San Francisco receptionist and admin wages sit well above the national average, and a full-time hire just to answer the phone rarely pencils out for a small practice or firm. FirstReply answers every call, day or night, on a local 415 or 628 number, hands the caller to you the moment they ask for a person, and books the appointment while they're still on the line.
San Francisco receptionists average close to $24 an hour and administrative assistants closer to $30, both meaningfully above the national numbers for the same job. Add payroll tax, benefits, and the fact that one person cannot cover nights, weekends, or a lunch break, and a lot of small practices and firms in the city simply let calls go to voicemail.
Same assistant everywhere, but what it asks and where it sends the call get set up around your practice, not pulled off a shelf.
The Civic Center Courthouse on McAllister Street and the firms clustered downtown run on intake calls that land after six. The assistant records what happened, when, and how to reach the caller, flags the urgent ones, and books the consultation. It never gives legal advice, quotes a fee, or says whether someone has a case.
Rent alone makes a dedicated front-desk hire a hard sell for a lot of San Francisco practices. Callers asking what you treat, what it costs, and whether you take their insurance get answered from your own uploaded documents instead of a hold queue.
Consultancies, agencies and service businesses packed into SoMa and the Mission run lean, and the person who would normally grab the phone is usually the same person billing hours to a client. The assistant takes the message and the calendar slot instead.
Instead of routing the caller through blind, it rings your cell, states who is on the line and what they need, and waits for you to pick up before connecting anyone. You get forty-five seconds. If that lands on your own voicemail, the assistant reclaims the call rather than letting a client disappear into a mailbox nobody checks.
Under Penal Code 632, California requires every party's consent before a call can be recorded, so we simply leave it off. What lands in your inbox instead is a written transcript and a short summary, built for a quick read between meetings.
We run this out of Sacramento, not San Francisco, and we'd rather say that upfront than pretend otherwise. There is no front desk to lease here, and this product doesn't need one: what a caller hears is a local 415 or 628 number and a warm transfer to your cell, not a building. The setup, the price, and the support are identical to a client three blocks from the Civic Center.
A part-time San Francisco receptionist alone runs past this before benefits. Here's the flat number instead.
Less than a single afternoon of a San Francisco admin's time. $500 setup, 500 minutes a month.
Legal intake plan, with the 2-signed-cases-in-60-days guarantee attached.
Forward your number and test it on 100 minutes before deciding.
The full breakdown, and what San Francisco firms usually ask before signing, is on the main FirstReply page.
No. We are based in Sacramento at 3550 Watt Ave, and we would rather say that upfront than pretend otherwise. This product does not need a San Francisco address to work: your callers reach a local 415 or 628 number, get a warm transfer to your cell, and the price is the same as it would be from any other city we serve.
Yes. We can provision a 415 or 628 number, the two area codes that have shared San Francisco and Marin County since the 2015 overlay, so ten-digit dialing already matches what your callers expect. Or forward your existing number to us and keep what is already on your signage.
Not without agreement from everyone on the line, under Penal Code 632. We do not record. Calls are transcribed and summarized in writing instead, which is what you actually use afterward, without the liability of holding audio nobody agreed to.
Because the alternative costs more here than almost anywhere else. A San Francisco receptionist averages roughly $24 an hour and an administrative assistant closer to $30, both above the national figures for the same role, before payroll tax, benefits, or the nights and weekends one person cannot cover. A flat $549 a month replaces all of that for up to 500 minutes.
Flat $549 a month plus a one-time $500 setup, with the first 500 minutes included and nothing added per call. Firms that want the legal intake script pay $749. The first 14 days run free, and the setup fee comes back within 30 days if it is not a fit.
Call the number in the header and hear it work first. Then tell us how your phone gets answered today, and we'll set it up on our number so you can forward yours to it.
Elsewhere in California: Sacramento 路 Roseville 路 San Jose 路 Los Angeles 路 San Diego