Questions, answered plainly.

When you sign up, Skite provisions a dedicated phone number for your account. During onboarding you set up your greeting, business hours, services and calendar against that number - nothing goes live yet. Once you have reviewed the setup, you turn on call forwarding from your existing business number to the Skite number. From that point on, calls to your business number are answered by Skite.

Because it is staged like this, no caller ever reaches a half-configured receptionist.

No. Your number stays yours and stays published everywhere it already is - your Google listing, website, business cards. You are forwarding calls from it, not replacing or porting it. Turn forwarding off and it works exactly as it did before.

During onboarding you enter your existing business number and Skite provisions a number from the same area code. If nothing is free in that exact area code, you are shown up to five available numbers from elsewhere in your state and pick one. Your customers keep dialling the number they already know - the Skite number sits behind it.

Yes. The assistant identifies itself as an AI assistant early in the call, and always answers honestly if a caller asks directly. Several states require this disclosure; we would do it anyway. Most callers find it reassuring, and most are surprised by how natural the conversation sounds.

Yes, once you have set a transfer number under Settings → Phone - a mobile, a back office, whoever actually picks up. It is deliberately separate from your main business line: that line is forwarded to Skite, so transferring to it would send the caller straight back to the AI.

If you have not set a transfer number, the AI does not offer a transfer at all. It takes the caller’s request instead and notifies you right away - in your dashboard feed and by email, or by text if you have switched on text alerts - with the caller’s number and what they wanted. Worth setting up on day one.

The same two paths. With a transfer number configured, it hands the caller over to a person. Without one, it records a callback request and notifies you, rather than leaving the caller stuck or dropping the call.

It answers 24/7 with the same conversational ability. The business rules follow the hours you set in your dashboard - so after close it can still say “we’re closed right now, but I can get you on tomorrow’s schedule” and book the slot.

Calls are recorded by default, and the greeting announces it - that announcement is what makes recording lawful in the states that require every party’s consent. The recording, transcript and summary appear in your dashboard, and only your account can see them.

Recordings are kept for up to 12 months and then deleted, both at our phone provider and in Skite. You can turn recording off in Settings if you would rather not keep audio.

Sometimes, like any system - most often with unusual names, addresses spelled aloud, or a noisy line. We would rather say that plainly than promise perfection. Spot-check your transcripts in the first week or two; every booking is linked to the call it came from, so a wrong detail takes seconds to find and fix.

Your own number is never touched, so the worst case is the one you have today: switch forwarding off at your carrier and calls ring your line directly. Behind the scenes, Skite also runs backup AI and voice providers and fails over between them mid-call if one has trouble.

Not yet. Today the dashboard is a single login per account. Team access with separate logins is on the roadmap, but we will not tell you it is available before it is.

Understanding covers most major languages, including Spanish. Voice output is a separate system, and not every language sounds equally natural - so if you have a specific non-English need, tell us before you go live and we will confirm the voice quality with you rather than assume.

About 15 minutes, entirely self-serve, and you can be live the same day. It runs in two phases.

Before payment, three steps: a quick profile (business name, type, address, time zone); connecting your line (you enter your existing number and Skite provisions a matching local one, usually in under a second); and choosing a plan. After payment, four more: your business hours, the services callers can book, calendar connection, and a final review.

Yes - a free test drive, with no card and no plan selection. As soon as your line is connected during onboarding, you get a number you can call to hear the receptionist handle your business. It runs on a placeholder schedule, not your real calendar, so nothing you try gets mixed up with actual appointments.

The test-drive number is held for 7 days (we email you the day before it is released) and includes 15 minutes of total call time across all your test calls. If you go on to pick a plan, the same number carries into your real account - nothing to re-publish.

Once you pick a plan and add a payment method through Stripe, the trial runs for 7 days on that plan’s full monthly minute allowance - a Business trial gets all 500 minutes, not a reduced amount. If you do not cancel before day 7, your card is charged and the subscription starts normally.

If the charge fails, your number is not released straight away: it stays reserved for 7 more days so you can fix the payment.

When you decide to. Skite answers nothing until you turn on call forwarding at your carrier and confirm it. Skite then places a test call to your business number and watches for it to arrive back on the Skite number; if it does, you are live within seconds. If it does not, forwarding is not on yet - nothing breaks, and you can retry.

We will nudge you by email at 2, 5 and 10 days if forwarding never gets switched on.

Your dashboard shows the exact number to forward to. Most carriers let you forward all calls with a short code dialled from the business phone, or a setting in your account portal - and you can switch it off the same way at any time. If you are unsure how your carrier does it, email support@skite.ai and we will walk you through it.

Your existing business number, your opening hours, a short list of what callers can book (with rough durations), and the login for the calendar you want connected. Hours and services can be changed any time from Settings.

No. They dial the same number they always have. The only difference is that someone answers - every time.

All plans include the AI receptionist, appointment booking, call summaries and transcripts, and calendar integration. They differ on minutes, overage rate, reminder channels and support.

Starter is $129/month for 200 minutes (about 80 calls) at $0.25/min overage, with text reminders only. Business is $199/month for 500 minutes (about 200 calls) at $0.20/min, adding AI voice-call reminders on top of texts. Scale is $349/month for 1,200 minutes (about 480 calls) at $0.15/min, with priority support and a dedicated onboarding specialist. Annual billing takes 20% off.

Extra minutes are billed automatically at your plan’s overage rate at the end of the billing cycle. There is no hard cap: no call is cut off, queued or blocked for going over - overage is a billing event, not a service interruption.

You get an email at 80% of your allowance and again at 100%, so the invoice is never a surprise.

A billing failure, not usage. If a subscription goes past due, unpaid or cancelled, incoming calls are forwarded straight through to your own line instead of being answered by the AI. You do not lose calls - you just stop getting the receptionist until billing is sorted out.

Yes, any time - no waiting for a renewal date. Start where it makes sense today; you are not locked in.

No. Monthly plans are month-to-month. Annual plans commit you to the annual term you chose, in exchange for the discount - nothing beyond that.

Annual billing is charged upfront for 12 months at 20% off the monthly price - Starter $103/month, Business $159/month, Scale $279/month - which works out to more than two months free.

No. There are no setup fees on any plan.

Refunds are not guaranteed; we look at them case by case. The 7-day free trial is the real safety net - you can cancel at no charge before it ends. If you think a refund is warranted, email support@skite.ai and we will work it out with you in good faith.

Stripe. Skite never sees or stores your full card number.

Account data is deleted or anonymized within 90 days of cancellation. Call recordings and transcripts are kept for up to 12 months from the call unless you delete them sooner - or longer where a medical or dental account’s Business Associate Agreement requires it.

Your original number was never given up - it was only forwarded. Turn forwarding off and it works exactly as before. The Skite-provisioned number can be released, or ported out on request within 30 days of cancellation, subject to the carrier’s porting rules.

Talk-time on Skite’s phone system. The clock starts when the AI picks up and stops when the AI’s part of the call ends. A caller rings in, the AI books them in three minutes, they hang up - that is three minutes.

That is also why a 500-minute plan is described as “about 200 calls”: it assumes a typical call runs two to three minutes.

Up to the next whole minute, per call. A ten-second wrong number costs one minute; a call of 3 minutes 10 seconds costs four. There is no per-second billing.

If you get a lot of spam or hang-ups, factor that in when choosing a tier - it rarely changes the answer, but we would rather you knew before your first invoice.

Only the AI’s portion. Billing stops the moment the AI hands the caller to a person; the conversation they then have with your staff is not metered at all. This makes Skite cheap as pure overflow - a front desk that takes most calls itself pays only for the seconds the AI spent before handing over.

One thing to know: the call duration shown in your dashboard covers the whole call, including the human leg, so it can read longer than the minutes billed. That is expected, not an error.

Text reminders never do - they are messages, not calls. AI voice-call reminders (Business and Scale) draw from the same monthly pool as inbound calls, rounded the same way.

In practice it is a small line item: reminders are capped at three per booking - 3 days, 24 hours and 2 hours before - with shorter-notice bookings getting fewer, and a reminder call is far shorter than a booking conversation. Size your plan on inbound call volume first and treat reminders as a modest addition.

No. Call summaries, booking alerts and usage warnings sent to you are notifications, not voice minutes, on every plan.

Take the plan’s minutes and divide by your typical call length. A quick, transactional call - “can you come out Tuesday?” - runs two to three minutes. A chatty, relationship-driven business like a salon tends to run longer because callers ask more follow-up questions, so it uses more of the allowance per call. The plan quiz on the pricing page walks you through it.

U.S. carriers require every business that sends text messages to complete a one-time registration under that business’s own identity - it is called A2P 10DLC, and it applies to appointment confirmations and reminders just as much as to marketing. Skite files it for you; you supply a few details about your business. It typically clears in 1–5 business days, and texting turns on automatically the moment it does.

Until it clears, no text can be sent from your number - carriers block unregistered messages outright, so this is not something we can work around. Your AI receptionist answers calls and books appointments from day one regardless.

Your legal business name exactly as it appears on your IRS paperwork; your business type (LLC, corporation, partnership, non-profit or sole proprietorship); your EIN, if you have one; your business address; your website, or a business listing if you do not have one; and a contact person’s name, title, email and phone.

Most of it is prefilled from what you entered during onboarding - you will type five fields at most. We use it only to register your business with the carriers, store it encrypted, and never use it for anything else.

To cut spam and fraud. U.S. mobile carriers only deliver business texts from senders they can identify, and each business has to be registered as itself - a shared registration under Skite’s name would not be compliant. The trade-off is worth it: registered messages are delivered reliably instead of being filtered, and your customers see texts coming from the same local number they call.

You are still alerted about everything - every booking, change and callback request lands in your dashboard feed and reaches you by email. On Business and Scale, appointment reminders go out by AI voice call during the wait. On Starter, where reminders are text-only, they start the moment texting activates.

The receptionist knows the difference too: it only offers a caller a text reminder once your number can actually send one.

Yes. A business without a tax ID registers as a Sole Proprietor. That path needs your name, a real mobile number (the carriers text a one-time code to it), an email and a U.S. address. It is limited to one number and a lower daily message volume - which is plenty for confirmations and reminders.

No. The carriers charge a registration fee and a small monthly campaign fee; Skite absorbs both. There is nothing to pay and no extra line on your invoice.

Yes, and they are asked first. When a caller books, the receptionist asks out loud whether they would like reminders and by which channel - text, call or both, depending on your plan - and records the answer. Nothing goes out to someone who said no, and the answer is remembered for their next visit so they are never asked twice.

Anyone can reply STOP to a text at any time, or tell the receptionist not to contact them, and that is recorded as an opt-out across every channel.

Up to three per booking: 3 days, 24 hours and 2 hours before the appointment. A booking made for the day after tomorrow gets the 24-hour and 2-hour ones; a same-day booking gets only the 2-hour one. Reminder calls are only placed during daytime hours in your time zone - outside those hours a text goes instead.

Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook and Apple (iCloud) Calendar. The AI checks and books directly against the calendar you already use, so there is no separate schedule to keep in sync.

No. Every account gets a Skite-hosted calendar during onboarding, so bookings work from day one. Connecting Google, Outlook or Apple is optional and can be done later from Settings → Integrations; when you do, your services move onto that calendar.

It reads your availability so it never offers a slot you already have taken, and it creates, moves and cancels the events for appointments booked through the receptionist. It does not read your email or the contents of unrelated events.

Calendar access goes through Nylas, our calendar integration provider, which holds the connection on your behalf. You can disconnect at any time from Settings → Integrations, and access is revoked immediately.

Yes. The receptionist can look up an existing appointment, move it to a new slot or cancel it, live on the call - no “we’ll call you back to confirm”. You are notified of every change.

From the services and business hours you set up. Each service has a name and one or more durations; the AI offers slots that fit the duration inside your hours and your calendar’s free time. Change services or hours in Settings whenever you like - the next call uses the new setup.

It checks live availability before offering a slot and books directly onto your calendar, so anything you have blocked out yourself - a personal appointment, a holiday - is respected too, as long as it is on the connected calendar.

Under Bookings in your dashboard, alongside every call. Each booking made by phone is linked to the call it came from, so you can read the transcript or listen to the recording if a detail looks off.

The caller’s name, phone number, email if they give one, the service, the time and any notes they mention - plus the address, for services you deliver at the customer’s location. It is all stored encrypted and only your account can see it.

For medical and dental practices, Skite supports a HIPAA-compliant configuration through Business Associate Agreements with our key infrastructure providers, and we sign a BAA with you. A precise answer matters here: there is no such thing as a “HIPAA certification” - no government body certifies software - so any vendor claiming one is either confused or selling. Compliance is a property of the whole setup: the right configuration, a signed BAA, and your own handling of patient data.

If you are a healthcare practice, tell us before you go live so the BAA is in place first. Our team will confirm the specifics of your configuration as part of setup rather than promising them on a web page.

No. Skite is not a medical records system and holds no charts, diagnoses or treatment histories. What it handles is what a caller says on the phone while booking: a name, a callback number and a reason for the visit. That is still protected health information and gets full protection - encryption, access controls, a BAA - but it is a much smaller surface than the phrase “medical records” suggests.

No. The AI is not designed to triage true emergencies, and it may not reliably recognise one. Keep your own protocol - “if this is an emergency, hang up and call 911” - in place independently of Skite. If you are a medical or dental practice, this and the BAA belong in the same conversation.

Yes. The assistant introduces itself as an AI assistant and answers honestly if asked. Several states require this; we would do it anyway.

Roughly a dozen states require every party’s consent to record a call. Skite’s greeting announces that the call is recorded, which is what makes it lawful in those states, and that announcement cannot be edited away. You remain responsible for your own state’s rules; if you would rather not record at all, switch recording off in Settings.

Your original number was never given up - it was only forwarded. On cancellation you turn forwarding off and it works exactly as before. The Skite-provisioned number is obtained through our telephony provider and is not sold to you, but you can ask to port it out within 30 days.

No. Skite does not sell personal data, and caller data is never used for advertising or to build profiles. It is used to run the receptionist for your business, full stop.

Everything travels over TLS. Sensitive fields at rest - caller phone numbers, names, transcripts, summaries, recording links, your carrier-registration details - are encrypted with AES-256-GCM. Each business’s phone traffic runs in its own isolated telephony sub-account, so one customer’s calls can never be mixed up with another’s. Access to production systems is restricted and logged.

Skite uses leading AI providers for conversation and for voice synthesis, and can fail over between them during a call. Those providers process call audio and transcripts only to return a result to Skite - not to train their own models. The full list, and what each one sees, is in the Privacy Policy.

Yes. Because we process caller data on your behalf, we route the request through you (the business controls that data) or notify you of it, and honour deletion unless the law requires us to keep a record. Businesses can request access to or deletion of their own data at support@skite.ai.

Three things. Accurate details when we register your business for texting. Consent from your customers before outbound reminders - the receptionist asks for it out loud and records it, and you honour any opt-out. And awareness of your own state’s call-recording rules; Skite’s greeting announces recording for you.