Check stock and price by phone

What you send

Name the business, the number and exactly what you need to know. In a chat app that is one sentence:

• “Call Harbor Supply on 512 555 0142 and ask if SKU 7712 is in stock, the unit price for 400, and the delivery lead time. Information only, don't place an order.”

Over the API, the same request names each answer and its type:

{
  "to": "+15125550142",
  "business": "Harbor Supply Co.",
  "on_behalf_of": "Acme purchasing",
  "goal": "Check stock and delivery for 400 units of SKU 7712. Information only; do not place an order.",
  "collect": {
    "available_quantity": { "type": "number", "required": true },
    "unit_price": { "type": "number" },
    "lead_time": { "type": "string", "description": "Delivery lead time" }
  },
  "max_minutes": 5
}

What the caller does

A person dials during the supplier's opening hours, gets through the phone menu and the hold music, and reaches whoever can see the inventory. They say who they are and who they are calling for, tell the business the call is recorded, and ask your questions. They do not order anything unless you said they may.

What comes back

Each answer arrives in the type you asked for, with a short written summary, the recording and a transcript behind it. If the person on the phone was not sure, the answer is marked as missing with a note, so your agent never acts on a guess. This is example data.

What it costs

A stock check is usually a short call. At $1 per connected minute, rounded up, a call that connects for 3 minutes 20 seconds is $4. Hold time after the business answers counts; ringing does not. If nobody picks up you pay nothing. max_minutes caps the spend on every call. More on the pricing page.

Checking several suppliers

Send one request per supplier with the same collect fields and compare the answers side by side. An agent can do this in a loop over the API, or you can ask your assistant for each call in ChatGPT or Claude.

Questions

Can the caller place the order if the item is in stock?

Only if your instructions say so. An information request does not authorize a purchase, and callers never share payment details by phone.

What if the supplier wants to call back?

The caller notes it in the summary with whatever the business committed to, and the answers they could not get are marked as missing.

Which suppliers can you call?

Businesses in the United States and Canada, between 8am and 9pm in their time zone.

Related

• Collect quotes by phoneHave a real person phone several vendors with the same questions and return price, lead time and terms as comparable fields for you or your AI agent.
• Confirm opening hours with a phone callListings go stale. Have a real person phone a business to confirm today's opening hours, holiday hours or whether a service is offered before you travel.
• Add a phone call step to an n8n workflowUse HumanCalls from n8n: one HTTP Request node asks a real person to phone a business, and a second reads back typed answers your workflow can branch on.