How to Manage Spam Callers

Created by Emily Miller, Modified on Thu, Jul 2 at 1:05 PM by Brandi Weyant-Ceron

Smith.ai automatically blocks 20 million+ known spam callers before they ever reach your AI Receptionist. That said, sometimes unwanted callers slip through before our system can identify them as spam. Read on to learn how you can reduce the impact of spam callers on your AI Receptionist account.

Will I be billed for spam calls answered by my AI Receptionist?

You are not billed for spam calls that are filtered out by our system before your AI Receptionists answers. Every call answered by your AI Receptionist counts toward your call quota and is billable by default.

To account for spam callers that are not automatically blocked by our system, we allow AI Receptionist customers to remove select calls from their bill by marking them as spam. You can remove up to 10% of your call quota from your bill, including both spam calls and test calls.

For example: If you have an AI Receptionist Basic plan, your call quota is 150 calls per billing cycle. Given the 10% allowance, that means you can remove up to 15 spam and/or test calls from your bill in a given billing cycle.

How to mark a call as spam & block the caller

When you mark a call as spam, we automatically block that caller so future calls from that number won't reach your AI Receptionist.

Open the call details page for the call you want to mark as spam. There are two easy ways to do this:
1. Find the call in your Call Log (within your dashboard Call History)
2. Click the Call recording & transcript link from within the call summary email
Find the More options button and click it to open the options menu
Click Mark as spam and block and confirm

The caller's number is blocked immediately, then:

If you are within your 10% allowance, this call is removed from your bill
If you’ve exceeded the allowance, this initial call remains billable, but future calls from this number are blocked — and thus, not billed

How the 10% allowance works

Up to 10% of your call quota each billing cycle can be removed from your bill to reduce the impact of spam calls and test calls.

Example 1 — Spam calls exceed allowance:

You have a 50-call plan and receive 10 unwanted sales calls, each from a unique number. You mark each call as spam.

All 10 callers are blocked automatically, so any future calls from those numbers will not be billed (starting from when you block the caller.)
Your allowance is 5 (10% of 50 = 5), so the first 5 calls are removed from your bill.
The other 5 calls, and any future calls answered by your AI Receptionist, are billed and non-refundable.

Example 2 — Spam and test calls combined:

You have a 500-call plan and receive 40 spam calls, each from a unique number. You mark each call as spam. You also conduct 10 test calls to validate your call handling setup.

All 30 callers are blocked automatically, so any future calls from those numbers will not be billed (starting from when you block the caller.)
Your allowance is 50 (10% of 500 = 50), so you can remove up to 50 calls from your bill each billing cycle, including spam and test calls combined.
All 50 calls (40 spam and 10 test) are removed from your bill.
Any additional test calls and/or spam calls during that billing cycle will be billed.

FAQs

Can I remove a spam call from my bill without blocking the caller?

We automatically block every caller that you mark as spam to limit the impact of spam calls on your AI Receptionist account. Callers that you want to filter but not block completely do not qualify as spam, and thus cannot be removed from your bill.

Is there a limit to the number of calls I can mark as spam?

You can block as many callers as you'd like. However, only up to 10% of your plan's monthly call quota can be marked as spam and automatically removed from your bill.

Once you reach that limit, you can still block callers using the Block caller button, but additional calls won't be credited. Future calls from the same number will not count toward your quota.

I accidentally marked a call as spam. Can I undo it?

Marking a call as spam (or as a test) cannot be undone.

What happens when I reach the 10% limit?

You’ll see a quota reached message and the override toggles will be disabled until your next billing cycle.

Questions? Contact us!

If you're already a Smith.ai client and need help, please email us at support@smith.ai or call us at (650) 727-6484 for assistance.
If you're not yet a Smith.ai client, click here to get started with our AI Receptionist services or email us at sales@smith.ai. We'll help you select the best plan to match your business’s growth goals and budget.