Frequently asked questions

SmartAlex is an AI voice assistant platform for businesses. Its AI voice agents answer and make phone calls 24/7, book appointments, qualify leads, answer questions from your business information, and hand off to a human when needed.

Most businesses are live in about a minute. You pick a voice, give the agent your business information, connect a phone number, and start taking AI-handled calls. No code required.

Yes. You can sign up for a free account and try your agent in the browser without a card. Add a card to start a 7-day phone-call trial. Paid billing starts at the end of the 7 days, and cancelling before then avoids a charge. If you use all your trial minutes sooner, calls pause until your paid plan starts. You can choose to start it early. Trial minutes are separate from the paid plan's included minutes.

Yes. SmartAlex is built for businesses of every size, from solo operators and small teams to multi-location and enterprise. The Professional plan at $99 per month suits most small businesses.

Common uses include healthcare and dental practices, real estate, home services such as plumbing and HVAC, professional services such as law and accounting, hospitality, and retail. The agent answers from your specific business information, so it adapts to any industry.

The Professional plan is $99 per month, with 250 call minutes included once off per agent. Those minutes do not refresh each month. After they are used, calls draw from your prepaid wallet at usage rates, about $0.05 per minute on average. You can cancel anytime.

Your Professional subscription covers the platform. Its 250 included minutes are a once-off allocation per agent and do not refresh with monthly or annual subscription payments. Calls use those minutes first, then your prepaid wallet. Real Estate includes 300 minutes per account each calendar month; unused monthly minutes do not carry over.

Usually, yes. A human receptionist runs roughly $3,000 to $4,500 per month all-in, plus the cost of missed calls after hours. SmartAlex starts at $99 per month plus usage and answers every call 24/7.

All major credit and debit cards. Enterprise customers can also pay by bank transfer or invoice.

You pay for three things. The Professional plan is $99 a month with one agent included, and each extra agent is $99 a month. Outbound Campaigns is $49 a month for the whole workspace, however many agents you run. Calls use your included minutes first, then your prepaid wallet.

Yes, by the second, and only while the call is connected. Ringing is free. A call nobody answers costs nothing. There is no tariff sheet by network: we price each call on its own and show the charge on the call.

The Professional plan includes five calls at once, and each extra slot is $15 a month. You add slots in Billing, under Concurrent calls. You set how many a campaign may use, and we always keep a share of your slots free for incoming calls.

Yes. Set a Low balance alert in Settings, under Billing, and we tell you when the balance falls below it. Without one, we warn you when the balance covers about three days of your recent spending. You can also switch on Automatic top-up, which charges your saved card when the balance falls below a figure you choose.

We bill in US dollars. Every price on this page is in dollars, and if your card is in another currency, your bank converts the charge at its own rate.

It answers inbound calls 24/7, makes outbound calls and campaigns, books and reschedules appointments, qualifies and routes leads, answers questions from your knowledge base, captures messages, sends follow-up emails or texts, updates your CRM, and transfers to a human when needed.

You give the agent your business information, such as hours, services, pricing, policies, documents, or your website. It answers callers from that knowledge base, so responses are specific to your business.

Yes. You set rules for when the agent should warm-transfer to a person, take a message, or escalate, so customers always reach the right place.

The agent covers nights, weekends, holidays, and overflow, so you never miss a call. It can book appointments, answer questions, and capture leads around the clock.

Responses are near real time, typically under a second end to end, so conversations feel natural.

75+ languages including English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Language handling is automatic.

Yes. SmartAlex connects with 100+ business tools including Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zoho, Google Calendar, Outlook, Calendly, Shopify, Stripe, and Slack, plus a public API and Zapier.

Yes. On Home, open the agent menu and choose New agent, then Duplicate an existing agent. The copy keeps the original's instructions, tools and knowledge under a new name, and it starts with no phone number. Each extra agent is $99 a month.

Type the change in plain words in the chat on Home, such as "always greet people by their title and surname". Review what will change, test it if you want to, then press Apply, and the agent uses it on its next call. Prompt history keeps every change and lets you revert one.

One agent can handle every stage. Each person's balance and account details come with them from your list. Set up a second agent when the script or the department is different, such as a handover before legal action. Each extra agent is $99 a month.

You upload your list and match the name and phone number columns. Every other column you keep, such as the balance or the account number, becomes a note the agent reads before it calls that person. If a person appears on several rows, the agent calls them once, with every account in the note.

Both work. Upload a CSV or an Excel .xlsx file of up to 5,000 rows. A bigger list can go in as several files, except with Replace the list: it takes off everyone who is not in the file, so it needs the whole list in one file. The upload finds your column names even when the first row is a report title. It reads every row on the first visible sheet, including rows a filter has hidden, so delete the rows you do not want called.

Yes. Upload the new file into the same campaign. Nobody is added twice, and the new file updates each person's details and balance. Switch on Replace the list and the agent stops calling anyone who is not in the new file, so someone who has paid drops off.

We still record the request, take the person out of every other campaign and stop texting and emailing them. This campaign alone may keep calling them, and shows them as "Opted out, collection continues". A second request on a later call stops this campaign too, and so does a reply of STOP by SMS or WhatsApp. For any other written request, use Stop collection calls on the contact. This applies when you tick Debt collection campaign, which is only for collecting money owed. You are responsible for making sure it is lawful where the person lives. On any other campaign, the person goes on your Do Not Call list and the calls stop.

You choose the days and one or more blocks of hours for each campaign, and you can change them while the campaign runs. The agent calls each person in their own time zone when we have it, and in your workspace's time zone otherwise. Choose hours that the law allows where the people you call live.

You decide. Each campaign's Retries and voicemail settings allow up to ten tries in a round, with a wait of ten minutes to a day between tries. The agent tries again after a voicemail, no answer or a busy line. You can add a second round a day later for everyone it did not reach.

You write it. Each campaign has its own message. The agent says it as written when a mailbox answers, so everyone hears the same words, with no name or balance. Or set the campaign to hang up when a mailbox answers.

Yes. Write an Opening line on the campaign and the agent opens each call with it. Leave it blank and the agent opens in its own words. Insert the Title and surname field and the agent uses the title from your list. A call can then open with "Am I speaking to Ms Jones?" before anything about the account is said.

Yes, when it is asked. Every agent is told that it is an AI assistant and never human. To say it at the start of every call, put it in the Opening line.

It comes from the row you uploaded for that person, and callbacks and reminder calls read the same row. Keep example amounts out of the agent's instructions, so the only figure it has is the one from your list. Upload a fresh list when balances change.

Yes, when you switch on Call on the promised day. The agent books one call for the day the person named, inside your calling hours, and a newer promise replaces the earlier reminder.

You name them on the campaign, up to ten people. They get a call report by email after each call that leaves a next step, with the summary and a link to the recording. Switch on Only calls that need a follow-up to leave out promises to pay in full. Every call, reported or not, is in the Call History export.

Yes. In the campaign's Emails settings you choose which columns from your uploaded file appear in every email, and in what order. Every email starts with the person's name and phone number.

The agent makes the call itself, at the time the person asked for, as long as that time is inside the campaign's calling hours. A time outside those hours waits until they next open. The agent never places a callback between 10 at night and 6 in the morning. When the person names a day and no time, the agent rings at 9 that morning or when your calling hours open, whichever is later.

Yes. A campaign can call from one number or rotate automatically across the numbers you have given the agent. You tick which numbers take part.

Not reached means the call failed to connect: the phone was off or out of signal, or the network turned the call away. It rarely means the number is wrong. When a number is not in service, the contact and the export both say so. Give the campaign a second round and the agent tries those people again a day later.

Yes. Run two campaigns side by side, each with its own goal, opening line or agent, and compare the results. They share the number of calls your account can run at once.

Yes. Save the link under Agent Settings, Knowledge, Links, and say on the same row when the agent should send it. Then switch on the Send a Saved Link tool under Agent Settings, Tools. The agent texts that exact link during the call. Set up texting for the agent first.

Yes. A campaign can send one text after a call that reaches voicemail, is not answered or does not connect, once per person. You write the text, and it can include the person's first name and the number that called. We skip anyone on your Do Not Call list. Set up texting for the agent first.

The agent answers. It recognises the number, so it has that person's details and notes from your list and a summary of earlier conversations with them.

A campaign call ends at ten minutes. To keep calls shorter, tell the agent in its instructions how to close once it has an answer.

Call History, under Calls in the sidebar, lists every call with the contact, the outcome, the length and the date and time. Open one to read the summary and the full transcript, and to play the recording.

The list hides one-sided calls, such as a voicemail greeting or a line nobody answered, so real conversations are easy to find. Press Show above the list to see them. The export always includes every attempt.

Yes. Call History has three exports. Excel report gives results and summaries in a file made to read and share. CSV for importing gives one row per call and account, with a note ready to paste into your own system. Its standard columns never change, so an import you set up once keeps working. Costs and quality lists the charge, the rating and the call ID for every call.

Yes, the export follows your filters. Set the date range, the campaign or a search first, and the menu shows how many calls the file will have before you download it.

Yes. Every attempt is in the file, including voicemails and calls nobody answered, and each has a Result you can filter on. Results such as Spoke to them, Transferred and Took a message mean a person was on the line. Reached voicemail means a mailbox answered. No answer, Line busy, Declined, Number not in service and Could not connect mean nobody picked up.

Yes. When a person commits to pay, the file shows the amount, whether it is in full or in part, and the date. It also shows any callback they asked for, any request or dispute they raised, and whether they asked not to be called.

Yes. Every column you kept from your list comes back beside the call, so an account number sits on the same row as the result. The CSV also has a Call note for each call, ready to paste into your own records. It is one line with the date and time, the result, the summary and any promise or callback.

Yes. Call History keeps each call that reached a mailbox, marked Voicemail, with its date and time and its recording. Play the recording to hear what was left.

Open the campaign. It shows whether it is running or paused, every person on the list with their latest result, and a count for each result. You can also have a Campaign finished email sent to the people named on the campaign once everyone has been called.

Yes. The charge is on each call, for team members who are allowed to see costs. The Costs and quality export lists it for every call.

They are in your workspace's time zone. The export names the zone in the heading of the date column. If your workspace has no time zone set, the file uses the zone of the person who exports it.

Yes. Open the call and press Review. A rating of Good, Average or Bad and the Reviewed mark stay inside your workspace. Add a comment under Flag for the SmartAlex team and we reply on the call and under Your requests in Help.

Yes. Recording and transcription are on for every call, so you can review each one and improve the agent. A team member with the right permission can delete any recording. You are responsible for any caller consent required in your region: see the Telephony and Recording notices in the legal portal.

Open the call in Call History and press play. The Excel report also has a Play recording link for each call, which opens the call after you sign in.

Yes. Open the call and press the Download recording button beside the player.

Yes, for seven days. The call report email has a recording link that works without a login. After seven days, someone who is signed in plays the recording from the call.

We keep recordings while your account is open. You can delete any single recording from its call.

Yes. A team member with permission to delete in Call History can delete the recording from the call, which removes the audio permanently. The transcript and the call details stay.

Your own team can. A member has to be signed in and able to open Call History. We store recordings privately, and each play uses a link that expires. The only other way in is the link in a call report email, which works for seven days.

It is usually there within a minute of the call ending, and until then the call says the recording is still processing.

Yes. SmartAlex is SOC 2 Type II aligned, encrypts data in transit and at rest, isolates each customer's data, and undergoes regular security review.

Yes. SmartAlex is built privacy-first and supports GDPR, UK GDPR, POPIA, CCPA and CPRA, and PDPA. A Data Processing Addendum is available, and HIPAA-aligned handling is available for healthcare use.

Those are consumer assistants. SmartAlex is built for business: it handles real phone calls, answers from your business information, integrates with your CRM, supports outbound campaigns and payments, and meets business security and compliance needs.

SmartAlex owns its voice engine end to end rather than reselling a third-party API, so the experience, quality, and data stay under one roof. It is built to be set up in minutes and to answer from your specific business knowledge.

Through in-app chat, email at support@getsmartalex.com, and the documentation at docs.getsmartalex.com.

Review the agent's instructions and knowledge base, test a few real phrasings, and check the call transcripts to see where it went off. Small wording changes usually fix it.

Confirm the phone number is active and assigned to the agent, that your wallet has credit, and that the agent is published. If it persists, contact support.

A campaign pauses when nothing is left to pay for the next call. Either the included minutes are used and the wallet is empty, or a trial's minutes are used. Calls already in progress finish. Top up the wallet or start your plan, then resume the campaign. Campaigns also need the Outbound Campaigns add-on.

Open Settings from your profile at the bottom of the sidebar, go to Team and press Invite member. Choose Admin, Member or Viewer. The invitation is valid for seven days, and resending it gives another seven. A trial can invite two people.