Help
Answers to the questions tradies ask most about setting up Tradie Texts, how missed-call recovery and the AI assistant work, billing, and what to check when something looks wrong.
You need an Australian mobile number to forward your business calls to, your business name and trade type, and a plan picked during signup. Landlines and overseas numbers can't receive the follow-up texts, so they aren't supported as forwarding numbers.
There's no hardware to install and no need to port your existing business number. Tradie Texts sits alongside it.
Under ten minutes for most tradies. Create an account, enter your business details and forwarding mobile number, verify that number with a one-time SMS code, and pick a plan. Calls to your Tradie Texts number start forwarding straight away.
No. Tradie Texts gives you a dedicated number that forwards straight through to your existing mobile, so the number your customers already know and call doesn't have to change.
Put the dedicated number in your ads, website and Google listing going forward. Your personal mobile stays private and keeps ringing as normal.
Two reasons. Landlines and overseas numbers can't receive SMS, and the forwarding number is also where Tradie Texts sends your one-time verification code and emergency alerts, so it has to be a number that can receive texts.
Restricting forwarding and notification numbers to Australian mobiles also keeps the account tied to a real, contactable Australian tradie, which helps prevent fraud and abuse.
A call counts as missed when you don't answer, when it hits a busy signal, when it fails for a carrier reason, or when the caller hangs up before you pick up.
Tradie Texts also uses call screening to tell a real answer apart from a carrier voicemail auto-answering the call. Whoever picks up has to press a key before the call connects, so a call that goes to your voicemail still counts as missed and still triggers a follow-up text.
Within 5 seconds from the moment Tradie Texts marks the call as missed. The first message sends automatically, with no queue to wait in, often before you've noticed you missed the call.
By default it's something like: "Hi, this is [Your Business]. Sorry we missed your call. You're texting our AI assistant. What can we help with today? Reply STOP to opt out."
You can write your own greeting in your business settings. Tradie Texts still makes sure the message discloses that the customer is texting an AI assistant and includes the STOP opt-out instruction, even if you forget to add them yourself.
Their reply shows up against that lead in your Leads tab and the AI takes over the back-and-forth. It asks follow-up questions to work out the job type, address, urgency and a good callback time.
Open the lead to watch the conversation happen in real time and jump in to reply yourself at any point.
The AI holds a natural back-and-forth conversation with the customer to qualify the lead. It asks what's broken or needed, where the job is, how urgent it is, and when suits best for a callback.
It records those answers as structured fields on the lead as it goes, so you get a ready-to-use summary instead of a wall of text messages to read through.
Right now the AI qualifies the lead. It doesn't book appointments, hold a calendar slot or make any commitment on your behalf. It gets you the details you need (what, where, how urgent, best callback time) so you can call the customer back and book the job yourself.
In a genuine emergency the AI escalates straight to you rather than continuing to chat. See the next question for how that works.
The AI watches for language that points to a genuine emergency: flooding, a gas leak, no power, or a customer saying it's urgent. When it spots one, it sends you an alert straight away instead of carrying on with the normal back-and-forth.
Emergency escalation is available on every paid plan.
Yes. Every conversation appears in your dashboard as it happens, and you can reply yourself at any point. The AI steps back and we tell the customer they're now texting a real person.
If you go quiet for a while, the AI can pick the conversation back up. We tell the customer about that handover too, so they know who they're texting.
Tradie Texts is a monthly subscription plus usage. The subscription covers your account, dashboard, AI assistant and a monthly allowance of follow-up SMS. On top of that, we meter SMS usage and bill it through Stripe.
Exact plan inclusions and pricing live in the pricing section on our homepage. We keep that section up to date rather than repeating the figures here.
You get an in-app alert as you approach your plan's monthly SMS allowance, and another when you reach it. Once you hit the cap, automatic AI replies pause for the rest of the billing period, so a busy month can't turn into a surprise bill.
The usage counter in the dashboard shows where you sit against your allowance at any time, and if you keep bumping up against the cap, you can upgrade your plan.
Yes. There's no lock-in contract. You can change plans or cancel at any time from the Billing Portal in your dashboard. Stripe's secure customer portal handles the change itself, so there's no need to email support.
If you cancel, your account and historical leads stay accessible for a period afterwards rather than disappearing straight away. The Data Retention & Deletion policy under Legal has the specifics.
Yes. Stripe, a PCI-compliant payment processor used by major platforms worldwide, handles all payment details directly. Tradie Texts never stores your card number on its own servers.
You manage your card, invoices and receipts through Stripe's secure Billing Portal, linked from your dashboard.
Tradie Texts is built around the position that a missed inbound call gives your business a reasonable basis to send one prompt, service-related follow-up text about that same enquiry. You're replying to someone who just tried to reach your business.
Consent rules under the Spam Act 2003 depend on the specific wording and context of each message, so anything beyond this standard one-off follow-up is worth running past an Australian solicitor. The SMS Consent & Opt-Out policy under Legal covers the full detail.
A customer opts out by replying STOP (or STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END or QUIT) to any text. That suppresses all further automated messages to their number straight away, including the one-off follow-up after any future missed call, until they text START again.
You'll still see the conversation and the opt-out status in your dashboard, so you know who's opted out and won't be surprised when no automatic text goes to them.
Yes. Under the Spam Act 2003, every automated message Tradie Texts sends includes a way to opt out. The first message in any conversation carries a "Reply STOP to opt out" instruction, and that holds even if you write your own custom greeting.
There's no setting to turn this off, because it's a compliance requirement.
We store it securely and scope it to your business alone. Other Tradie Texts customers can never see your leads, conversations or messages, even though every business runs on the same platform.
We keep data for a defined retention period, then clean it up automatically. The Data Retention & Deletion policy under Legal sets out the specifics, along with how to request access, correction or deletion.
Not for the standard missed-call follow-up. The caller's own inbound call is the basis for that one prompt, service-related reply, so you don't need a signed opt-in form for it.
Ongoing marketing or promotional texts are a different matter: those would need proper express consent and sit outside what Tradie Texts is designed for. The platform doesn't support uploading contact lists or sending bulk marketing.
The usual causes, in order: your forwarding number isn't set up correctly yet, you've hit your plan's monthly SMS allowance, the customer's number has previously opted out with STOP, or there was a temporary delay at the carrier.
Check the Leads tab first and look at that lead's Activity column. A message count of zero means the send likely never happened, so start with your forwarding number and plan usage. If the count shows messages but the customer says nothing arrived, check whether that number is marked as opted out.
Check three things: call forwarding is turned on for your handset with your mobile carrier (this is a setting on your phone, not in Tradie Texts), you have reasonable mobile signal, and the number you registered is a genuine Australian mobile. Landlines and overseas numbers aren't supported and won't verify.
If all of that checks out and calls still aren't reaching you, contact support with the number in question.
Start in the Leads tab and look for that customer's number. Each lead shows an Activity column with its message count, last activity and thread status. A message count of zero means the send likely never happened, so check your forwarding number and SMS usage first.
If the count shows messages sent but the customer says nothing arrived, open the lead and check the full thread; also ask whether they've texted STOP to a similar business text service before, since that suppresses future messages from Tradie Texts too. If none of that explains it, contact support with the customer's number and roughly when the call happened so we can check the message logs.
Email hello@tradietexts.com.au and we'll get back to you. Include your business name and, if it's about a specific call or text, the phone number and rough time it happened so we can look it up quickly.
The support chat at the bottom of this page is another way to reach us, so you can get answers without leaving the page.
Looking for our Terms, Privacy Policy or SMS/AI disclosures instead? See Legal & policies.
Can’t find what you need? Email hello@tradietexts.com.au and we’ll help you out.
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