Read your voicemail.
Every Kelir voicemail is transcribed automatically and delivered to your email — text and audio together — within seconds of the caller hanging up. Triage from the lock screen, decide whether to call back tonight or tomorrow, search the archive months later. The transcript itself is the product. The audio is the receipt.
Voicemail transcripts on Kelir.
Voicemail transcription on Kelir converts the audio of every voicemail into accurate, timestamped text and delivers it to your email at message time. Text and audio arrive together — the transcript inline in the email body, the audio as a player attachment. The mobile app also surfaces the transcript above the audio in the voicemail view, and the admin portal lets a team search past voicemails by their transcript content.
The feature exists for one reason: most voicemails don't actually need to be listened to. A client says "Hey, just confirming our 2pm tomorrow, talk then" — read it in 3 seconds, decide nothing needs to happen, move on. Without transcripts, that same message takes 45 seconds of pulling out the phone, opening the voicemail UI, listening, deciding nothing needs to happen. Multiplied across the volume of voicemails a working business gets, the time savings is significant.
The same feature exists on RingCentral, Dialpad, 8x8, and most other UCaaS competitors. Functional surface is comparable — text by email, search, audio attached. Kelir's version differs in delivery (transcripts come from messages left on a real cellular line, not a softphone-recorded session), in plan availability (included on Kelir Solo single-seat at $24.99, where most competitors gate transcripts behind a mid-tier plan), and in privacy posture (transcripts encrypted at rest in AWS US-East-1, configurable retention on Pro).
The transcription itself runs through the Kelir transcription module after the call completes — typically within 5–15 seconds for a 30-second voicemail. Accuracy is high for clear US-English audio; specialized vocabulary (medical terms, legal jargon, industry-specific names) accuracy varies and the audio is always attached for verification.
Setup walkthrough.
Configured from Mobile app. The setup below assumes a working Kelir account and an active eSIM.
- 1
Open the Kelir mobile app and tap Settings → Voicemail.
- 2
Toggle Transcribe voicemails on (it's on by default for new accounts).
- 3
Pick where transcripts get delivered: by email (default — the email on file), to the Kelir mobile app's voicemail tab only, or both.
- 4
Optionally enable transcript-only notifications — a push notification with the transcript text, no audio download required.
- 5
Set the voicemail retention window. Default is 90 days; on Team Pro this is configurable from 30 days to 7 years. Transcripts retain alongside audio for the same window.
- 6
Customize the voicemail greeting if you haven't already — go to Settings → Voicemail greeting. The greeting is what the caller hears before leaving the message.
- 7
On Team plans, configure shared department voicemail boxes from the admin portal — these also receive transcripts, visible to everyone with access to the box.
Where voicemail transcripts earns its keep.
Solo professional, evening triage
Voicemails come in throughout the day. Lock-screen email previews show the transcript text — "Hi this is Jen calling about the Tuesday meeting" reads in 2 seconds. Decide tonight which need callbacks tomorrow, no listening required.
Front desk at a clinic
Patient leaves a voicemail after hours. Front desk reads the transcript first thing in the morning, triages — appointment scheduling messages get scheduled, prescription refill messages get routed to the provider, urgent ones get called back immediately.
Searching the archive months later
"Did that vendor leave a voicemail about the delivery date?" Search the voicemail archive for "delivery" — transcripts are searchable, audio plays from the result. Faster than scrolling and listening to weeks of messages.
Forwarding by email
Voicemail comes in for a teammate who's out. Forward the email — recipient sees the transcript and can listen to the audio. Replaces "let me play this voicemail for you" handoffs.
Compliance — keeping records of customer instructions
Customer leaves voicemail authorizing an account change. Transcript provides text record alongside audio for audit. On Team Pro, retention policy keeps the record for the configured period (e.g. 7 years for regulated workflows).
The same feature.A real cellular line.
Voicemail transcription is table-stakes UCaaS in 2026 — RingCentral, Dialpad, 8x8, Vonage Business, Nextiva all ship some version. Differences sit in plan tier, delivery model, and how the voicemail itself is captured.
- Transcripts are included on Kelir Solo single-seat ($24.99/mo). Most softphone competitors gate transcription behind their business mid-tier plan ($20–30/seat).
- Voicemails are recorded from a real cellular call — same audio quality as a personal cell-line voicemail. No softphone-VoIP-codec compression artifacts that hurt transcription accuracy.
- Transcript and audio arrive in your email inbox by default — no need to open a softphone app to access them.
- Lock-screen email preview surfaces the transcript text on iOS / Android the same way a regular email previews — triage from the lock screen without opening anything.
- Storage encrypted at rest with AES-256 in AWS US-East-1; configurable retention 30 days to 7 years on Team Pro.
- Searchable archive in the admin portal — useful when looking up a specific message months later, on Team plans.
Common questions
Yes. Voicemail transcription is included on Solo, Team Starter, and Team Pro at no additional cost. Most competitors gate transcripts behind a mid-tier plan; Kelir treats it as table-stakes.
High accuracy for clear US-English audio at conversational pace. Specialized vocabulary — medical terminology, legal jargon, brand names, technical product names — varies; the audio is always attached so you can verify when needed. Accents, very fast speech, and bad cellular signal at the caller's end can all reduce accuracy.
Typically 5–15 seconds after the caller hangs up for a 30-second voicemail. Longer messages take proportionally longer. Email delivery itself is generally instant once the transcript is generated.
Both are stored encrypted (AES-256, AWS KMS-managed keys) in AWS us-east-1 — US data residency. Default retention is 90 days for voicemails and matching transcripts. On Team Pro, retention is configurable from 30 days to 7 years.
Yes. On Team plans, shared department voicemail boxes receive transcripts the same way personal voicemails do. The whole team with access to the box can read transcripts; multiple team members can mark messages as resolved or assign them.
Yes. Transcription is configurable per user from the mobile app. Disable, and voicemails arrive as audio-only. For HIPAA-aware practices today, the architecture supports HIPAA controls; a customer-facing BAA is on the Team Pro roadmap (see /security).