a month.
Swap in your own evening call count and your own booking rates by hour. Most call-tracking tools can split both by time of day.
Evening emergency jobs can also bill higher. Angi's 2026 emergency plumber guide puts evening emergency rates at $60 to $300 an hour and says an after-hours weekday call may cost time and a half.
How many calls come in after hours?
For residential HVAC shops, 14.1% of inbound calls in June and 9.8% in October, the low point of the year. ServiceTitan published that in June 2026, from 2025 call records of HVAC shops on its platform.
ServiceTitan counted calls before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m. on weekdays, plus all weekend calls. Weekday calls outside 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. alone peaked at 9.3% in June and ran 6.8% in October.
Read it beside Figure 1 with care. The window starts at 5 p.m., an hour earlier than the booking-rate drop, and the call data is from 2025, not 2022. ServiceTitan also said the cohort is not nationally representative.
Other businesses run higher. In BrightLocal's 2019 study of 45,264 Google listings, locksmiths got 34% of their Google listing calls after 5 p.m. and another 8% before 9 a.m. That puts 42% outside 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., a Local Voice calculation. Restaurants got 51% of their calls after 5 p.m.
If your work is planned, your evening share may look like HVAC's. If you sell emergency repairs, it may look more like a locksmith's.
Vendor blogs claim 47% of home service calls come after hours, some crediting HomeAdvisor with no link. We couldn't trace it to a study. ServiceTitan's 2025 HVAC data puts it at 14.1% in June and 9.8% in October. See every missed-call statistic we checked.
Evening calls that ring out often go unreturned. Quo's August 2026 analysis of 16.7 million missed calls found 69% got no callback within 48 hours, and it said evening and weekend calls contribute heavily to that. Weekends have their own pattern: see 41% of weekend calls go unanswered.
What to do this week
Split your booking rate by hour. Pull 30 days of calls. Count calls and booked jobs before and after 6 p.m. Divide each count of jobs by its count of calls.
Call your own number at 7 p.m. Count the rings. Note who answers and whether they can book a job on that call.
Decide who answers after 6 p.m. Give evening calls one owner, even if that's a forwarding rule to the on-call tech's phone. If nobody wants the job, an answering service or AI agent can take it. Disclosure: Local Voice sells AI phone agents.
Measure again in 30 days. Rerun the formula with your new evening booking rate. Compare the gap against the monthly cost of the option you picked.
Frequently asked questions
What is a typical booking rate for calls after 6 p.m.?
Low. ServiceTitan's 2022 data from more than 3,000 trade businesses showed small shops booking 9% of calls after 6 p.m., down from a 26% peak. Large shops booked 21% after 6 p.m., down from 61%. Both evening rates sit well below the 42% typical rate ServiceTitan reported for June 2022.
Why do booking rates drop in the evening?
ServiceTitan didn't say. Its 2022 data shows the drop at both shop sizes. Small shops keep 35% of their peak rate after 6 p.m. and large shops keep 34%, by Local Voice's math. Size barely changes the drop, so look first at who, or what, answers your phone after 6 p.m.
How many calls come in after business hours?
For residential HVAC shops, 14.1% of inbound calls in June 2025 and 9.8% in October, the year's low, in ServiceTitan's data. It counted weekdays before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m., plus weekends. Other trades run higher. BrightLocal's 2019 study found locksmiths got 34% of Google listing calls after 5 p.m. and 8% before 9 a.m.
How much does a low evening booking rate cost?
For a small shop, every 10 evening calls book about 1.7 fewer jobs than at peak, using ServiceTitan's 26% and 9% rates. At Angi's 2026 averages, that's about $2,292 of water heater work or $595 of HVAC repair work per 10 calls (Local Voice calculation). It's revenue, not profit.
When do trade shops book the most calls?
In the morning. ServiceTitan's 2022 data found mornings had the highest booking rates, though it didn't publish the peak hour. It gave peak rates of 61% for large shops and 26% for small without saying when they occurred. BrightLocal's 2019 study found the average local business got the most Google listing calls between 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Mondays.
Free tool
What do missed calls cost your business?
Pick your trade, enter how many calls you miss and what a job is worth. The free calculator shows the sales you lose each month, each year and per missed call, using published booking and close rates.
Open the calculatorMethodology
Formulas
Share of peak kept = after-6 rate ÷ peak rate. Calls per booked job = 1 ÷ booking rate. Booked work per 10 calls = 10 × booking rate × job value. Gap = 10 × (peak rate minus after-6 rate) × job value. Locksmith calls outside 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. = 34% + 8%.
Booking rates
From ServiceTitan's October 25, 2022 blog post by Pat McManamon, based on more than 3,000 trade businesses that use ServiceTitan in the U.S. and Canada. The post's bullet reads "61% peak to 21% after 6 p.m. for large; 26% to 9% for small." It states the time once, after the large-shop pair, and we read the small-shop pair the same way. The bullet doesn't define large and small. The post also gives no peak hour and no date for the time-of-day figures. Its headline 42% rate is from June 2022. ServiceTitan doesn't define which calls count toward the rate.
Job values
Angi national average costs, with each page's update date: HVAC system replacement $7,500 (Aug. 3, 2026), water heater replacement $1,348 (July 20, 2026), HVAC repair $350 (Aug. 4, 2026). Evening emergency plumber rates of $60 to $300 an hour and the time-and-a-half note come from Angi's emergency plumber guide (Sept. 10, 2026).
Call timing
HVAC: ServiceTitan's State of the Trades page "When Summer HVAC Demand Spikes, After-Hours Calls Do Too" (June 3, 2026). It used anonymized inbound call records from residential HVAC customers who share data, January to December 2025. It is a same-store, tenant-weighted cohort, not nationally representative, with no sample size given. Off-hours means weekdays before 8 a.m. or after 5 p.m., plus weekends. Other trades: BrightLocal's Google My Business Insights Study (Rosie Murphy, July 15, 2019). It covered 45,264 listings from September 2017 to December 2018, in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Australia, reported as medians. It counts calls placed by tapping the Google listing. Neither call-timing source is combined with the booking rates in any calculation.
Rounding
Shares of peak kept are rounded half up to whole percents. Calls per job are rounded to one decimal. Dollar figures per 10 calls are multiplied at full precision and rounded to the nearest dollar. The worked example rounds each step to whole jobs, as shown, so you can check it by hand.
Assumptions and limits
The table applies size-based booking rates to job values from a separate source. It counts revenue, not profit, and assumes evening callers would book at peak rates if handled the same way. ServiceTitan didn't say why evening rates fall, so the gap may include callers who were never ready to book.
When we checked
ServiceTitan, BrightLocal, Quo and the Angi pages were checked at the source on October 10, 2026.
Sources
ServiceTitan. Typical call-booking rate for ServiceTitan users? The number might shock you into action. Pat McManamon, October 25, 2022. Accessed October 10, 2026.
ServiceTitan. When Summer HVAC Demand Spikes, After-Hours Calls Do Too. State of the Trades, June 3, 2026. No individual byline. Accessed October 10, 2026.
BrightLocal. Google My Business Insights Study. Rosie Murphy, July 15, 2019. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Quo. Small business callback statistics in 2026: Data from 16M+ calls. Rachel Bicha, August 20, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Angi. HVAC system replacement cost guide. Updated August 3, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Angi. Water heater replacement cost guide. Updated July 20, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Angi. HVAC repair cost guide. Updated August 4, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Angi. Emergency plumber cost guide. Updated September 10, 2026. Accessed October 10, 2026.
Stop missing calls
Answer every call, even after hours.
Local Voice answers your phone and books callers onto your calendar. Plans start at $397 a month for 500 minutes, plus a $500 setup fee. Call the demo line to hear it work.