Komms · After hours
An after-hours answering service that costs $0.08 a minute
When the office is closed, a Komms voice agent answers every call, finds out why they called, takes the details your team needs in the morning, and sends real emergencies to your on-call person. You pay for call minutes, not seats or a monthly service contract.
TTFW (time to first word): a median 77 ms
Komms’s TTFW (time to first word) is a median 77 milliseconds, from a caller’s words arriving as text to Komms handing its first words to the voice. We timed every turn on live calls, and every call report shows the timing, line by line.
| Turns | TTFW within |
|---|---|
| Half (median) | 77 ms |
| 75% | 96 ms |
| 90% | 121 ms |
| 95% | 153 ms |
Measured from the moment the caller’s words arrive as text to the moment Komms hands its first words to the voice (TTFW): 15,297 live turns across 2,841 live calls on three Komms campaigns, Oct 21–Nov 6, 2026, from the Komms call logs. 97% of turns started within 200 ms. Turning speech into text, generating the voice and carrying it over the phone network add to what the caller hears. Full numbers and method.
See for yourself: talk to the KX21 sales and support line from your browser. Ask it about any KX21 product or price, book a demo, or get passed to the team. Calls are recorded. Hang up any time.
Books appointments and looks things up during the call
A Komms agent can call your systems while the caller is on the line. You set up each API connection once, test it, and use it in any step of the script.
| What it does | How |
|---|---|
| Knows the lead before the call | Your dialer or CRM sends each lead’s details through the Komms Dialer API, one at a time or in a batch, matched to the call by phone number. The agent uses them on the call. |
| Looks up the caller | Calls your CRM or any API with the phone or account number and uses what comes back: a name, an order, a case status, an existing appointment. |
| Checks before going on | An API call can answer yes or no, and the call takes a different path for each: an existing customer, an address in your service area, a time that is still free. |
| Keeps what it finds | Any field in the answer can be kept as a call variable, used later in the call and sent on in your webhook. |
| Books the appointment | Asks for the day and time, checks it against your booking system, books it through that system’s API and confirms the time out loud. |
| Books on your Google or Microsoft calendar | When calendar scheduling is enabled for your account, connect a Google or Microsoft calendar and add a Schedule step. The agent offers open times, either the first free one or a choice, and books, moves or cancels the appointment on the calendar you pick. Microsoft calendars must belong to the mailbox you connect. Other calendar integrations are available on request. |
| Changes or cancels | Finds the caller’s appointment and moves or cancels it through the same API, where your booking system allows it. |
| Saves the result | Writes the lead, the answers and the outcome to your CRM during the call, and sends a webhook when the call ends. |
Connections use GET or POST requests with JSON, form or GraphQL bodies, and sign in with an API key, a bearer token or a user name and password, stored encrypted. You can test each one before a call uses it and see the request that went out and the answer that came back. Small scripts can work out or reformat a value between steps. The Dialer API uses an API key, and can also read agent availability and set a cap on calls at the same time for a campaign number.
Who it is for
For offices whose calls do not stop at 5pm: law firms, property managers, home services, agencies. A human answering service usually bills per minute plus a monthly minimum; here the only charges are call minutes and the phone number.
The script
Each row is one node in the Komms flow builder: what the agent says, the answer it listens for, and where the call goes next.
| Node | The agent says | Listens for | Next |
|---|---|---|---|
| Greeting | Thanks for calling. Our office is closed, but I can take your details and make sure the right person gets back to you. | — | Reason |
| Reason | What is your call about today? | One of: new customer, existing customer, emergency, other | Emergency check, or Details |
| Emergency check | Is this an emergency that cannot wait until morning? | Yes or no | Yes: Transfer. No: Details |
| Details | Can I get your name, the best number to reach you, and a short description? | Name, phone, description | Confirm |
| Confirm | Reads the details back and asks if anything is missing. | Yes or corrections | Wrap-up |
| Transfer | I am connecting you to the person on call now. | — | Warm transfer to your on-call number |
| Wrap-up | Tells them when to expect a call back, then ends the call. | — | Webhook sends the answers and transcript to your CRM |
What it costs
| What | Amount | Cost a month |
|---|---|---|
| Talk time | 200 calls × 3 min = 600 minutes at $0.08 | $48 |
| Phone number | 1 × $15 a month | $15 |
| Total | Telephony, the AI model and a standard voice are inside the $0.08, billed in 6-second increments | $63 |
200 after-hours calls a month, 3 minutes each. New accounts get 625 free minutes first; after that the minimum purchase is $20. Contact us: lower prices may apply at your volume. Full pricing.
Build it in Komms
- Sign up and create a new script.
- Add one node per row of the table above; set the typed answer each node listens for.
- Point the "Emergency" answer at a transfer to your on-call number.
- Add a webhook on call end to send the summary where your team works.
- Test it in Chat, then buy a number and forward your after-hours line to it.
More Komms setups: AI receptionist · AI call center · AI outbound calling · AI answering service · AI voice agent · AI phone agent
Questions
- What does an AI after-hours answering service cost on Komms?
- $0.08 a minute, with the phone call, the AI and a standard voice included. A phone number is $15 a month. At 200 calls a month averaging 3 minutes, that is about $63 a month. New accounts start with 625 free minutes.
- Can it send emergencies to a real person?
- Yes. A node can warm-transfer the caller to a phone number you choose, so emergencies reach your on-call person while everything else waits for the morning.
- Where do the messages go?
- Every call can fire a webhook with the details the agent collected, so the summary lands in your inbox, CRM or ticketing tool.