Frequently asked questions

No. She is an AI receptionist, and she says so in the first breath of every call. She has a human first name, picked at build time and yours to change, but nothing else about her is human and she never claims otherwise — not even when a caller asks her outright. The compliance page holds the disclosure rules.

How the AI disclosure is enforced

Her answers come from your own pages, not from general knowledge. Your services, hours, service area and the questions your site already answers become her notes. If your site never states something, that is an unknown, and she takes a message instead of guessing.

What she reads, and how you edit it

No. There is nothing to install and no app to download — the dashboard runs in a browser, your phone's browser included. Your callers dial the same way they always have. What changes is where an unanswered call goes: to a receptionist, not to voicemail.

Two clocks, and only one of them is sixty seconds. Building her from your website address takes about that long, and you can talk to her the moment she is built. Going live is the second clock: pick a plan, add a card, and point your calls at her. How it works walks through both, stage by stage.

How Heyline works, stage by stage

You can still build her. Instead of reading a site, she asks you six short things: your business name, the kind of shop you run, your services, your hours, where you work, and whatever callers always want to know. The same six questions catch a site she cannot read. How it works covers both routes.

Building her without a website

Yes. The test call runs in a browser, and your phone's browser counts — open the page, tap the call button, and talk. There is no number to dial and no app to fetch. A laptop is easier for a long test, but nothing requires one.

No. Before you go live there is no number attached to her and no forwarding switched on, so your line rings exactly as it does today. The test call happens between your browser and her, and nobody calling your business can reach it.

Because it is a live conversation, not a recording — she hears you and answers while you talk, so your browser has to ask permission first. That prompt comes from the browser itself, not from Heyline. Block it by accident and no test call is spent; you can undo it and start again. The test-call page shows where the prompt appears.

Inside the browser test call

Three things: a plan, a card, and a way for calls to reach her. Heyline provisions a dedicated number for you, and you either publish it or forward the calls you miss to it. Going live starts a 14-day free trial with 60 minutes.

She doesn't run on your phone or your Wi-Fi. Forwarding happens at your carrier: a call you are busy on, or don't answer, is handed to her number before it depends on your device. A dropped connection doesn't decide whether your business gets answered.

No. The number on your van and your website stays exactly where it is, on the carrier you already pay. Heyline adds a dedicated number of its own, and you choose its job: publish it as your business line, or leave your number in front and send it only the calls you miss. The number page covers both.

Your number and forwarding

That is your choice, not hers. Forward only the calls you are busy on or do not pick up, and she takes what would have gone to voicemail while you keep answering everything you can. Publish her dedicated number instead and she answers every ring first. The missed-calls page sets the two setups side by side.

Stop losing jobs to missed calls

On the big US carriers a forwarded call spends your plan minutes, the same as a call you answer yourself, so the bill reads the same. Two Canadian carriers do bill a separate per-minute charge for forwarding, and a third asks you to switch voicemail off before any of it works. Which carrier you are on decides it. The forwarding guide names them and holds the codes.

Call forwarding guide

No. Without a connected calendar she still answers, still answers questions from your notes, and still takes messages — she just can't book. Connecting one is what turns a caller asking for Friday morning into an appointment. If the connection drops mid-call, she takes a message.

Google Calendar, and nothing else. There is no Outlook, no iCloud, no Calendly and no second calendar hiding behind a setting — if your schedule does not live in Google, she can still answer, still answer questions and still take messages, but she cannot book. The booking page covers how she checks whether you are free.

Real-time calendar booking

No. She never takes card details, so there is no deposit to collect and no slot held against one. A caller who begins dictating digits is cut off before the first four land. She books on your word, and money changes hands the way it does today, after the call. The booking page has the rest.

Appointment booking by phone

Yes, if the appointment is theirs. She matches the caller against the number on the display, reads back what that person has booked, and can move or cancel only those — the rest of your week stays out of her reach. She names the one she is about to change and waits for a clear yes. A blocked number gets a message. The rescheduling page has the detail.

Rescheduling by phone

No. She can't put a caller through to you or ring your cell — there is no transfer anywhere in Heyline. When a call needs a human she takes the name, the number and the message, emails you the recap, and opens a to-do.

No. Heyline sends no texts at all — not to you, not to your callers, not a confirmation, not a reminder. Everything you get from her arrives by email: the recap, the transcript, the summary, the outcome. Everything your caller gets, they get on the call.

No. She answers; she never dials. No callbacks, no reminder calls, no follow-ups, nothing sent on your behalf after the caller hangs up. When someone needs calling back, that job lands on your to-do list with the number and the whole message written down.

A single call ends politely at ten minutes, longer than a booking or a message needs. If a caller goes quiet she asks once whether they are still there, then ends the call after thirty seconds of silence. At the start, she answers within two rings.

She says she does not want to guess, then asks for a name and number so you can call back. One fixed line, every time — about a price, a policy, or anything your notes never mention. The call is filed as a message and a to-do opens with the whole thing written down. The message page prints the script.

Message taking and to-dos

No. Building her and talking to her in your browser costs nothing: no card, no account, no number. The card comes in at exactly one point, when you go live, and that starts a 14-day free trial on the plan you pick. The pricing page draws that line and says what the trial includes.

Pricing and plans

She keeps answering. An email reaches you at 80% of your included minutes, and if you run out anyway, $10 adds 20 more automatically so nothing goes unanswered halfway through a month. You can set a monthly cap on those top-ups. The pricing page has the alert, the cap, and what a paused line does.

How minutes work

In your own dashboard, under billing. The same few buttons move you between Starter, Growth and Scale, switch monthly to yearly, and cancel — you can cancel anytime, and canceling inside the 14-day trial means you are never charged. The pricing page lays out what each tier holds, so you can compare before you switch.

Plans, billing and cancellation

Yes, on Growth or Scale. One account carries up to three businesses on Growth and up to five on Scale, each with its own receptionist, its own notes and its own number. Minutes are pooled across them and one card covers everything. Starter carries a single business. The multiple-receptionists page has the rest.

One account, several businesses

Yes, in the first sentence of every call, and it is not left to chance. Her greeting names her as an AI and flags the recording, and every greeting is checked against both before it can be saved — reword yours all you like, but one that drops either clause is replaced. The compliance page shows how.

AI disclosure and recording controls

No. Heyline claims no certification and publishes no audit report, and nobody should read one into the product. If your calls carry health records or anything a regulator has an opinion about, weigh that carefully before you point a phone line at her. What is published instead is the recording control, plan by plan. The compliance page states it.

What Heyline claims, and doesn't

It depends on your plan, and on a switch you own. Starter saves no audio at all. Growth records and keeps it for 30 days; Scale lets you choose how long, up to 365. You can turn recording off for a business, and transcripts and summaries are still written either way. The call-log page has the table.

Transcripts, recordings and recaps

The United States and Canada, and nowhere else. Numbers, carriers and the timezone list are all US and Canadian, and the forwarding codes are the ones your own carrier uses. If your callers are in the UK, Australia or the EU, Heyline is the wrong fit.

No. Heyline is English-only. She doesn't switch languages mid-call, there is no Spanish line, and there is no bilingual option for Canadian shops that need French. If a real share of your callers speak something else, she will not serve them well.

Restaurants with a table-booking rush, shops that run a dispatch board across several vans, and anyone whose callers expect a person picked up mid-call — she cannot hand a call over, so that one is a flat no. Teams spread across several sites are not served either. The industries hub keeps the honest list.

Who Heyline is built for