Find how much you have
Sign in to CallRail, choose Analytics in the left navigation, then Reports at the top of the page.
Under the Acquisition header, open Calls by Number and make sure Total is selected in the drop-down at the top.
Set the date range as far back as it goes and select all companies. Anything older than 25 months is already deleted, so the report cannot reach further back than that.
Click Edit Columns. The default list shows total calls per tracking number, and under the Duration header you can add Minutes, plus Average duration if you want it.
Add the Minutes column across every row and divide by 60 to get hours. Note the total call count too, since a buyer will want both.
Open Analytics, then Activity, then Call log for a call-by-call view. Use it to spot-check that calls have recordings, and to find the oldest call still in the account.
What to put on your intake
Your intake has five boxes for each system. Here is what goes in each one for CallRail.
- What does it hold?
- Tracked inbound calls with source and campaign attribution, call recordings, text messages and form submissions for your marketing numbers. Something like: recorded inbound sales and booking calls with lead status.
- Data types
- Audio for recordings. Add Structured records for the call log, and Text for text messages, form submissions and transcripts (exporting transcripts from the call log or pulling them through the API needs a Premium Conversation Intelligence plan).
- How big is it?
- Choose Hours as the unit and enter total call minutes divided by 60. Put the call count and how many numbers are recording in the description. Recorded audio can be shorter than the call, so your minutes are an upper bound.
- Verified or estimated
- Verified when the figure comes from the Calls by Number report across all companies for your full date range. Estimated when you scaled up from one month or a single company.
- Records start
- The earliest month that still returns data. It can never be earlier than 25 months ago, and it moves forward every month. If your account is older than that, say so in the notes.
Exporting the full history
If a buyer licenses your records, this is how the full history comes out of CallRail.
A buyer export happens only after a license is signed and the scope is agreed: which months, which companies, and which of calls, recordings, texts and forms are in. Separately, CallRail says you can export your own account data at any time, and with a 25-month cutoff it is worth running a private export for yourself now, before more months age out.
An account administrator selects the Account icon in the top left, then Account Settings, then Details, and finds the Export Data section. The account has to be open, and only administrators can start the export.
Choose the month and year, tick any of Calls, Forms, SMS, Leads and Call Recordings, and click Start Export. Each finished export covers the month you selected, so plan on one run per month of history.
Wait for the export. CallRail says this can take several hours to a few days depending on account size. Download it from the download icon next to that month, or from the email CallRail sends with a .zip file.
For a custom column view, go to Analytics, Activity, Call log, set the date range and companies, use Edit Columns, then Export and choose Excel, Excel with all columns, or Excel with transcriptions. The transcription option needs Premium Conversation Intelligence.
Developers can also pull data through the CallRail API, where each call's recording link redirects to an MP3 file. Under the license, caller names, numbers and other identifiers are removed before anything reaches a buyer.
We only ask for an export after you sign a license and agree the scope. Sizing your data for the intake never needs one.
Limits to know
Retention warning
CallRail automatically deletes call recordings and other communication records after 25 months, so older calls may already be gone. Export what you have now.
- CallRail deletes Communication Records (calls, recordings, texts, chat logs, form submissions and web visitor sessions) automatically after 25 months, and the vendor says it cannot extend that period. The oldest calls drop off as time passes.
- Voicemail messages count as call recordings and are deleted after 25 months too. Date-based requests beyond the window return an error, including the all-time range in the API.
- Deleted data can sit in CallRail backups for up to 90 days, but CallRail says it cannot restore individual records or any single account's data from them.
- The account export is by month and takes hours to days per request, so a long history means many runs. Start early.
- Transcripts come from CallRail's AI features, which only work on numbers with recording turned on. Exporting the call log with transcriptions, pulling transcripts through the API, and call summaries and sentiment all need a Premium Conversation Intelligence plan; on other plans the API returns the transcript field as empty.
- Recordings can be shorter than the call, because CallRail removes silence at the start and the time the caller spent ringing. Call minutes in reports will run higher than recorded audio. If a developer has API access, each call's recording_duration field gives recorded seconds, which is a tighter figure.
- Recording is turned on per tracking number, or as an account default for new numbers, so not every call has audio. Recording laws differ by state and some require every party to consent, which is why CallRail offers an automated greeting. Buyers care how callers were notified.
- The API caps general requests at 1,000 an hour and 10,000 a day, then returns an error until the limit resets. Keys act as the user who owns them.
This guide isn't legal advice. Check your contracts, and any recording-consent rules that apply, with your own lawyer.
Why buyers value it
CallRail sits at the start of the sales process for businesses that run on inbound calls, from law firms and agencies to home-service companies. A recorded call shows what the caller asked, how the office answered, and whether the lead became a booked appointment or a signed client. The call log adds the source and campaign that produced the call, plus fields such as call value, tags and whether it was a qualified lead.
That pairing of real speech with a marketing source and a result is what buyers training voice agents, call-scoring and lead-qualification models cannot get from public data. Matched to your CRM's won and lost deals, it shows which conversations convert.
What stays private
Caller names, phone numbers, email addresses and form submission contents come out of the call log and text threads before delivery. Recordings are voice data and often include spoken names, addresses and card details, so they are reviewed and de-identified or excluded rather than passed through as they are. CallRail itself offers settings to redact personal information in transcripts.
Your team members' names and voices, billing and account settings, tracking-number configuration, call flows and integration credentials are not part of the license.
Common questions
Sources
Vendor documentation, checked . Screens and plans change, so if a step looks different in your account, check with CallRail.
- CallRail Help: CallRail's data retention policy (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail Help: Exporting account-level data (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail Help: Export Call log (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail Help: Call Log (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail Help: Calls by Number report (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail Help: Inbound call recording (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail Help: Download a call's recording (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail Help: AI features (opens in a new tab)
- CallRail API v3 documentation (opens in a new tab)