AI Front Desk Helper vs Wakeman

Both put an AI on a contractor's phone line. Wakeman is built to catch the calls you miss and book them into Jobber. AI Front Desk Helper is built to run the whole front office. Here's which one fits which shop, from what each company publishes.

By Drew Koch, owner of Gladiators Painting and founder of AI Front Desk Helper · Updated October 1, 2026

Everything about Wakeman here is from its own website (wakeman.ai), read on October 1, 2026.

What Wakeman is

Wakeman is an AI answering service for plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing and restoration contractors, from Fabricate, LLC. Its homepage says it "answers the calls you miss, even at 2 a.m., and texts you the job."

It's built around the calls you don't pick up. How it works tells you to "forward only the calls you don't answer," so your phone rings first and Wakeman takes the call if nobody gets to it. You keep your number; the FAQ says they never port it away. On the call it:

• Opens with "a short AI and recording notice," in your business's name.
• Asks trade-specific questions and checks the address "with the postal service during the call."
• Watches for "gas, carbon monoxide, smoke or fire, water near electrics," and rings and texts your on-call phone for an emergency.
• Puts a caller through to your on-call phone "if they keep asking for a person."
• Texts you the job, and texts the caller back if they agreed to texts.

Booking is off until you turn it on. Then, per its job booking page, it offers only "arrival windows you have set in Wakeman," books into Jobber, and "does not read your whole Jobber calendar." Without Jobber, the booking comes to you by text. Housecall Pro "is not generally available yet, and ServiceTitan is not supported." It mentions only the call-out fees you switch on, such as an after-hours fee, and won't "quote repair prices." It won't book an address it can't confirm. The FAQ says "It answers in English."

They also offer free tools on their site: a line check, a voicemail greeting generator and a missed-call calculator.

Where Wakeman is the better pick

• You only need nights and weekends covered. Their After Hours plan is $149 a month with 300 minutes. Our lowest plan is $297.
• You run Jobber and want jobs to land in it. Wakeman books straight into Jobber, matching the client by phone number and creating the property from the confirmed address. We connect to Jobber through Zapier, not directly.
• You don't want to pay for robocalls. Wakeman says spam, wrong numbers and sales pitches "are answered but never billed." We count minutes on every call. Our robocall rule hangs up on the ones it recognizes mid-call, so they use little time, but they still count.
• You want to try it before paying. 14 days or 500 minutes free with no card, and a full refund if you ask within 30 days of your first payment.
• You want a hard spending cap. You set a monthly limit, and when it's reached, new calls ring your on-call phone instead of running up overage.

Where it runs out for a contractor

Wakeman is focused on catching a call and getting the job to you, and it's careful about it: address checks, emergency words, booking only into windows you set. What its site doesn't cover, as of October 1, 2026:

• Calendars other than Jobber. No Google Calendar booking is mentioned. If you're not on Jobber, a booking arrives as a text for you to enter.
• Prices on the phone. It mentions call-out fees you switch on, but not repair prices. A caller who wants a ballpark for the job before booking doesn't get one.
• Anything after the call. No follow-up on quotes that go quiet, no outbound calls to past customers, no review replies, and no revenue by lead source are mentioned.
• Spanish. The FAQ says "It answers in English."
• Trades outside the emergency trades. Its pages are written for plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing and restoration. A painter, landscaper or cleaning company would be setting it up outside what it's built around.

One more thing to think through if you run Google Local Services Ads. Wakeman's own LSA page says it "does not make the charge go away," which is true of any answering system. With the forward-when-missed setup, your phone rings before Wakeman picks up, so set your forwarding to kick in quickly. Since October 1, an LSA call that rings past 20 seconds with nobody answering can be charged. (Our LSA guide covers this.)

Side by side

Pricing, as published

Wakeman

All plans: emergency flagging, booking, spam never billed. No setup fee, no minimum term, cancel online. A minute is billed as a minute of the call ("3 min call = 3 min"). Read from wakeman.ai/pricing on October 1, 2026.

AI Front Desk Helper

Extra minutes are $0.30 and extra texts $0.10. The estimator (ballpark prices by phone and text, plus the instant quote page) is included on Elite and a $20/month add-on on Basic and Pro. Annual billing is two months free on every plan.

The honest comparison on price: an AI that answers day and night and books is $349 a month at Wakeman, with 750 minutes, if you're on Jobber. At AI Front Desk Helper it's $497 on Pro, with 1,200 minutes, booking onto Google Calendar, plus quote follow-up. Ballpark prices on the phone need the estimator, which is $20 a month on Pro and included on Elite. For after-hours-only coverage, Wakeman's $149 has no equivalent on our side.

Who should pick which

Pick Wakeman if you're a plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing or restoration shop on Jobber, your office answers most calls during the day, and you want the misses and the 2 a.m. emergencies caught for as little as possible.

Pick AI Front Desk Helper if you book on Google Calendar or another CRM, you're in a trade where callers want a ballpark price (junk removal, house cleaning, lawn care and the like) and you'll turn on the estimator, or the jobs you lose are lost after the first call: quotes nobody followed up, past customers nobody called back, and ad spend you can't trace to booked work.

Most shops shouldn't run both. They'd be two AIs on the same phone. Pick the one that fixes your biggest leak.

I built AI Front Desk Helper, so read this with that in mind. Everything about Wakeman here comes from their own website, read on October 1, 2026. If something's wrong or has changed, email drew@aifrontdeskhelper.com and I'll fix it.

Questions contractors ask

Related: best AI receptionists for contractors, vs Jobber AI Receptionist, answering service vs AI receptionist, and Google LSA missed-call charges.