The 24/7 contractor back-office: Line complete guide

By J.E. Herizon LLC · Published September 27, 2026

A one-to-five-truck shop pays for a front office whether or not it has one — a dispatcher's wages when it's staffed, and missed emergency calls when it isn't. Line by JE Horizon is the 24/7 AI back-office for US trade contractors: it answers the calls you can't pick up, texts the ones you miss, drafts your quotes from your own price book, and runs the desk — customers, jobs, schedule, invoices, team — from $0. It does not promise new leads or booked work. It makes sure you never miss the calls you already get.

Answering — the 24/7 front desk

The calls that pay the bills don't leave voicemails. When a pipe bursts at 8 PM or an AC dies on a Saturday, a homeowner dials until someone picks up — and if your shop gets voicemail, the next number on the Google results gets the job. Trade shops commonly see $1,500–$3,500 on those after-hours tickets, which is why the front desk is the highest-leverage seat in the building.

Line's AI voice receptionist answers incoming calls on the first ring — the marketing site quotes an answer time under three seconds — with a natural, human trade voice (the default persona is named Marcus). It qualifies what's wrong, checks your Google Calendar for a real open slot, and routes the job to your phone or your desk while you're still on the tools.

The AI runs on guardrails you control: it never confirms a technician without a real calendar slot, never promises pricing unless you've configured it, always escalates emergencies to you, and respects your quiet hours. If a call is missed, Line's missed-call SMS text-back immediately texts the caller to triage the issue, capture the address, and start a two-way SMS thread. The homeowner gets a response in seconds instead of "we'll call you Monday," and a ticket — address, issue, phone number — lands on your desk.

Everything texts and calls live in one place:

• Conversations inbox: every customer SMS thread in one searchable list, attached to the job instead of scattered across your personal texts.
• Inbound photo MMS (Pro): homeowners send a photo of the leak or the dead unit, and it lands on the ticket — so you can qualify the job before you drive.
• AI webchat add-on (+$15/mo): a one-line embed for your website; a text bubble appears and the same AI answers visitors with your trade knowledge — a second 24/7 intake channel on the site where your customers already land.
• Dedicated local number add-on (+$5/mo): a local number matching your service zip code with two-way SMS, so calls and texts arrive on a real local line.
• Lead alerts: when a lead hits the desk from your own website, Angi, Thumbtack, or inbound, Line texts and emails you the notification. Line does not sell leads — you bring them, and it tells you the moment one arrives.

Texting stays legal without you thinking about it: SMS keywords (STOP, STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, QUIT) trigger immediate suppression with confirmation, outbound messages are checked against a live suppression registry, and 10DLC/TCR carrier registration runs through Telnyx. The honest version, straight from the site FAQ: "It does not promise new leads or booked work." What Line does is answer and convert the calls and work you already generate.

Quoting — estimates in minutes, not evenings

Quoting is where evenings disappear. Line starts with a price book: parts, labor, and markup the way you actually price a job. It auto-fills national 2026 starter rates by trade when you set up, and everything is editable — load it once, and every quote and every AI answer uses your real numbers, not a generic estimate.

From that price book, the AI matches parts and labor to the job and auto-drafts a formal line-item PDF estimate — the document that used to take an evening gets drafted while the tech is still in the driveway. The draft ships to the homeowner as an SMS approval link: they open a public accept page, approve from their phone, and the quote's Stripe or Square payment link is attached for a one-tap payment. No email chains, no "did you get my estimate?"

Drafts are metered honestly — 50 AI quote drafts on Starter, 150 on Pro — so there are no surprise AI bills. On Pro, Line also does competitor quote matching with trade RAG knowledge: ingest your own documents, website, and FAQs, and the AI can match competitor quote patterns when pricing a job. Quotes come out sounding like your best dispatcher, not a generic chatbot.

Scheduling — the calendar that checks the calendar

Line's dispatch holds a technician's arrival window only after it checks a real calendar. Two-way Google Calendar sync (add-to-calendar links, ICS feed subscribe, and busy-window parsing, set up in Settings) means the AI never confirms someone for a slot the calendar doesn't have — no double-booking, and no phone tag between the office and the truck.

The schedule board shows what's booked, with a new-appointment flow, and homeowners get an honest window instead of "sometime Tuesday." When a job needs a specific crew, teammate dispatch assignment offers carry accept/decline plus opt-in job texts (with a verified phone and consent) — the owner sees assignments land and who took them.

Money — invoices and payments, zero custody

Digital invoicing with PDF output is part of the Free Core Desk, powered by Stripe digital invoicing — the job is done, the invoice goes out the same day, and billing reminders and invoice notifications keep the job from going silent after the paperwork.

Payments are zero-custody: the homeowner pays you directly through your own HTTPS payment link on Stripe, Square, or QuickBooks. Line never holds your money — $0.00 platform custody on invoice collections, no holding period, no payment float sitting in someone else's account.

Deposits work through the documents you already sign: quotes carry payment terms such as "50% deposit upon acceptance, balance due on completion," and the approval link lets the homeowner pay the deposit right away through your payment link. It's your link and your money — Line carries the terms and the acceptance page.

Desk — the free core CRM

The Free Core Desk at $0 forever is a real product, not a teaser: customer CRM, jobs, a Kanban dispatch board, estimates, price book, and Stripe digital invoicing, all in one place.

• Dashboard: the day on one screen — metrics, your job assignments, quick actions.
• Customers: contact details and job history kept together, so you're not hunting through three apps for a phone number.
• Jobs: tickets connected to their estimates and invoices — work moves through without anything re-typed.
• Leads inbox & pipeline: inbound leads land in one inbox with pipeline tracking, so nothing falls through the cracks.
• Kanban dispatch board: jobs drag across stages — the hub where scheduling, jobs, and team meet.
• Inventory: stock levels, per-truck stock, reorder logic, and imports — parts on the right truck mean fewer wasted trips.
• Teammates: role-based access, invites with an accept flow, and phone verification for dispatch texts; Pro includes five team seats.
• Notifications bell & AI rules: lead, quote, and invoice events in one feed, plus the AI-rules module where the owner decides what the AI may promise about pricing, technicians, and emergencies.

Platform — web app and Windows app

The full app runs in any browser at cmd.jehorizon.com, and browser sign-in is the official mobile fallback — the same data on the shop PC, your phone, or a jobsite tablet. Sign in with Google, with an SMS two-factor step, so your customer data sits behind real authentication.

Line for Windows is in production — a packaged native Windows app that hosts the same dashboard on the big screen for shops that live on Windows. The packaged desktop app is the ContractorDesk app in the Microsoft Store; the marketing site's Windows section has the details.

The first-run experience is self-serve onboarding: no sales calls, no two-hour demo, about three minutes to set up. Billing is built to be painless — a no-card Free tier, a 30-day trial on paid tiers, reminder emails seven and three days before billing starts, and one-click cancel from the dashboard with no retention loop. Paid 10DLC plans run a six-checkbox electronic-consent flow, and the consent agreement PDF is emailed and archived in duplicate. Data is scoped and US-hosted: Postgres on a US cluster with every query filtered to your business, and the signup page states plainly that Line never trains models on your customer data.

What Line costs — flat, honest pricing

Line's pricing is flat — one price covers the answering, the quoting, the scheduling, the invoicing, and the desk, with no per-call surprises and no contracts:

• Free Core Desk — $0 forever. No credit card required. Customer CRM, jobs, Kanban dispatch board, estimates, price book, and Stripe digital invoicing.
• Starter — $49/mo. Missed-call SMS text-back, job inbox, 500 automated SMS conversations, 100 AI voice-receptionist minutes, 50 quote drafts, Google Calendar sync, and 3 seats.
• Pro — $79/mo. The full 24/7 inbound AI voice receptionist, 250 voice minutes, 1,000 conversations, 150 quote drafts, inbound photo MMS, competitor quote matching, trade RAG knowledge ingestion, and 5 team seats.
• Trial: both paid tiers come with a 30-day free trial — terms apply, see checkout.
• One-time $29.99 TCR/10DLC setup on customer-texting plans: direct carrier identity vetting and Campaign Registry registration so your customer-facing texts deliver as your verified business. Required on customer-texting plans, not charged on the Free tier, non-refundable, and it typically clears in a few business days.
• Add-ons: AI webchat bubble at +$15/mo and a dedicated local number at +$5/mo.
• Promo codes SOCIAL5 and SOCIAL-5OFF-K4P7N1: 5% off your recurring bill for the first three months.

Put that against the front office a shop actually pays for. A 9-to-5 dispatcher runs up to roughly $4,000 a month — and still misses the lunch rush. Human answering services run $245–$2,100 a month in September 2026 pricing research (Smith.ai from $300 for 30 calls to $2,100 for 300; Ruby Receptionist from $245–$250 for 50 minutes to $1,695–$1,725 for 500), follow business hours, and have no CRM behind them. Line's whole desk is $0–$49, flat, with the answering, quoting, scheduling, and invoicing included — and the FAQ is honest about the ceiling: it manages the calls and work you already get, and never promises new leads or booked work.

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