8 Best Free Business Phone Number Apps of 2023

Free business phone number apps allow companies like yours to make communications more streamlined and professional. With one, you can create a dedicated business number while still being able to answer customer queries on your personal device. The number offerings, call management features, extensions, and call charges differ from provider to provider.

We looked at dozens of free business phone number providers and arrived at the top eight for small businesses:

• Phone.com: Best overall pick for advanced call management features and number options
• Callcentric: Best for teams needing customizable call services
• Google Voice: Best option for a basic monthly subscription with no hidden costs
• eVoice: Best for businesses with auto-attendant needs
• CallHippo: Best for low call volumes
• Grasshopper: Best for its free vanity phone numbers
• Sideline: Best for text marketing campaigns
• 800.com: Best for its selection of toll-free number options

Best Free Business Phone Number Apps at a Glance

Phone.com: Best Overall Free Business Phone Number App

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With its attention to providing users with every type of virtual or direct inward dialing (DID) number, Phone.com comes out as our overall best. Customers don’t only have local, toll-free, and vanity numbers, but those looking to do overseas business can also get international numbers. This means that any given business can cater to just about any kind of customer with relative ease.

Phone.com is the best phone number app for businesses that want more call management features in their phone system. The provider features a host of voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) capabilities, including call handling rules, call screening, call waiting, call transfer, click-to-call, hold music, automated attendant, and audio conferencing. To access these capabilities and get a business phone number free, subscribe to the provider’s Basic plan.

Another advantage of using Phone.com is the pooled minutes available for each user in the Basic account. The starter plan carries 500 pooled minutes. If you have three basic users, you will share 1,500 minutes for inbound and outbound calls. Our comprehensive Phone.com review will help you learn more about features and perks.

While Phone.com offers numerous call management features, its plans don’t provide inbound toll-free minutes. If you want customers to reach you quickly, choose a provider like Callcentric instead, which offers a flexible package for inbound toll-free minutes. You only have to pay $3.95 monthly for unlimited call minutes within the U.S. and Canada.

Phone.com Features

• Call handling: Route incoming calls more efficiently. Call handling options include setting up an auto-attendant, using the dial-by-name directory, forwarding, and scheduled routing.
• Click-to-call: Embed a code on your website that facilitates voice communication between you and the customer. When users click a button, Phone.com will call the number the customer provided.
• Audio conferencing: Host up to 300 participants in a conference call. The virtual meeting is secure, using password protection and a dedicated number.

Callcentric: Best for Customizable Call Services

Callcentric stands out for its very useful Dollar Unlimited plan, which can benefit businesses calling specific areas of the country. As the name indicates, the Dollar Unlimited plan costs $1 a month and includes unlimited incoming call minutes within select U.S. states. Callcentric also provides a free business phone number with this plan, and the pricing is very reasonable for small businesses looking to cut costs.

Like Phone.com, Callcentric provides users with all four types of business numbers, which is amazing for smaller businesses. Additionally, this provider allows businesses to be flexible in terms of customizing their VoIP service. Callcentric features independent packages for inbound and outbound calls, ideal for teams with fluctuating call volumes. These solutions are available on a flat-rate unlimited and pay-per-use basis, offering greater control over costs.

While some businesses would appreciate the highly customizable services Callcentric provides, others find it challenging and sometimes confusing. If you don’t want to worry about device configurations, choose Google Voice, which takes only a few minutes to set up. Additionally, the Callcentric app is somewhat bare-bones; if you’re looking for a strong app experience on both Android and iOS, consider Grasshopper.

Callcentric Features

• Bring your own device (BYOD): There’s no need to replace your existing devices when using Callcentric’s services. Any device that supports Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is compatible with the provider.
• Conference room: Host a virtual meeting with a single click. There’s no limit to the number of participants in the conference, so you can freely meet a large team for town halls and learning sessions.
• Caller ID blocking: This feature hides the caller ID on outbound calls. If you only want to block the ID on a specific call, that’s also possible by adding *67 before the number you’re calling.

Google Voice: Best for Straightforward Pricing

One of the key selling points of Google Voice for small businesses and solopreneurs is its entirely free starting plan. With just a Google account, you can immediately make calls using Google Voice. This includes a phone number without a monthly subscription, making it one of the few providers out there to do so. This provider allows your business to streamline business communications with the phone system’s features, including sending and receiving unlimited texts, making calls, and saving voicemails.

Google Voice is available using a laptop or desktop, a dedicated browser, or a mobile phone. When you call someone from the platform, the Google Voice number will appear on the recipient’s caller ID, keeping your personal phone number private. During the call, you can mute your audio, put the call on hold, and access the dial pad to key in numbers following a customer inquiry. Learn more about this platform’s free business phone service in our comprehensive Google Voice review.

Despite these strengths, it’s important to understand that Google Voice doesn’t deliver toll-free, vanity, or international numbers. This can easily be a deal-breaker for small businesses looking to appear more national, as these businesses will be stuck with numbers from their own nearby areas. If this is something you need, consider Phone.com. The provider lets businesses choose from all types of phone numbers in their subscription plans.

Google Voice Features

• Voicemail greeting recording: Chrome and Firefox allow recording a three-minute-long greeting. On Safari, recordings are only a minute long. Find the voicemail greeting recording function in the Settings under the Active greeting section.
• Spam filter and number blocker: Worry no more about messages and calls from telemarketers, as Google Voice automatically places these in your spam folder using a global database. Manually block a number by selecting the number in question from your call log and choosing the Block Number option in the three-dot settings.
• Call forwarding: Link a phone number to your Google Voice account to avoid missing calls. This feature is especially useful when you’re traveling to a place that doesn’t have a good internet connection.

eVoice: Best for Auto-attendants

*Save up to $297 and get two months free by paying annually.

Auto-attendants are call management solutions that automatically route calls to specific departments based on your customers’ keypad presses. These solutions aren’t always available in starting tiers of VoIP providers, which is why eVoice including this at its cheapest plan is so advantageous for small businesses. In addition to this, eVoice is very inexpensive; the base plan starts at $10 per user and drops to $8.33 with annual billing.

As we covered in our eVoice vs Grasshopper piece, eVoice runs the full gamut of virtual numbers. With your subscription, you get local, vanity, international, and toll-free numbers. This is useful for businesses with local needs but plan to expand into the global market. While international and vanity numbers are considered premium features, it’s still nice that they are available to subscribers. For this reason, it earned a slot as one of the best virtual phone number providers. Take a look at our eVoice breakdown for more in-depth information.

For its user experience, eVoice has a somewhat outdated interface that still packs in a good amount of call features. Still, if you want a higher easy-to-use degree of functionality, we recommend Grasshopper as its user experience is very intuitive and modern across both desktop and mobile applications.

eVoice Features

• Call screening: The phone system prompts callers to state their names before connecting them to an agent. A customer service representative decides whether to accept, decline, or send the caller to voicemail upon hearing who’s on the other end of the line. This feature helps you filter through calls and attend to only the most important ones.
• Click-to-call: Add a click-to-call widget to your website to make contacting your business easier. The button lets the web visitor enter their phone number and request a callback. This request is then sent to the support team, which will contact the potential customer.
• Message center: See all your texts, voicemails, and faxes in one place. The message center features a message preview panel and a search bar, which allow users to quickly read and refer to specific messages.

CallHippo: Best for Low Call Volumes

When it comes to complex call features, CallHippo is as straightforward as it gets. This makes it one of the best for lower call volumes because it really only has relatively basic call management capabilities. In the short term, this makes it a good solution for a business or nonprofit organization with short spurts of calls or that might only contact customers on an occasional basis. This also makes for a good option for a solopreneur choosing their first VoIP system.

This isn’t to say that CallHippo is without useful features. It’s one of the few providers on the market that includes an interactive voice response (IVR) system at its base-level plan. In fact, the Starter plan also includes ring groups, voicemail, and even click-to-call for up to 10 users. It also has powerful integrations with customer management tools like HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics, and Typeform.

Unfortunately, some essential call features offered in other providers’ basic plans are only available in CallHippo’s high-tier plans or as add-ons, namely voicemail transcription and call recording. If these capabilities are essential to your business, choose Google Voice instead.

CallHippo Features

• IVR: Help customers get to the most qualified representatives who will address their concerns. A well-designed IVR system helps increase first contact resolution, which improves customer experience.
• Power dialer: Don’t waste your time on manual dialing. With this feature, CallHippo automatically dials phone numbers from an uploaded contacts list for campaigns.
• Global connect: Determine the exact time zone and validity of phone numbers of contacts from different countries. With Global Connect, you can pick the right time when calling customers.

Grasshopper: Best for Free Vanity Numbers

*Save over 10% with annual billing.

Grasshopper serves as a strong solution for businesses that simply want a full-featured phone system without many non-phone communications features, like video conferencing. It is an ideal option for a free phone number app when your business is looking for vanity numbers. It’s fairly easy to get a number through Grasshopper featuring memorable alphanumeric combinations—a good example is 1-800-FLOWERS.

As one of our top picks for business phone systems, Grasshopper offers one of these custom, toll-free numbers for any account. Getting one is easy, as you simply have to search in their number lookup tool. With a memorable number, you increase brand awareness and recall.

Grasshopper also makes it easy to port existing numbers. It doesn’t charge for this service, and when you sign up, the platform provides you with a number transfer form to keep the number from your old carrier. Once the transfer is complete, you’re free to use your custom number on the platform. Know more about this provider by checking out our guide on using the Grasshopper phone system and our in-depth Grasshopper review.

Still, call management features are somewhat lacking with Grasshopper. Other providers, like Phone.com, have more robust call management feature sets. Learn more by checking out our article about other excellent Grasshopper alternatives.

Grasshopper Features

• Instant response: Grasshopper sends an automated response when you miss a call from a customer. The customer has the option to respond with call-back details.
• Virtual fax: Have faxes delivered to your email inbox as PDF attachments. With this feature, it’s easy to share files with colleagues online.
• Incoming call control: Screen calls and block unknown numbers. Create custom schedules that align with your business hours to manage incoming calls better.

Sideline: Best for SMS Marketing Campaigns

Given its advanced text messaging features, Sideline is the ideal option for managing SMS campaigns. It has an auto-reply feature that sends a text to a recipient if you don’t answer. Although automated, this gives customers the peace of mind that you’ve received their message.

Sideline also features branded messages, allowing you to add an image or logo to your texts. Aside from brand assets, the MMS messaging capability supports visual updates of invoices and projects. Our in-depth Sideline review details other text messaging features the provider offers.

While it offers advanced text messaging features, similar to Grasshopper, Sideline has limited call management capabilities. Callcentric is the better option if you’re looking for a VoIP feature-rich platform.

Sideline Features

• Group messaging: Include several contacts, colleagues, or clients in one conversation. This helps in resolving issues quickly or fast-tracking the progress of a project.
• Team number: Have one number on multiple devices so your team members have visibility in communication lines. The inbound calls and texts will ring everyone in the group at the same time.
• Custom signature: Professionalize your messages with a signature that appears under the main SMS and MMS content. This feature helps in establishing brand identity and recall better.

800.com: Best for Toll-free Number Selection

*Save 15% with annual payment.

As the name indicates, 800.com is best used for businesses looking for toll-free business numbers. The available numbers with so-called 800 prefixes include numbers with 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, and 833. This is a free business phone number app that delivers both toll-free and vanity numbers. The large list of available toll-free prefixes also makes it one of the best providers for 800 number availability.

Subscribers are also able to track calls, forward calls, view call analytics, and send short message service (SMS) messages. 800.com also grants access to application programming interfaces (APIs) for SMS, webhooks, and provisioning. This provides the ability to connect the service to external applications if you have a capable IT infrastructure. We have more about 800.com’s capabilities in our dedicated 800.com review.

The provider doesn’t allow for the creation of bulk text messaging campaigns or bulk call-in lines, so this isn’t the best option for providers with an expected high volume of calls. For a higher degree of high-volume call features, consider Grasshopper. There’s also no support for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) with 800.com. For this, CallHippo is a better option.

800.com Features

• Weighted routing: This provides the ability to distribute incoming calls as you see fit. For example, you can equally distribute them or prioritize certain agents or teams.
• Call analytics: Call analytics help teams analyze incoming calls to the dedicated 800 numbers. These stats help businesses improve their customer strategy and customer service. Deep-dive analytics will categorize the calls by the calendar date, time of call, geographic location, and call duration.
• Whisper greeting: 800.com allows users to add a specific whisper message to tracking numbers. This helps agents identify the source of the call so they can prepare before engaging with the caller.

How We Evaluated the Best Free Business Phone Number App

Many VoIP and cellular service providers offer free business phone numbers that help small businesses maintain a professional image. To determine the best among excellent phone number app options in the market, we looked at these criteria points shown in the tabs below:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

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Bottom Line

Having a free business phone number helps you quickly and easily separate your work life from your private one. These numbers also help you reach your intended audience with a number type that best fits their needs.

Out of the providers we reviewed, Phone.com emerged as the clear winner thanks to its number availability, advanced calling features, and a Basic plan that’s very solopreneur-friendly. Check out Phone.com today to get the ball rolling on your new free business phone number.

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