Lindy Phone Agent: Receptionist Setup, Call Limits and Costs

Lindy (often searched as Lindy AI) can run a real phone line for a small business. It answers its own number as a receptionist, takes messages, books meetings through your booking link, and places calls for you, by default after you approve whom it calls and why. The line launched in October 2026, comes with a US or Canadian area code, and needs a paid plan.^[1] Calls draw on the same credit pool as everything else, from 25 credits a minute, and the number carries its own monthly fee billed with the plan. It suits a business that misses calls, not a sales floor. Lindy is not for cold calling.

Three ways a call can start

The line works in two directions, plus a third that is easy to miss. When an outside caller dials Lindy's number, Lindy answers from the information you have given it. It can take a message with the caller's name, reason and contact details, or book time through a booking link you choose. Anything it cannot answer becomes a message for you. Callers never reach your inbox, files, memory or private conversations, so a public receptionist line does not expose what your private assistant knows about you.

Outbound works the other way round. You tell Lindy whom to call and for what purpose; by default you approve both, and then it dials. It can work through phone menus, wait on hold, leave a voicemail and then report back in chat, again without revealing your private context to the person on the line. That covers the chores that eat an afternoon. Lindy's own site lists one of them: following up an overdue invoice or proposal by phone once email has stalled.

The third path is you calling Lindy. Lindy recognizes you by your verified personal number, not by your voice, and a four-digit PIN can be required on top of that. When Lindy needs to reach you, it rings the same verified number. Home also shows a Lindy phone number assigned to each user. The separate monthly fee belongs to the phone-line number Lindy adds for calls.

Setting up the receptionist, step by step

Lindy's docs give the general order: an admin adds Lindy to Slack, each teammate links with one tap, Google or Microsoft email and calendar get connected, and a phone number comes last. Number availability may vary by account. The calendar step matters most for a receptionist, because booking links need a connected Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar with permission to create events. Each link has its own hours and meeting length, and availability is rechecked before a time is confirmed, so a caller cannot grab a slot that filled a minute earlier.

A workable setup takes five decisions:

1. Add the number from a paid plan and pick the US or Canadian area code your callers expect.
2. Connect the calendar and choose the booking link callers will be offered.
3. Write down what Lindy may answer from: services, your price list, service area and hours.
4. List what it must check with you before acting.
5. Choose what happens after each call.

Steps three and four carry the risk. Lindy's receptionist role page describes a typical setup in which Lindy checks with you first before quoting a price that is not on your list, accepting a job outside your service area, handling a complaint or an urgent problem, or putting through a caller who asks for someone by name. Everything else it answers from what you gave it. A thin brief produces more messages and fewer bookings. A clear one works the other way.

After the call, the same role page shows Lindy creating a calendar event, adding the lead to HubSpot, texting an intake form, sending you a summary and texting the caller a confirmation. Daily routines can then chase quote follow-ups and keep a call log. The page pairs the role with Phone, Google Calendar, Calendly, HubSpot, Stripe and Gmail. Our Lindy scheduling assistant guide covers booking-link settings such as minimum notice and breaks.

Lindy's case studies include one phone customer. The Sauna Place, a retail health and wellness business of about 10 people, says Lindy answers its phone around the clock, routes calls, flags upsells and books calls into the right rep's calendar. The customer reports that up to 55% of inbound calls became sales leads and that it saves 15 to 20 hours a week. Those are its own figures. Your mix of callers will differ.

When Lindy dials out for you

By default, an outbound call you ask for waits for your approval of the destination and the purpose. That is the phone version of Lindy's broader default, where actions with outside impact wait for an OK. Two hard limits sit on top: Lindy is not for cold calling, and outbound calls have a daily limit.^[2] It is not a dialer. A team that wants to work a prospect list by phone is outside what the line is built for, however the credits add up.

Routines extend this. A personal routine can have Lindy call someone on a schedule or after an event, but only between 8 AM and 9 PM in that person's time zone, and only within the line's limits. Reminders, confirmations and polite chasers fit that window well. Anything that depends on reaching people late in the evening does not. Whatever the trigger, the result of each call comes back to you in chat, where you decide the next step, and the person on the other end never hears what your private assistant knows.

What a minute of talk costs in credits

Calls are billed by the minute in credits, from the same pool your emails, meetings and research use, starting at 25 credits a minute.^[3] The word starting matters: the rate can be higher than 25. By our arithmetic, 1,000 credits cover at most 40 minutes of calls; 3,000 cover at most 120 and 5,000 at most 200, before anything else draws on the pool. Treat those as ceilings, not budgets.

For scale, Lindy's pricing page starts at $29.99 per user a month for 3,000 credits; on some visits the same page opens at $49.99 per user a month for 5,000 credits. Extra credits come as top-ups at $10 per 1,000, and they do not expire. Pro starts at $99.99 per user a month with 15,000 credits.

The number itself is a separate line on the bill. Lindy's docs describe it as a monthly fee billed with the plan, apart from the per-minute credits. Pausing the line does not stop that fee. Plan for both costs before you publish the number on your website. Two product-wide rules also apply to calls like any other work. Monthly credits do not roll over, and when the shared pool runs out Lindy pauses credit-using work until the reset or a top-up; our Lindy pricing guide explains seats, spend caps and top-ups in full.

Recording, consent and the rules on the line

Calls are recorded. Regional, usage and calling-hours limits apply to every line. Lindy's Terms ask phone users to follow the rules on telling people they are recorded, plus the Twilio Voice Services Policy and Lindy's usage guidelines. Decide how callers will learn about the recording before the number goes live, and write it into what Lindy says at the start of each call.

The privacy split helps here. Because callers cannot reach your inbox, files, memory or private chats, a receptionist line can be public without opening your assistant to strangers. That separation is about access, not about content: anything a caller says is still captured in the recording and in the message Lindy passes on to you.

Clinics and other health businesses face one extra gate. HIPAA-covered work needs Lindy's Enterprise plan with a signed BAA, so a front desk handling patient details should start there; our Lindy for healthcare guide walks through that setup and its limits.

Who should switch the phone line on

Turn it on if calls arrive while you are busy and each missed one costs a booking: a salon, a repair business, a clinic front desk on the right plan, a small team where nobody owns the phone. Give Lindy a real price list, a clear check-first list and a booking link, then watch the credit draw for a few weeks against the at-most-40-minutes-per-1,000-credits ceiling. Skip it if your phone work is outbound prospecting. Lindy will not cold call, outbound calls are capped daily, and by default each call waits for your approval, which is right for errands and wrong for volume.