Vanity phone numbers are an economical marketing strategy that helps your current and prospective customers easily remember your phone number. If you conduct business over the phone, or just want to stay top of mind and accessible to your customers, then you might consider one. We reviewed the most popular vanity phone number providers that covered the range of options for small businesses in terms of cost and features. Read on for our comparison and to see what options are available at different price points.
Want to find your dream vanity number? Check out this great tool from Grasshopper. It allows you to plug in your desired word and will give you a variety of options to choose from. Once you’ve found a number you like, you can purchase it directly from them.
Best Vanity Phone Number Provider Comparison Table
We recommend Phone.com as the best vanity phone number provider, but were nonetheless impressed by the range of other options. Read on to learn more about each of them.
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*All pricing shown is based on monthly billing for the lowest priced plan. Some providers may discount their monthly fee if paid annually.
Best Vanity Phone Number Provider for Small Businesses: Phone.com
We recommend Phone.com as the best vanity phone number provider for small businesses because they offer affordable options for both toll-free and local vanity phone numbers and a 30-day money back guarantee.
How to Choose a Vanity Phone Number Provider
A vanity phone number is a local or toll-free number with a memorable sequence of numbers that’s customized for your business. It is used for marketing purposes to help customers easily remember your company and how to contact you. Examples are 1-800-FLOWERS or 212-36-LAWYER.
Vanity phone number providers usually offer the service in one of three ways:
- As part of a basic phone service package;
- As a virtual phone number, which they forward to your personal phone line; or,
- As a phone number seller, which you would then port over to your phone service provider
When considering which vanity phone number providers were the best for small businesses, we looked at the first two types of solutions, not just the ability to purchase a vanity phone number that you would port over to another service provider.
We also evaluated the providers based on these key factors:
- Cost, both monthly and per minute
- Toll-free and local vanity phone number availability
- Additional features, such as auto-attendants
Best Vanity Phone Number Provider for Small Businesses: Phone.com
Who Phone.com is Best Suited For
We recommend Phone.com as the best overall vanity phone number provider for small businesses because it’s the only provider we reviewed that offers both toll-free and local vanity phone numbers. It’s also very competitively priced.
Phone.com is a virtual phone service, which means that calls are forwarded to your mobile device. Because of this, you will still use your mobile plan’s monthly minutes and/or data to make and receive calls in addition to Phone.com’s charges.
Phone.com Costs & Pricing
Phone.com offers three pricing plans that are suitable for small businesses, depending on their calling needs, with no setup fees on any plan. We found Phone.com to offer the most competitive rates, with the exception of UniTel Voice if you also want phone service. Click here to try Phone.com with a 30-day money back guarantee.
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| Included Minutes | |||
| Additional Minutes |
Phone.com’s Primary Features
All of Phone.com’s plans come with over 50 included features in addition to vanity numbers, which is more than most other providers. Some of these features include:
- Auto-attendant
- Call conferencing
- Call transfer
- Call screening
- Call blocking
- Call queuing
- SMS/texting
- Send audio files of voicemails to email
- Hold music
Best Vanity Phone Number Provider with VoIP Service: UniTel Voice
Who UniTel Voice is Best Suited For
We recommend UniTel Voice as the best vanity phone number provider for those businesses who also want a full VoIP phone service as well. VoIP phone service transmits your voice as data over your internet connection, avoiding the use of traditional phone lines. The service and available features are comparable to RingCentral, but for a much lower price with more minutes included.
UniTel Voice offers the ability to choose a vanity toll-free phone number or an ordinary local phone number, but not a vanity local phone number.
UniTel Voice Costs & Pricing
UniTel Voice offers four pricing plans that are suitable for small businesses, depending on their phone needs.
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| Price/Month | ||||
| Included Minutes | ||||
| Additional Minutes |
UniTel Voice’s Primary Features
UniTel Voice is a fully featured VoIP phone service, not just a virtual phone service like Phone.com, so you can use it as both your vanity phone number provider and your VoIP phone service provider.
Some of the additional features that UniTel Voice includes with all of their plans include:
- Auto-attendant
- Custom or pre-recorded greetings
- Hold musicVoicemail
- Voicemail
- Call forwarding
- Call blocking
- Send and receive faxes
Best Free Vanity Phone Number Provider: Google Voice
Who Google Voice is Best Suited For
If your business doesn’t require a toll-free phone number and only wants a local vanity phone number, then we recommend Google Voice as the best free vanity phone number provider. The service is free for a local vanity phone number and for all calls within the United States and Canada.
Google.com is a virtual phone service, which means that calls are forwarded to your mobile device or through the Google Voice application. Because of this, you will still use your mobile plan’s monthly minutes and/or data to make and receive calls unless you are using Google Voice’s desktop application.
Google Voice Costs & Pricing
Google Voice does not charge a setup fee, all calls within the United States and Canada are free, and international call rates start at $0.01/minute.
Google Voice’s Primary Features
Despite being a free service, Google Voice includes a good range of added features including:
- Custom greetings
- Voicemail
- Voicemail transcription
- SMS/text messaging
- Conference calling
- Call screening
- Call blocking
Another Vanity Phone Number Provider with VoIP Service: RingCentral
Who RingCentral is Best Suited For
RingCentral offers toll-free vanity phone numbers as well as a separate VoIP phone service. These services are priced separately. For the purposes of this review, we will focus on the vanity phone number; however, users always have the option of changing their plan to RingCentral’s full VoIP phone service.
RingCentral is one of the leaders in VoIP phone service, but is significantly more expensive than other providers. However, they do provide an excellent quality of service for the price with industry-leading call reliability and quality as well as good customer support.
RingCentral’s toll-free vanity phone number service forwards calls to your existing VoIP phone line or mobile device. Because of this, you will still use your other plan’s monthly minutes or data to make and receive calls in addition to RingCentral’s charges.
RingCentral Costs & Pricing
RingCentral offers three pricing plans that are suitable for small businesses, depending on their phone needs. Click here for a free trial of RingCentral.
| Setup Fee | |||
| Price/Month | |||
| Included Minutes | |||
| Additional Minutes |
RingCentral’s VoIP phone service is priced separately.
RingCentral’s Primary Features
Here are some of the additional features that RingCentral includes in all of their plans:
- Auto-attendant
- Voicemail
- Send audio files of voicemail to email
- Call forwarding
- Call queuing
- Send and receive faxes
Another Budget Vanity Phone Number Provider: Grasshopper
Who Grasshopper is Best Suited For
Grasshopper is another budget option for businesses that want a toll-free vanity phone number or a phone number that’s based in a different location from where they reside. While Google Voice is the most economical option, it doesn’t offer the option for a toll-free vanity phone number that forwards to your existing phone line. Grasshopper is the lowest priced option that does (UniTel Voice costs less overall, but it’s a complete phone service — not a virtual one like Google Voice and Grasshopper). If your business needs a lot of call time, Grasshopper’s per minute charge is higher and will likely result in a higher cost per month overall.
Grasshopper is a virtual phone service, which means that calls are forwarded to your mobile device. Because of this, you will still use your mobile plan’s monthly minutes and/or data to make and receive calls in addition to what Grasshopper charges.
Grasshopper Costs & Pricing
Grasshopper offers three pricing plans that are suitable for small businesses, depending on their phone needs.
| Setup Fee | |||
| Price/Month | |||
| Included Minutes | |||
| Additional Minutes |
Grasshopper’s Primary Features
Grasshopper is an economical option for toll-free vanity phone numbers, and it also includes a good range of additional features, including:
- Auto-attendant
- Custom greeting
- Hold music
- Conference calling
- Call forwarding
- Call screening
- Voicemail
- Send audio files of voicemails to email
- Send and receive faxes
Bottom Line: Best Vanity Phone Number Providers
There are many providers of vanity phone numbers on the market. Some are only in the business of selling phone numbers, which you then have to port over to another service provider to use. However, others provide vanity numbers and virtual or VoIP phone service as well.
Phone.com offers the ability to secure a toll-free or local vanity phone number, a good range of included calling features, and a competitive price. For these reasons, it is our top recommendation for best vanity phone number provider.
e edward Robinson
Hey, thanks for the info;
What is your best recommendation for a # only situation; i already have a VOIP service, and just want a toll-free number to port over to them, than use my own voip and not the company of which i got the number from
Thank you
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Marcus
Any suggestions on how to sell your phone number? I have NYC 917 number that ends in 5300 that Im interested in selling.
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This is a grey area. You technically never own your phone number, so “selling it” isn’t exactly accurate. You are allowed to transfer your number to another individual, however, which essentially has the same effect as “selling.”
Most places that sell vanity numbers also buy, or allow vendors to “list” their numbers. You can get in touch with any of these sites and see which will offer the best rate.
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Donald Goble
Hello Gavin,
Thought this article was extremely informative. I’ve been asked to look at the Vanity Telephone market itself and was curious as to whether you knew of a study that breaks down the market itself? Looking for some hard research numbers to pass along. Any resource you might have to offer would be greatly appreciated. Friends and I are looking at getting into this business. Thanks very much.
Best,
Donald Goble
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Steve
Hi Donald. What kind of research are you looking for? I’m interested in this field myself and would welcome any collaboration! Thanks… Steve.
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Hi Donald,
I’m not aware of anything off hand, but I’ll take a look around and reply back if/when I find anything.
G
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mani
do you have good phone numbers like 604 500 0000 or something similar?
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Hi Mani,
We don’t provide the vanity phone numbers ourselves. We recommend that you check with the providers in the article.
G
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Perry
Thanks very much for your research.
However, when I clicked on phone.com, it doesn’t appear to take me select a vanity number.
Any suggestions?
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Hi Perry,
Here is the direct link to Phone.com’s vanity number page: https://www.phone.com/features/vanity_toll_free/
G
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