AI receptionist & answering service for tradespeople · UK
They ring with a symptom. Not a trade.
Magixis is a 24/7 AI receptionist for UK trade firms — plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling answered on one number. It takes the fault in the caller's own words, matches it to the category list you wrote, routes it to the trade and the rota you nominated, books from your own diary and writes the record. It diagnoses nothing and claims no qualification for anybody. From 70p a minute, no contract.
Hear it before you decide
One agent. One call.
Our own line is answered by the same agent your callers would get — 24/7. Describe a fault the way one of your customers would, and listen to what it does and doesn't say back.
- 24/7, 365 days
- ICO-registered · ZC223083
- UK/EU data storage · signed DPA
- No contract · from 70p a minute
The system
What does an AI receptionist do for a trade firm?
It answers the office number at seven in the morning, at four when everyone is on site, and at two in the morning when a ceiling is coming down. The caller describes what has happened; the agent writes that down in their words, matches it to your own categories, sends it to the trade and rota you nominated, and books what can be booked. Nothing is diagnosed and nothing is promised.
Every call picked up, in your firm's name
The agent is trained on your trades, your categories, your charges, your patch and your tone. It answers in two rings whether the caller has a burst pipe, a tripping board, a unit blowing warm air, or a supplier chasing a delivery it can pass straight to the office.
To the right trade, and the right rota
Each category you write names a trade, a rota and what the caller should be told. Emergencies go to whoever is on call for that trade tonight; bookable work goes into the diary with an SMS confirmation. A fault that could be two trades is flagged as both.
The CRM writes itself
Address, caller type, the fault in their own words, the category applied, the trade and rota notified, access and occupancy, the charge as you configured it, the slot booked, and what the agent refused — all captured while the caller is still talking.
Where a trade call goes wrong
A symptom is not a job description.
"No hot water" can be the boiler, the immersion, or a circuit that has tripped — three trades, and the caller is not the person who can tell them apart. Repair and maintenance is around 41% of UK construction output on CITB's figures, and that is the half of the industry that arrives by telephone, from somebody whose heating has just stopped. Route it wrong and you have spent an engineer's morning proving it was somebody else's job.
Somebody has to categorise it before anybody drives
A message pad cannot do that. The categorising is what decides which van, which rota and what the customer is told tonight — and until it happens, the call is just a name and a number waiting for the office to open.
no hot water = 3 trades
Each trade carries its own regime
Gas work is restricted to Gas Safe registered engineers. Notifiable electrical work in dwellings is certified under Part P. Cooling work carries F-gas duties and inspection deadlines. The safe answer differs by trade, so blurring them on the phone is not a small mistake.
Gas Safe · Part P · F-gas
One number, several out-of-hours arrangements
The heating engineer on call tonight is not the electrician on call tonight, and the contract customer with a response time in their agreement is neither. Voicemail sends all three to the same place: nobody.
1 line · 3 rotas
What happens
62%
of calls to small businesses never reach a live person.
Why ring-back fails
86%
of calls from unknown numbers go unanswered — so the customer you ring back between jobs never picks up.
Where the work is · UK
41%
of the UK's £230bn construction output is repair and maintenance — the half that arrives as a phone call about a fault.
How the agent handles a fault it cannot diagnose
Two illustrative transcripts.
Scripted examples of how the agent handles these calls, not recordings of real callers. The firm, the staff, the callers and the charges are invented, and every figure in them is configured by the invented firm.
07:10 · two symptoms, two possible trades
Triage
CALLERThere's no hot water this morning, and when I tried the shower it tripped the whole fuse box.
AGENTThanks — I'll take both of those exactly as you've said them. Is there any heating in the house at the moment, and is anyone in who can let an engineer in today?
CALLERNo heating either. I'm in all day. Is it the boiler or the electrics?
AGENTI'm not able to tell you that, and I won't guess at it. What I can do is what your firm's list says: no heating and no hot water in an occupied home is a same-day category, and a circuit tripping when an appliance is used is flagged for the electrical side as well. I'm logging both.
CALLERWhat's it going to cost?
AGENTThe call-out on your postcode is £96 including the first hour, and that's the only figure I have. I can't price the repair before an engineer has seen it.
AGENTEarliest today is 11:40 with Dean Whitworth on the heating side. If it turns out to be the circuit, the office will move it to Marcus — that's their call, not mine.
CALLEREleven forty is fine.
AGENTBooked, 11:40 today. You'll get a text with the slot and the call-out charge in writing.
Both symptoms recorded verbatim · same-day category per firm's list · electrical side flagged, not assumed · no diagnosis, no repair price · call-out stated as configured · 11:40 with Dean Whitworth
Managing agent · two certificates, one deadline
Routing
CALLERI need a gas safety check and an electrical inspection at Flat 6, Ardwick Mill, before a tenant moves in on the 14th.
AGENTTwo visits, two trades — I'll book them separately. Is the flat empty now, and is there a key safe or does someone need to attend?
CALLEREmpty, key safe. Are your people certificated for both?
AGENTI don't make claims about anyone's registration — that's for the office to confirm in writing, and I'm logging it as a question for them. What I can do is book from the diary your firm keeps for each trade.
CALLERAnd we're fine legally if it's done on the 13th?
AGENTThat's not something I can advise on, and I won't. It's logged for Sam Iqbal in the office with this call attached. On the diary I have Wednesday the 9th at 8:30 for the gas check and Thursday the 10th at 1pm for the electrical inspection.
CALLERTake both.
AGENTBoth booked against Flat 6, Ardwick Mill, key safe noted. You'll get one text with the two slots.
Two trades booked separately from the firm's own diaries · no registration claimed for anyone · legal-deadline question refused and logged to Sam Iqbal · access recorded · one confirmation, two slots
One trade, not three?
Each trade has its own page, written around its own calls.
This page answers what the trades share. The detail — the emergency that defines each trade, the regime it answers to, the way its diary works — is on the three pages below, each with its own sourced figures and its own transcripts.
Hands wet. Phone answered.
The frozen-morning rush, emergency triage against your own definitions, heating grant work and the gas boundary — with the job values and scheme deadlines sourced on the page.
Up the ladder. Phone answered.
The frightened call about a smell near the board, the safety script you write, and the five-yearly inspection calendar landlords work to — with the duty and its penalties sourced on the page.
Breakdowns, contracts and inspections
Contract response times somebody else wrote, the on-call engineer, surveys booked, and the legal inspection duty that lands on air conditioning — with the thresholds and penalties sourced on the page.
Your CRM, written by the call
One record, whichever van it turns out to be.
Every plan includes the Magixis CRM, and the record fills itself in while the caller is still on the line. Nothing in it diagnoses a fault, prices a repair or says anybody is registered. This is what a call carries into the office.
ContactName & number
ContactDomestic, landlord, agent or contract
JobAddress & postcode, checked against your patch
JobFault, in the caller's words
TriageCategory per your list
TriageTrade routed to — or both, flagged
AccessOccupancy, key safe, who lets you in
MoneyCall-out or rate as configured
DiarySlot booked or rota notified
RecordRefused & routed
Beyond reception
Every call keyed to an address — and to the trade that has to go there.
Magixis isn't only the voice that answers. From the first ring it builds a CRM keyed to your work, so you can see which categories are filling your diary, which trade is carrying the out-of-hours load, and which questions keep coming back to the office.
01 · CRM from call data
Caller → contact, attached to the address
Every caller becomes a contact from their first call — names and numbers masked by default — attached to the address and marked as domestic, landlord, managing agent or contract customer. Nothing to retype into the job system afterwards.
02 · Routed by your list
Symptom to category, category to trade and rota
The routing table is yours: the words your callers actually use, the trade each one belongs to, the rota that covers it tonight, and the line the caller should hear. The agent applies it literally rather than deciding for itself.
03 · Every call reviewable
Transcript, recording, and what was refused
A full log of who called, the fault in their own words, the category applied and what the agent declined — the diagnosis, the price, the registration claim. Staff can correct the agent, and every correction is logged rather than silent.
04 · 24/7 human handoff
A real person for the genuine escalation
Anything you choose routes to a person working 24/7 who logs the job or books the slot; in hours, a caller who needs a judgement is warm-transferred to the office. You keep authority to approve, override, reassign.
05 · One dashboard, full audit
Run the firm from one place
Access is capability-based, not job-title-based — you control who sees what and who can unmask a contact. Sensitive actions need a logged reason; every consequential action sits in a tamper-evident audit log.
06 · Commercials
A posted rate per minute
From 70p a minute, posted publicly — no allowance to blow through in the week of the first hard frost. Lite has no setup fee and no subscription; every price is on the pricing page.
The alternatives
How does Magixis compare with an answering service for tradespeople?
Firms weighing us up are usually choosing between voicemail, a human answering service such as Moneypenny, and an AI receptionist. The short version: an answering service takes a message; Magixis categorises the fault against your own list, sends it to the right trade and rota, books the slot and writes the record. The detail, like for like:
| Magixis | Human answering service | Voicemail | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Answering hours | 24/7, 365 days — included | Typically 9am–5pm Mon–Fri; Moneypenny lists 24/7 as an add-on from £35/month | Always on; most callers hang up |
| A caller with a fault | Symptom recorded verbatim, categorised on your own list, access and occupancy captured, slot booked | A message taken — typically up to five agreed data fields — passed on by email or text | A beep |
| Routing between trades | Category names the trade and the rota; a two-trade fault is flagged as both | Whoever reads the message decides, whenever they read it | Nobody |
| Out of hours | The nominated rota for that trade is notified, with your safety line read to the caller | A message taken; the rota waits for someone to act on it | Nothing until someone listens |
| What it never does | No diagnosis, no repair price, no claim that anybody is registered or certificated | Reads from a short brief; anything beyond it is a message | — |
| Pricing | From 70p/min posted publicly · no setup fee on Lite | Quote-based; UK rates not published on moneypenny.com | Free |
| Contract | None — cancel any month | Moneypenny's smaller message-taking plans carry a three-month minimum | — |
Moneypenny details from moneypenny.com/uk/message-taking-service — hours, 24/7 add-on pricing, data fields and minimum terms as published there. Ring-back figure: Hiya, State of the Call 2026. Last checked: 13 August 2026.
Moneypenny is a well-regarded service — if you want a human PA taking messages in office hours, it's a fine choice. Magixis is for firms that want the fault categorised and the right rota woken at three in the morning, at a posted rate.
Pricing
How much does it cost?
Calls run from 70p a minute. Lite is £1.35 a minute with no setup fee and no subscription; most firms run Pro — £995 setup once, then £99 a month plus 85p a minute, automated CRM included; multi-site Command brings it to 70p a minute. No contract on any plan.
Who's behind the line
Manchester-born. Built for the whole UK.
Magixis is a UK company, founded in Manchester in 2026. A phone line has no radius: a firm in Truro gets the same two-ring answer as one in M2. What travels with every call is the paperwork — ICO registration, UK/EU data storage, a signed DPA — all in writing on the trust page.
CompanyMagixis Limited · UK
HQManchester, M2
CoverageUnited Kingdom
ICOZC223083
Companies House17372370
Before you call · the trades
One number, several trades, and a caller who can only describe the symptom.
CITB puts UK construction output at £230 billion in 2025, with around 41% of it repair and maintenance rather than new work — and repair and maintenance is the part that arrives as a phone call from somebody with a fault. The same forecast, produced with Oxford Economics and published in June 2026, counts a UK construction workforce of 2,606,380 in 2025 rising to about 2.68 million by 2030, and says an average of 41,200 extra workers a year will be needed between 2026 and 2030 — roughly 206,000 over the five years, or about 8% of the current workforce. The forecast is UK-wide, with separate figures for the nations and the nine English regions, and it expects output to dip slightly in 2026 before recovering.
Read those two facts together and the shape of a trade firm's phone problem is clear enough. Most of the work is reactive, the people who do it are scarce, and the scarce hours are the ones on site. The office hour that gets sacrificed first is the one spent working out what a caller is actually describing — and that hour is the only one that decides which van goes.
Because nobody rings to report a trade. They ring to say the water is coming through the kitchen ceiling, or the board keeps tripping when the shower runs, or the unit in the server room is blowing warm. Two of those could belong to either of two trades. Our agent's job is deliberately narrow: record what was said in the caller's own words, match it to the category list your firm wrote, name the trade and the rota that list points to, flag it as both where it could be either, capture access and occupancy, state only the call-out or rate you configured, and book what your diary allows. It does not diagnose, price a repair, decide urgency for itself, or tell anybody a job is safe.
The regimes stay where they belong, too. Gas work is restricted to Gas Safe registered engineers; notifiable electrical work in dwellings is certified under Part P of the Building Regulations; cooling work carries F-gas obligations and inspection deadlines of its own. Each of those sits on the page for the trade that carries it, with the thresholds and penalties sourced there: plumbers, electricians, HVAC. Magixis holds no trade accreditation and belongs to no trade body, and the agent makes no claim about anyone's registration, certification or insurance — yours or ours. If there is nobody else in the business at all, so answering and working are the same pair of hands, the page for that is sole traders. Otherwise, see how a call is handled or browse the full reception range.
Sources: CITB, Construction Workforce Outlook 2026–2030, with Oxford Economics, published June 2026 · Gas Safe Register. Last updated: 4 September 2026
FAQ · Trades
The questions trade firms ask.
If your question isn't here, put it to our agent on a live call — it can probably answer.
Calls run from 70p a minute. Lite is £1.35 a minute — no setup fee, no subscription, and nothing at all in a month with no calls. Most firms run Pro: £995 setup once, then £99 a month plus 85p a minute, with the automated CRM included. Multi-site Command brings the rate down to 70p a minute. There are no allowances and no overage — see the full pricing comparison.
Yes, and it routes the job as well. A human answering service takes a message and sends it on; standard cover typically runs office hours, with 24/7 as a paid add-on and a minimum contract on the smaller plans. Magixis takes the fault in the caller's own words, matches it to the category list you wrote, sends it to the trade and the rota you nominated, books the slot from your own diary and writes the record — at a posted rate per minute, with no contract. The like-for-like table is above.
No. It records the symptom in the caller's words and matches it to your own categories; it does not diagnose, and it never says whether a fault is safe, urgent in itself, or covered by a warranty. On money it states only what you configured — a call-out charge, a survey fee, an hourly or day rate — and it gives no estimate for the repair. Anything past that is a logged question for the engineer or the office.
By your list, not by its own judgement. You write the categories in the words your callers use — no hot water, tripping breaker, unit blowing warm, water coming through a ceiling — and against each one you name the trade, the rota and what the caller should be told. A fault that could belong to two trades is logged as exactly that, with both flagged, so the office decides which van goes.
Never, for anybody. Gas work is restricted to Gas Safe registered engineers, notifiable electrical work in dwellings is certified under Part P of the Building Regulations, and cooling work carries its own F-gas and inspection duties — all of which belong to your firm and your people, not to us. The agent makes no claim about anyone's registration, certification, insurance or accreditation, and routes the question to the office.
Read the trade page if you are one trade. Plumbers covers the frozen-morning rush and heating work; electricians covers the frightened call and the five-yearly inspection calendar; HVAC covers contract response times and the legal inspection duty on cooling. This page is for the firm that answers for two or three of them on one number, and for the whole-trade questions — routing, rotas, what the agent may never say — that all three share.
Partly. The routing here assumes there is somebody to route to — a second trade, a rota, an office. If there is nobody else at all, so that answering the phone and doing the work need the same pair of hands, the sole traders page is written for exactly that and this one will read as though you have staff you do not have. Plenty of one-van firms want both pages; read that one first.
It is answered, categorised against your own definitions and pushed to whichever rota you nominated for that trade — with no contractor name and no attendance time unless you configured one. The caller is told what happens next in your words, including any safety instruction you have written, and the job is logged against the address so the morning does not start with a voicemail box.
On Lite, the same day — you set it up yourself from a link we send. Pro is a two-week build: we listen to a week of your real calls, train the agent on your categories, your trades, your rotas and your charges, you test it on a sandbox number, then it goes live on your own number. You keep your number throughout — the build, step by step.