As of: 28 October 2026

planD customers are better off with Paula because it reschedules directly in dispatch; cleaning companies without planD get a standalone AI phone assistant with Empfango at a flat rate from €99 per month, with no software change (as of 14 Oct 2026).

planD Paula is the AI assistant of the Berlin software planD and works inside planD; Empfango is a standalone AI phone assistant for any software. planD users get deeper dispatch integration with Paula; companies without planD do not need her.

Both answer calls around the clock and capture sick calls. The difference lies behind that: Paula asks replacement staff and approves the rescheduling in planD. Empfango captures the sick call, reports it to the operations manager via WhatsApp, Telegram, email or webhook, and leaves the rescheduling to your team or your software. In return, Empfango is available from €99 per month at a flat rate, with no software change, see Pricing.

Paula is an AI assistant for building service providers that works within the planD software on the phone, in the inbox and in the planD app, and creates its results as tasks in planD (as of 14 Oct 2026).

planD is developed by comm'on digital GmbH, Berlin (HRB 271121 B), and bundles scheduling, time tracking, payroll and invoicing for building cleaning, caretaking services, and landscaping. The homepage names more than 800 building service providers as customers. For the software, Handwerksblatt reported around ten euros per employee per month plus a one-off setup fee in July 2022; according to co-founder Tobias Wittekindt, the price is negotiated individually (Handwerksblatt, 21 Jul 2022). pland.app itself publishes no software prices.

Paula's product page describes three channels. On the phone, Paula answers around the clock, asks follow-up questions and forwards the completed request to the responsible person. In the inbox, she reads emails, prioritises, creates tasks and drafts replies in the company's writing style. In the app, she can be controlled by voice and has access to the planD data. For a sick call in the app, Paula asks replacement staff and approves the rescheduling; from quote requests she prepares quotes that the company only needs to confirm. Price: from €99 per month, as an individual offer depending on scope and company size. Use without planD is not offered on the page.

In dispatching, Paula goes deeper than Empfango: for a sick call she asks replacement staff and approves the rescheduling in planD. Empfango captures the sick call and reports it, but does not reschedule.

That is the core of the difference, and it should not be played down here. Anyone who already runs scheduling, time tracking and payroll in planD has, with Paula, a system in which the call at 5:48 am turns directly into a covered shift without anyone in the office intervening. Add to that the email handling with draft replies and the quote preparation from planD data. planD quotes customer testimonials on the Paula page, including a cleaning company's statement that Paula saves them around ten working hours per week on average.

Empfango does not offer this dispatch logic. Empfango does not reschedule shifts, does not ask replacement staff and does not write into third-party systems except via webhook or email. Anyone looking for exactly this automation and using planD is in the right place with Paula.

Empfango is a standalone AI phone assistant for building service providers that works without industry software and alongside any existing software, at a flat rate from €99 per month with 1,000 minutes.

Specifically, Empfango handles the following on the phone: answering the call, capturing the request in a structured way (name, callback number, site, request), taking sick calls, documenting faults and complaints, answering questions from a knowledge base, checking and booking appointments, and transferring urgent calls to an on-call number with a ring timeout. Every call is stored as a transcript with a summary in the dashboard; the notification goes via WhatsApp, Telegram, email or webhook to the person responsible. Scheduling stays where it is: in Blink, CleanManager, fortytools, Crew Active, in Excel or in the site manager's WhatsApp group.

Two further things set Empfango apart. First, industry breadth: besides cleaning, there are dedicated pages and workflows for security services and caretaking services, for example 24/7 fault intake and on-call and escalation. planD addresses cleaning, caretaking and landscaping, not guard services. Second, the optional connection to LiteLog, the patrol and checkpoint system from the same company: reports land directly in the LiteLog portal, and Empfango gives clients information about patrols from LiteLog data. This is an option, not a requirement; Empfango also runs without LiteLog.

Paula's product page contains no information on processing location, language model or sub-processors (as of 14 Oct 2026); Empfango states these details in its privacy policy and includes the DPA with every plan.

With Empfango, the service runs on infrastructure in Frankfurt am Main, the language model via Azure OpenAI in the EU region. Call audio is not stored permanently by default; if recording is enabled, it is deleted no later than 30 days after the call. Transcripts and summaries remain until the account is deleted or on request. Every call starts with a fixed announcement that an AI is speaking. The list of sub-processors, including Deepgram with an EU endpoint, ElevenLabs and Twilio, is published openly in the privacy policy; the DPA is part of the contract.

This matters for sick calls because health data under Art. 9 GDPR is involved. With every provider, check where speech is processed, how long audio is kept and whether a DPA is in place. For planD, it is best to ask these questions directly; we did not find them on the public pages.

Paula costs from €99 per month as an individual offer on top of the planD software; Empfango costs from €99 per month as a flat rate with 1,000 minutes, no setup fee and monthly cancellation (as of 14 Oct 2026).

Anyone already paying for planD adds Paula to a system they use anyway. Anyone without planD would first have to introduce the industry software for Paula, with setup, training and ongoing costs per employee. Empfango requires no software; the minutes are included, and when the allowance is used up nothing is topped up automatically. All plans are listed under Pricing. How these costs compare with a human answering service is shown in the answering service vs. AI phone assistant comparison.

planD customers are better off with Paula because it reschedules within their own dispatch data; companies with Blink, CleanManager, fortytools, Excel or no software are right with Empfango because it requires no software change.

Table 2 maps typical starting situations. Two additions: anyone who also runs a security or guard service alongside the cleaning business will find dedicated workflows for on-call duty and escalation with Empfango. And anyone who mainly wants to automate their email inbox is better served by Paula; Empfango is a phone assistant with WhatsApp and Telegram channels, not an email handler.

Technically, Empfango can hand over every report to a third-party system via webhook or email; whether planD accepts such inputs depends on planD's interfaces and is not described on the public pages.

In practice, the combination makes sense above all when a company uses Empfango for calls that Paula does not cover, for example a guard service branch with on-call transfer. For pure planD cleaning companies, Paula is the obvious tool. An honest recommendation: call both demo numbers and check how the assistant handles a sick call at 5:40 am. How Empfango does it is described under Capturing sick calls by phone.

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