KaiCalls 2026 call report · published 6 Nov 2026
30% of calls to small businesses come when the office is closed
Of 4,715 real calls Kai answered for 103 small businesses between 1 January and 5 November 2026, 1,416 came outside weekday 9 to 5 in the business’s own time zone. Leave out the largest account and it is 41%.
Key findings
- 30% of the 4,715 calls Kai answered came outside weekday 9 to 5 in the business’s own time zone (1,416 calls). Leaving out the largest account, it was 41%.
- 12% of calls came on a Saturday or Sunday. Sunday alone was 3.7%.
- 11 AM is the busiest hour of the day, with 11.1% of calls. Monday is the busiest day, with 19.5%.
- 62% of answered calls were a real back-and-forth, meaning the caller spoke at least twice.
- 26.5% of callers hung up during the greeting or never spoke. Most of them hung up within 8 seconds.
- The median call lasted 67 seconds. Leaving out the largest account, it was 121 seconds.
Every hour of the week
One square per hour, all year. The darker the square, the more calls. The dashed box is weekday office hours. Every orange square is a call that came in while the office was closed.
Calls by hour of the day
Calls climb from 8 AM, peak at 11 AM and stay high until about 4 PM. After 5 PM they fall off but never stop.
Calls by day of the week
Monday rings the most. Weekends are 12% of calls.
- Mon
- 19.5%
- Tue
- 17.0%
- Wed
- 17.9%
- Thu
- 16.2%
- Fri
- 17.5%
- Sat
- 8.3%
- Sun
- 3.7%
What happens once Kai picks up
How many times the caller spoke. 62% of calls were a real back-and-forth.
- Caller never spoke
- 26.5%
- One reply
- 11.2%
- 2 to 4 replies
- 15.9%
- 5 or more replies
- 46.3%
How long calls run
Median 67 seconds. Every call over 10 minutes came from 3 businesses, so the median is the fairer number.
- Under 15 s
- 19.7%
- 15 to 29 s
- 10.4%
- 30 to 59 s
- 16.8%
- 1 to 3 min
- 27.4%
- 3 to 10 min
- 18.0%
- 10 min or more
- 7.7%
Calls by month
The darker part of each bar is every business except the largest. November covers the 1st to the 5th.
How we counted
- Which calls
- Real inbound customer calls Kai answered for 103 small businesses on KaiCalls, from 1 January to 5 November 2026. Our own house and demo lines, test calls, owners calling their own line, setup calls and outbound calls are left out. A call counts as answered when it connected and lasted more than zero seconds.
- Office hours
- Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:59 PM, in each business’s own time zone. With a wider 8 AM to 6 PM window, 24% of calls still came when the office was closed (33% without the largest account).
- The largest account
- One business makes up 47% of all calls, and most of its calls come in office hours. That is why the key numbers are given with and without it. Without it there are 2,499 calls from 102 businesses.
- Small samples
- Many businesses in the set are new and have only a few calls. Night-time squares in the week chart often come from fewer than 5 businesses, so read them as a pattern, not a rate. The downloadable data marks those cells.
- Privacy
- Only totals are published. No business names, phone numbers or call content appear in this report or its data.
Use these numbers
Quote or chart anything here with a link to this page. Suggested citation:
KaiCalls (2026). KaiCalls 2026 call report: when small businesses get calls. https://www.kaicalls.com/statistics/after-hours-call-report-2026
Questions
- What percentage of business calls come after hours?
- In the KaiCalls 2026 call report, 30% of 4,715 real calls to 103 small businesses came outside Monday to Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM local time. Leaving out the largest account, the share was 41%. With a wider 8 AM to 6 PM window it was 24%.
- How many business calls come on weekends?
- 12% of calls came on a Saturday or Sunday (564 of 4,715). Saturday gets more than twice as many calls as Sunday.
- What is the busiest time for business phone calls?
- Late morning. 11 AM is the busiest hour, with 11.1% of calls, and Monday is the busiest day, with 19.5%. Calls stay high until about 4 PM, then drop off.
- How long is a typical call to a small business?
- The median call Kai answered lasted 67 seconds. Leaving out the largest account, the median was 121 seconds. About 27% of calls end before the caller speaks.
- Can I use these numbers?
- Yes. Quote or chart them with a link to this page. The full hour-by-hour data is free to download as JSON or CSV. Suggested citation: KaiCalls (2026). KaiCalls 2026 call report: when small businesses get calls. https://www.kaicalls.com/statistics/after-hours-call-report-2026
Who answers your phone after 5?
With KaiCalls your cell rings first. When you can’t pick up, at night or on a weekend, Kai answers, takes down what the caller needs and texts you the details.