What's up everyone
So I've been lurking here forever seeing all these "how do I monetize AI" posts and I finally have something that's actually working. Not some get-rich-quick thing but like… actual recurring revenue.
Basically I built a voice bot that answers phones for dental offices using ElevenLabs and n8n. Sounds boring but hear me out.
The whole idea came from my dentist's office constantly missing calls when they're busy. I was like… why isn't this automated yet? So I just built it.
What it does
Answers calls 24/7, books appointments, answers the basic stuff like office hours and insurance questions, and passes the complicated calls to real people. That's it. Nothing fancy.
Stack is super simple – ElevenLabs API for the voice (seriously their voices are insanely good now), n8n to connect everything together, and it hooks into their calendar system.
What actually worked
Started with literally one clinic. Didn't even charge them much at first, just wanted to see if it actually worked in the real world. Spent like a full day just sitting at their front desk watching what they do.
The voice thing is weirdly important. My first version sounded like a corporate robot and people hated it. Made it sound more friendly and casual and suddenly everyone was fine with it.
You HAVE to let people bail to a human. I added a "press 0 anytime" thing and it made all the difference. Some people just aren't gonna talk to a bot and that's cool.
Honestly the biggest lesson was don't try to make it do everything. It handles the boring repetitive calls and that's enough. The staff handles the rest.
Where I'm at now
Started in August with that one clinic, now I've got 4. Charging like $500-800 to set it up then $200-400 a month depending on call volume. Making around $1400/month right now which isn't crazy but it's growing.
Best moment was when one of the office managers told me her team can actually eat lunch now without stressing about phones. Made the whole thing feel worth it honestly.
Not gonna lie my first launch was a disaster lmao. It double booked a bunch of appointments because I messed up the calendar integration. But you figure it out.
If you wanna try this
Just find one local business with a phone problem. Dentists, hair salons, lawyers, whatever. Build something simple that solves ONE annoying thing they deal with every day.
Don't overthink it. My whole setup runs on like $50/month in costs and took me maybe 2 weeks to build the first version.
Anyway hope this helps someone. Happy to answer stuff if you have questions
Finally making real money with AI – Built a call answering bot for dentists and they're actually paying me for it
byu/sicksarkee inEntrepreneur
Posted by sicksarkee
7 Comments
This a ad for N8N?
Thanks for this. Considering the same. How did you pitch it / convince them to give it a try?
Link to site?
How do you integrate with their practice management system to handle scheduling?
This is pretty cool. You thought about upping your prices? Only $500-$800 for setup sounds pretty low considering how much effort you’re saving them.
Neat! Thanks for posting. Can I have some questions?
Do You use paid hosting for n8n? Or host it locally?
What tier of ElevenLab are You using? You use one globally or purchase them per client?
Same with n8n, is the flows per client or one global? If per client, do You need separate hosting for each?
Is activepieces viable alternative to n8n for this?
I use self hosted n8n on a cloud server and i use same for every client, for elevenlabs i use the pro version and every client shares it just different agents. So no you dont need different hosting for each client and yes you can use activepieces for this. Hopefully this helped you.