A receptionist for the studio where the machine's running and the phone's ringing

A realistic call, the way Giday runs it:

Giday: Giday, you've reached Inkwell Studio — Verity speaking, on a recorded line. How can I help you?

Caller: Hey, I want to book in with Marco for a half sleeve, first session.

Giday: Marco books a free consult first, about thirty minutes, then sessions at four hours. His next consult is Wednesday at 11 or Friday at 3 — which suits?

Caller: Friday at three. It's a Japanese koi piece.

Giday: Friday at 3 with Marco, and I've noted it's a Japanese koi piece so he can look before you come in. Your name and best mobile for the confirmation?

What happened: A consult in Marco's column, the idea in the message for Marco, a text to the client, a text to the studio. Session lengths stay what Marco set, and nobody else's four hours got offered.

Put each artist on the settings page with their own hours and calendar feed, and each booking type with its length: consult 30 min, session 4 hr, touch-up 1 hr. A client who asks for Marco is offered Marco's times only. A client who says "whoever's good at script" gets a message to the studio rather than a guess.

The receptionist never discusses pricing beyond what you've published, never quotes a piece from a description, and never takes a deposit. It books the time and passes the idea on. The artist does the rest.

• Overflow. You keep answering; Giday picks up what rings out while you're with a client.
• Before open and after close. Divert at close, divert back at open. The 7:50am rebook is in the calendar before you've unlocked.
• All the time. The one-person business with no front desk.

Bookings land in your calendar through a subscription feed any calendar app reads, and by text. On the Busy plan and up they can go into ServiceM8 too. There's no link into other salon, grooming or job software yet; if you run one, bookings reach you by calendar and by text, not inside it.

Every plan answers 24/7, books into your calendar and takes messages. The difference is minutes and machinery: Starter $49 for a solo tattoo artist with a handful of calls a day, Steady $99 to read your live calendar and keep transcripts, Busy $199 to quote from your price list and link ServiceM8, Flat Out $399 for custom call flows and the on-call roster. All AUD with GST, month to month, no setup fee. The full table is on the pricing page.

Sixty minutes of call time on us, for a week. Card up front, nothing charged, and the clock doesn't start until your receptionist answers its first call. Setup takes minutes: your business name, what you do, your hours, your services with how long each takes, and your receptionist is live on its own Australian number. Divert is one dial code.