How can we help?

There is no contract. Maria Answers is month-to-month — your plan renews every 30 days on your signup-day anchor, and you can cancel anytime.

Canceling turns auto-renewal off: your service keeps running to the end of the billing cycle you already paid for, then simply doesn’t renew. Cancel on the 15th with a cycle ending the 21st and Maria keeps answering through the 21st. It’s not a refund — there’s no prorated money back for the remainder of the cycle. Your account is never deleted: your setup, number settings, and history are kept, so you can reactivate any time and pick up right where you left off.

Each plan includes a monthly minute allowance that resets every cycle — unused minutes do NOT roll over month to month. Minutes used beyond your plan’s allowance are overages, billed at your plan’s per-minute rate (49¢ on Maria Books, 39¢ on Maria Closes). Overages are charged in arrears on your NEXT renewal — so that invoice is your plan price plus last month’s overage minutes, itemized on the Stripe invoice.

Cards and payment methods are managed by the customer, self-serve, in the secure Stripe billing portal — the "Manage billing" button on the dashboard (or ask support to send the link). We never take card numbers by phone or email.

Every invoice is in the Stripe billing portal — click "Manage billing" on your dashboard. Overage charges appear there as their own line item, so nothing on your card statement is a surprise.

Maria Books — $199/month, 1,000 minutes included, then 49¢/minute over. Answers 24/7 in your business name, answers caller questions from your Google listing, website and your own uploaded documents, books appointments into your calendar, proactively upsells callers, texts customers their confirmations, warm & live transfers to you, ten languages, takes messages & screens spam, call summaries and full transcripts, instant text & email alerts, connects to 1,000+ apps. Maria Closes — $499/month, 2,000 minutes included, then 39¢/minute over. Everything in Maria Books, plus: Maria follows up by text with callers who did not book (twice at most, on the caller’s own clock, and she stops the moment they reply), two-way texting so they can answer and book, a separate number for each of your marketing campaigns so you can see which ads actually bring calls ($10/mo per line), and unlimited CRM connections.

Annual billing is available: 2 months free — pay for 10 months, get 12 (e.g. the $199/mo plan is $1990/yr). The monthly minute allowance is per calendar month either way.

Free trial: 7 days, unlimited minutes. It ends on time only. When the 7 days are up, service continues on the plan they picked and Maria keeps right on answering.

Move between Starter, Maria Books, and Business anytime — tap "talk to support" on your dashboard and tell Maria which plan you want; she switches you on the spot, and the new rate starts on your next invoice (today’s bill doesn’t change). On annual billing, the team handles the switch — just ask. No contracts either way.

Maria keeps answering — going over usually just means your phones are busy, which is the good problem. We email you a heads-up around 80% of your allowance and again if you pass it, with the exact math, so the invoice is never a surprise. Extra minutes bill at your plan’s per-minute rate on the next renewal, itemized — and if busy is the new normal, a bigger plan is usually cheaper; Maria can switch you on the spot.

There’s no pause button yet — the closest thing today is canceling (auto-renew off, service to the end of the cycle) and reactivating when you’re back. Your whole setup and history are saved, and we hold your Maria phone number for about a month after your account goes inactive, so a short break usually means you come back to the exact same number. Away longer than that? Tell support before you go and we’ll work out the best option.

Refunds are handled by the team case by case — contact support and we’ll take care of you. Canceling itself never charges you again after the current cycle.

Yes, any time. Canceling never deletes your account: your setup and history are saved, so reactivating picks up right where you left off. Sign in to your dashboard or contact support to reactivate.

Maria on your own website is FREE if you pay for your plan annually — Maria Books or Maria Closes, either one. On monthly billing it's $79/month. Everything your plan does on the phone, she does on your site — same Maria, same abilities. Calls on your site use your plan minutes and show up in your dashboard like phone calls.

Yes — extra local numbers are $10/month each (great for tracking ads or serving multiple areas). They bill on your existing plan’s schedule.

Referral program ("you both get half off"): share the personal referral link on your dashboard. The business you refer gets 50% off their first month. Once they’ve been a paying customer for 30 days, you get a credit worth 50% of THEIR plan, capped at 50% of your own — applied to your bill automatically. So referring a bigger plan earns more, up to half of what you pay. Credits stack and build on each other, and any unused credit rolls to your following bill. Credits are calculated on base plans only (not overage minutes or add-ons) and require an active subscription when granted. Your personal link is on your dashboard — the "Refer a business" card, which also tracks each referral’s status.

Signing up through a customer’s referral link gets you 50% off your first month, automatically — it shows as a discount on your first bill. Nothing to enter at checkout as long as you signed up through their link.

On overflow forwarding, your carrier’s voicemail can grab an unanswered call (around 25–30 seconds) before it forwards to Maria. The fix: shorten your no-answer timer to about 15 seconds, or turn your carrier voicemail off so Maria is the only thing that answers. On iPhone, also turn OFF Live Voicemail (Settings → Phone) — it silently intercepts calls. If it still fails after that, contact support and we’ll check the forwarding on our end.

You keep your number and forward it to the Maria number we gave you (it’s on your dashboard). Two ways: send EVERY call to Maria (your phone never rings), or overflow — you ring first and Maria catches busy/no-answer. The exact dial codes depend on your carrier: AT&T/T-Mobile use *21*<your Maria number># for all calls (##002# turns it off); Verizon uses *72 <number> for all calls, *71 for overflow (*73 off); VoIP/Google Voice is a forwarding setting in your app. Your dashboard’s setup walkthrough shows your carrier’s exact steps with your number filled in.

Never — you keep your number with your carrier. You just forward it to your Maria number, and you can turn forwarding off yourself at any time.

Yes — call your Maria number directly any time to hear exactly what your callers get. Do that once after setup so you know forwarding works.

Check the live status page: mariaanswers.com/answers/status. If it’s green and your line isn’t answering, it’s almost always call forwarding on your carrier — the help center has your carrier’s exact fix. If the status page shows a disruption, it’s on us and we’re already on it.

Use the sign-in page at mariaanswers.com — enter your account email and we’ll send your private dashboard link right over.

On your dashboard — every answered call shows its summary and full transcript in the Calls section, seconds after the call ends. We do not record audio: the transcript is the record, and it’s more accurate to search than a recording.

On your dashboard — the "Voice & name" card. Pick from the voice list, hit "Hear it" to preview, and rename her to whatever you like (she’ll introduce herself that way). One setting covers everywhere she answers — your phone line and your website widget.

It’s one line of code, pasted once — no coding, about 2 minutes — and a "Talk to Maria" microphone button appears in the corner of your site. On your dashboard, open the "Maria on your website" card and tap Copy, then paste it into your site: WordPress — the free WPCode plugin → Code Snippets → Header & Footer → Footer box; Wix — Settings → Custom Code → Body-end, all pages; Squarespace — Settings → Advanced → Code Injection → Footer (needs a Business plan); Shopify — Themes → Edit code → theme.liquid, before the body-close; GoDaddy — Add Section → HTML; Weebly/Square — Settings → SEO → Footer Code. Then Save/Publish and open your site — the button’s in the bottom-right. Don’t want to touch it? Tap "Talk me through it" and Maria walks you through it live, one step at a time, or email the ready-made steps to whoever built your site. It’s included FREE if you pay yearly — Maria Books or Maria Closes, either one (normally $79/mo).

Three tools, all on your dashboard: (1) Most wrong answers come from stale facts — check your Hours, Quoting, Service Area, and Upsells cards, because Maria only says what’s set there. (2) The "Coach Maria" card: write her an instruction in plain English ("always ask if the property has a gate code", "we don’t take commercial jobs") and she follows it on her very next call — or just tap "talk to support" and TELL Maria the change; she applies it for you on the spot. (3) On the call itself, click "Something wrong with this call?" to flag it — the team reviews exactly that call and tunes her.

Yes. She already learns from your Google listing and website (add your site on the dashboard and she pulls services, hours, and pricing), and the "Coach Maria" card takes your own call-handling instructions in plain English. Beyond that, the "Your documents" card on your dashboard takes your own files — price list, warranty, policies, handbook — and she answers callers from them. Drag them in; there is nothing to set up, and it is included on every plan.

On Maria Closes, yes — that is what the plan is for. When someone rings you and does not book, Maria calls them back herself, on their clock. If she cannot reach them she texts, twice at most, and stops the second they reply. On Maria Books she is inbound only: she answers, captures everything (name, number, what they want) and texts appointment confirmations, and you make the call-backs. Maria never cold-calls strangers on either plan.

Maria answers 24/7 in your company’s name, answers callers’ questions from your Google listing and website, screens spam, and takes messages. She books appointments straight into your calendar, texts confirmations, and can warm-transfer live calls to you — on both plans. After every call you get a summary, transcript, recording, and an instant text/email alert.

Yes — and nine more. Maria speaks 10 languages on every plan. She hears the caller’s language and switches to it mid-call, with no setup and no phone menus.

Maria is an AI virtual receptionist — and she’s upfront about it if a caller asks. That’s how she answers instantly, 24/7, and never puts anyone on hold.

From your Google listing, your website, and the details you set on your dashboard (hours, services, booking rules). You can also upload your own docs and policies on the "Your documents" card — included on every plan — and she answers from those too.

Yes — robocalls and solicitors get screened out on every plan and flagged as spam in your call log. Spam calls NEVER count toward your minutes or your bill — you only ever pay for real conversations.

Yes — Maria Closes runs several locations under one account, each with its own line and settings, and a roll-up view of all of them. Tell support how many you have and we set it up with you.

Minutes. Start the free 7-day trial, get your Maria number, forward your line, and she’s answering. The dashboard walks you through carrier-exact forwarding steps.