Call answering service for small businesses
Your assistant who always picks up the phone — from £5.99 a month.
Canduit is a call answering service for small businesses in the UK that can't always get to the phone — so a call you couldn't take doesn't turn into work you never hear about.
01 — The problem
When you can't pick up, they ring someone else.
Plenty of callers won't leave a voicemail. If nobody answers, they go back to the search results and ring the next business on the list — and you never find out what the job was.
If you've ever thought “I just need something to answer my business calls while I'm working”, this is what Canduit is for.
You're with a customer
Cutting hair, fitting a part, taking a payment. Stopping to answer means letting down the person in front of you.
You're driving
Between jobs, on the motorway, with the phone in the door pocket. It rings out before you can pull over.
You're on a job
Under a sink, up a ladder, hands full. By the time you've called back, they've booked someone else.
02 — How it works
One call, start to finish.
Nothing here happens in a black box. This is the whole sequence, in order, with roughly how long each part takes.
- 01~10 minutes
You set it up once
You get your own London number straight away — or point your existing line at it. Write your greeting. Set up a short menu for the reasons people ring you most: your hours, a quote, a booking link sent by text.
- 020 seconds waiting
A customer rings
The call is answered instantly and your greeting plays — your business name, your wording. The caller knows they've reached the right place before you've even picked up your tools.
- 03~5 seconds
They choose why they're calling
A short keypad menu, built from the reasons your customers actually ring: press 1 for opening hours, 2 for a quote, 3 to book. You decide the options and the order.
- 04~20 seconds
They get a real answer
For anything you've set up an answer to, they hear it straight away. If they've asked for something you'd normally send over — a booking link, your address, a price list — it arrives on their phone as a text before they hang up.
- 05~30 seconds
Anything else becomes a message
If the question is one only you can answer, it takes the caller's name, number, and what they need — then tells them when to expect you back. No dead-end voicemail.
- 06Within a minute
You find out, without listening back
You get an email: who called, what they wanted, in two or three lines. The full transcript sits underneath it if you want the detail, and every call lands in your dashboard call log.
Out of hours
Set your hours and the greeting changes itself — closed-hours callers get told when you're back before they're asked for a message.
While you're on another call
Forward on busy, and the second caller gets a proper answer instead of an engaged tone.
When you want it off
Stop forwarding and your line behaves exactly as it did before. Nothing about your existing phone changes permanently.
03 — Why Canduit
Why it suits a small business.
No receptionist salary
It does the routine part of a virtual receptionist for small business budgets: greeting callers, answering the usual questions and taking messages, without wages, holiday cover or sick days. Plans start at £5.99 a month, with no setup fee.
Set up once
About ten minutes: write your greeting, choose the menu options, and forward your number. After that it runs on its own — change anything in your dashboard and the next call uses it.
A written summary, not voicemails
After every call you get an email saying who rang, what they wanted and their number, in two or three lines, with the full transcript underneath. On Premier you get a text as well. No dialling in to listen to messages.
We built Canduit for UK small businesses that can't always get to the phone, so that the people running them don't lose work they never knew was there.
It won't pretend to be a person, and it won't guess. If a caller asks something you haven't set up an answer for, it takes their name, number and question and passes them to you — and that question is usually the next answer worth adding.
04 — Pricing
From £5.99 a month.
Every plan answers every call the same way. Basic emails you after each call and costs less; Premier texts you instead and covers a busier line.
Canduit Basic
The same receptionist for a quieter line. Every message lands in your inbox — no texts.
£5.99 /month
No setup fee. Cancel any time.
Get started- Up to 60 calls and 60 minutes a month
- 1 dedicated business number
- IVR menu — callers pick why they're calling
- Custom greeting in your own words
- Call recordings and transcripts
- AI summary of every call
- Full call log
- Dashboard to change any of it
- Email alert after every call, with the summary and transcript
Canduit Premier
Everything, for a busy line: a text to your mobile the moment someone leaves a message, and a text back to callers who ask for one.
£30 /month
No setup fee. Cancel any time.
Get started- Up to 300 calls and 300 minutes a month
- 1 dedicated business number
- IVR menu — callers pick why they're calling
- Custom greeting in your own words
- Call recordings and transcripts
- AI summary of every call
- Full call log
- Dashboard to change any of it
- Text alert to your mobile after every call
- Text-back to callers
- Email copy of every message
05 — Questions
The things people actually ask.
- What is the best phone answering service for small businesses?
- The best phone answering service for small business owners is one that answers straight away, deals with routine questions itself and sends you a written summary of everything else. Canduit does that from £5.99 a month, with your own greeting and a keypad menu. It is not a live person, so if every caller must speak to a human, a staffed service will suit you better.
- How much does a telephone answering service cost?
- Canduit starts at £5.99 a month, and Premier is £30 a month. Basic covers up to 60 calls a month and emails you after each one; Premier covers up to 300, texts you as well, and texts callers the links they ask for, such as your booking page. There is no setup fee, and you can cancel any time.
- How much does an answering service cost per month?
- Canduit costs £5.99 a month on Basic or £30 a month on Premier, at a fixed price with no per-call charges. If you get near your plan's monthly limit, your dashboard warns you, and you can switch plan in one click.
- What is the best way to answer business phone calls?
- Answer quickly, say your business name, and either answer the question or take the caller's name, number and what they need. When you can't — because you're with a customer, driving or on a job — forward your calls to a service that does the same for you. Canduit answers with your greeting, gives the answers you've set up and emails you a summary of the rest.
06 — Contact
Stop losing work to missed calls.
Tell us what your business does and how often the phone goes unanswered, and we'll tell you honestly whether Canduit fits.
Contact us