Terms of service

Last updated 25 October 2026. Plain English on purpose. These terms are between you (the business signing up) and Philip Oates trading as Answerwise, Lytham St Annes, Lancashire.

1. What Answerwise is

An AI assistant that answers calls diverted to your Answerwise number, asks the caller what they need, and sends you a summary by text and email. It tells every caller at the start that the call is recorded, says it is an automated assistant if a caller asks, and never pretends to be a person.

2. What it is not

• Not an emergency service. A safety message plays before every call telling callers who smell gas or face a risk to life to ring the National Gas Emergency line or 999. You remain responsible for responding to emergencies your customers report.
• Not a person. The assistant can mishear. Summaries are an aid, not a record of any agreement with your customer. Check the summary before you act on it.
• Not a phone line. Diverting your calls to your Answerwise number is your job and your choice. We give you the setting for your network and a test call; you can switch the divert off at any time.

3. Price and minutes

• On your own: £39 a month, 200 minutes of answered calls included.
• Small team: £99 a month, 300 minutes included, summaries to up to three people.
• Busy firm: £249 a month, 800 minutes included, several numbers; diary booking on request.
• There is no set-up fee on these plans. If your calls go over your included minutes, we will tell you first. Extra minutes are charged at 25p each, or you can move up to the next plan. We will not charge for extra minutes without telling you beforehand.
• If your phone system needs work before we can connect it, we will quote that separately and in writing, and start nothing until you agree.
• New customers get 7 days free, up to 40 minutes of calls. We take card details when you sign up, and the first payment is taken on day 8 unless you cancel before then.
• Prices include VAT if and when we become VAT registered; we will tell you before that changes anything you pay.
• Monthly rolling, billed in advance by card through Stripe.

4. Cancelling and refunds

Cancel any time from the link in your invoice email or by emailing philip@answerwise.co.uk. The service runs to the end of the month you have paid for and then stops. Minutes already used are not refunded. If the service has been unavailable for more than 24 hours in a month through our fault, tell us and we will credit that month.

5. Your data and your callers' data

You are the data controller for your callers; we are your processor. We answer, record, transcribe and summarise calls on your instructions and for no other purpose. Recordings and transcripts are deleted after 30 days. Our sub-processors are ElevenLabs, Twilio, Stripe, Google, Zapier and Netlify, each under a data processing agreement. We tell you within 48 hours if we learn of a data breach affecting your callers. When you leave, we delete your data within 30 days, except what tax law makes us keep. Our privacy notice has the detail; this section is our data processing agreement with you.

6. What we ask of you

• Give us accurate details about your business so the assistant describes it correctly.
• Do not use the service for anything unlawful, or to answer calls on behalf of a business that is not yours.
• Tell us promptly if the assistant gets something wrong so we can fix it.

7. Our liability

We are a small business and we price accordingly. Our total liability to you for anything arising from the service in any 12-month period is limited to the fees you paid us in the three months before the claim. We are not liable for jobs you did not win, for callers who did not leave details, or for any loss caused by a divert that was not set. Nothing in these terms limits liability for death, personal injury or fraud.

8. Changes

We may change these terms or the price with 30 days' notice by email. If you do not like a change, cancel before it takes effect and you will not be charged under the new terms.

9. Law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and its courts have exclusive jurisdiction.

Questions: philip@answerwise.co.uk. A person replies the same working day.