Best Virtual Phone Numbers for SaaS Founders and Developers
<p>OpenPhone, Twilio, Hushed, Google Voice. The honest picks for builders who need a US virtual number for SaaS calls, dev testing, or burner privacy.</p>
The current reality on virtual US phone numbers for builders: free numbers exist but are hostile to anything that depends on a number being delivered (SaaS verification, sales outreach, on-call). For real work, you want a paid number from a vendor that owns its own carrier relationships. Here is the honest list.
- Top pick for SaaS founders: OpenPhone for the team-shared business line. Native Slack and HubSpot integrations, $19/user/month, real US carrier numbers.
- Top pick for developers testing flows: Twilio for programmatic SMS/voice with $0.0085 per SMS. Pay-per-use, no monthly commitment.
- Top pick for personal burner: Hushed or MySudo. Low monthly cost, separate number for marketplace listings, dating apps, and signups you do not want tied to your real number.
- Free options that mostly work: Google Voice for US-only personal use, TextNow for low-volume burners. Both fail on services that block VoIP for verification.
- Skip: “free virtual number” sites whose numbers are recycled and rejected by every major SaaS verification flow.
“Get a free US phone number” is a query that started in 2014 with a clear answer (Google Voice + a few sketchy alternatives) and ended with a more nuanced one. The free options still exist; they have been hardened against by every major service that takes phone-number verification seriously. The paid options are now genuinely cheap, and for builders running real workloads, they are the only ones that survive contact with reality.
01What you actually need a virtual number
The question “which virtual number” depends entirely on what you are doing with it. The use cases break into four buckets, and the right tool is different for each.
| Use case | Right tool | Cost | Why this |
|---|---|---|---|
| SaaS team business line | OpenPhone, Aircall, Dialpad | $15-30/user/month | Carrier-owned numbers, shared inboxes, integrations |
| Developer SMS testing | Twilio, Vonage | $0.0085/SMS | Pay-per-use API, no monthly fee |
| Personal burner / privacy | Hushed, MySudo, Cloaked | $2-5/month | Multiple numbers, easy to discard |
| Free / personal US-only | Google Voice, TextNow | Free | Works for personal calls; fails some verifications |
| SMS-2FA verification on signups | Real SIM, Google Voice (sometimes), Hushed (sometimes) | Variable | VoIP rejection is service-by-service |
02OpenPhone (the SaaS founder pick)
OpenPhone is what a business phone should have been since smartphones existed: shared inbox, real US carrier numbers, native Slack and HubSpot integration, $19/user/month. The current default for any SaaS team that needs a business line.
Buy if: you talk to customers, partners, or vendors as a team. Skip if: the use case is purely personal or single-user transactional verification.
OpenPhone at a glance
- Pricing
- Starter $19/user/month, Business $33/user/month
- Number type
- Real US/Canada carrier numbers (not VoIP-flagged)
- Best feature
- Shared inbox so the whole team sees calls and texts to the business line
- Integrations
- Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zapier, Gong
- SMS verification
- Works on most services since numbers are carrier-grade
- Free trial
- 7-day, no card required
OpenPhone displaced the legacy “Grasshopper or RingCentral” choice for builder-led companies and never gave it back. The Slack integration is the one that gets oversold elsewhere and works here: every team member sees the same shared inbox, replies in thread, and the customer never knows whose number it was. For SaaS founders running solo or with two-to-five teammates, this is the right answer.
03Twilio (the developer testing pick)
Twilio is the right answer when the use case is programmatic. SMS test flows, two-way SMS for app onboarding, automated voice calls. Pay-per-message, no monthly commitment.
Buy if: you are a developer testing SMS or voice flows in your own app. Skip if: the use case is a human picking up the phone. Twilio is API-first, not a phone app.
Twilio’s pricing is unbeatable for low-volume programmatic use: roughly $1/month per US number plus $0.0085 per SMS. For testing a SaaS signup-with-SMS-verification flow during development, this is essentially free. The catch: Twilio is an API, not an app. There is no inbox you log into; the messages and calls land in your code (webhook, queue, database). Buying a Twilio number to “make calls” without a frontend means buying a number you will not use.
04Hushed and MySudo (the personal burner picks)
Hushed for one-off short-term numbers, MySudo for ongoing personal aliases. Both let you generate disposable numbers from an iOS or Android app for marketplace listings, dating apps, signups you do not want tied to your real number.
Buy if: you sell on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or list your number anywhere public. Skip if: you need the number to receive bank or government SMS. These are VoIP and may be rejected.
Hushed sells short-term numbers for $1.99 for 7 days or $4.99/month for unlimited. MySudo bundles up to 9 personas (numbers + emails + handles) at $2-15/month. Both are app-based and run on iOS, Android, and the web. The trade-off is the same: you get cheap, disposable numbers that work for personal calls and texts, but services with strong anti-VoIP filtering (banks, government portals, some major SaaS like Google or Apple ID) will reject them on registration.
05Google Voice (the free pick that still works for some)
Google Voice still gives free US numbers tied to a Google account. Works on Android, iOS, web. The current catch: many SaaS verification flows now reject Google Voice numbers explicitly.
Buy if: the use case is personal calls and the recipient does not block VoIP. Skip if: you need to verify SMS-2FA on a major service that knows the GV ranges.
The original 2009 promise of Google Voice still mostly holds: free US-based number, voicemail, call forwarding, SMS, all tied to Gmail. The deterioration is at the receiving end: services that fight account fraud (Stripe, Twitter, banks, government portals, some Google services themselves) detect and reject Google Voice numbers as VoIP. For personal calls, it is fine. For commercial verification, it is hit or miss.
06Why most “free virtual phone number” sites fail
The 2014-era playbook (TextNow, TextPlus, sketchier sites with anonymous shared receive-only numbers) survives only for the lowest-stakes use case. The numbers are recycled: someone got the SMS-OTP for that number’s previous tenant on a service yesterday, and the service’s anti-fraud heuristics now block it. Every major SaaS verification flow keeps a list of “burned” number ranges. Free public services are top of that list.
- For low-stakes signups: free services often work the first time, fail the second.
- For SMS-2FA on services that fight fraud: free numbers are rejected outright.
- For long-term use: free numbers expire if the account goes inactive for 30-90 days.
- For business calls: free numbers identify as VoIP on caller ID, which costs you trust on outbound calls.
07Which tool should you pick?
Pick the right virtual number
- Running a SaaS company with team or customer calls? → OpenPhone, $19/user/month
- Building an app and need programmatic SMS or voice? → Twilio, $1/month + $0.0085/SMS
- Want a personal burner for marketplace listings or one-off signups? → Hushed for short term, MySudo for ongoing
- Just want a US number for personal calls and have a US Google account? → Google Voice, free
- Need SMS-2FA verification on a major service? → Use a real SIM, or Google Voice as a fallback. Free numbers will likely be rejected.
- Need international (non-US) numbers? → Twilio supports global, OpenPhone US/CA only, MySudo US/UK only
08The current alternatives we have used and would skip
Worth using
- OpenPhone for SaaS teams
- Twilio for programmatic developer use
- Hushed / MySudo for personal burners
- Google Voice for US-only personal calls
- Aircall and Dialpad as OpenPhone alternatives at scale
Skip
- Free public-receive-SMS sites (numbers shared, recycled, burned)
- Browser-extension “virtual number” tools (almost always shared-pool VoIP)
- Grasshopper for new sign-ups (legacy, OpenPhone is the current pick)
- “Free trials” that require a credit card and auto-bill. Read the renewal terms
09FAQ
Is there a real free virtual US phone number?
Google Voice still gives a free US number tied to a Google account, with voicemail and call forwarding. TextNow offers a free number ad-supported. Both work for personal calls but fail SMS-2FA verification on services that block VoIP.
What is the best virtual phone number for a SaaS startup?
OpenPhone is the default choice for SaaS teams: $19/user/month, real US carrier numbers, shared inbox, native Slack and HubSpot integration. Aircall and Dialpad are reasonable alternatives at larger scale.
Can I use Google Voice to verify SMS-2FA on services like Stripe or Twitter?
Sometimes. Many fraud-sensitive services explicitly block Google Voice number ranges. The pattern is service-by-service and changes over time. For reliable verification, use a real carrier SIM or a paid VoIP provider with carrier-grade numbers.
Can developers test SMS flows cheaply without a real phone?
Yes. Twilio sells US numbers for $1/month with $0.0085 per outbound SMS and lets you receive SMS into webhooks. Vonage is similar pricing. Both are pay-per-use API-first, designed for testing and production.
What is the cheapest disposable burner for selling on marketplaces?
Hushed at $1.99 for a 7-day number is the cheapest. MySudo at $2-5/month bundles multiple numbers if you need more than one persona. Both run as iOS/Android apps with web access.
10WikiWalls verdict
WikiWalls verdict. OpenPhone for SaaS teams. Twilio for developer testing. Hushed or MySudo for personal burners. Google Voice for free US-only personal use. Skip the free public-receive-SMS sites. They fail on anything that matters. The current reality is that paid numbers are cheap and free numbers are unreliable; pick by use case, not price.
This guide was last reviewed and updated by WikiWalls recently to reflect the consolidation of the virtual phone number category around OpenPhone, Twilio, Hushed, and MySudo, and the increasing rejection of free VoIP numbers by major SaaS verification flows.
Discussion · 13
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Comments are closed.
is there another services for free phone besides callcentric??
No matter how many accounts i try to make i always get “Risk monitoring system: Important Account Alert!” when i make the account.
And then after i choose the free phone number and click Checkout (Step #06), i get this message:
” Important account alert
Apologies for any inconvenience, however recent activity on your account has triggered our fraud-prevention monitoring system. As a result, although your account is still active, it has been restricted in the following ways:
Account information cannot currently be updated
Outbound calling has been temporarily blocked
For further assistance, please click here to open a support ticket and a Callcentric Support Engineer (8AM-Midnight EST – 7 Days a week) will review your account and promptly reach back to you with an update.”
Hi @alissamaxsuell:disqus
Your IP may be blacklisted that’s may be the reason spam filter is triggered. Try to reboot your router or use any any quality VPN to see if it works.
Another Hack: You can create Google voice account and they will give you free US number for lifetime. The only requirement is that you need US proxy (if you don’t live in US) and US number for verification. Just buy or use any free app for Google verification.
Do you have a tutorial of how to use google voice to get code verification?
We don’t have any tutorial for Google voice. Give it a try, if you got stuck then let me know and I will help you.
I only created the account to help other Pakistani brothers. The article is totally valid. Dont use vpn to signup with callcentric.
Just create an account with your ip and all your real info. You will get that risk notice. Dont worry. Simply create a support ticket asking to activate account. They will ask for your real name and usage. Also they will ask for nic or passport screenshot. Just send them and they will activate the account.
Complete the rest of the steps and verify google accounts but you cant use this number with google voice :(.
Hi bro. Thanks for this info.
Can you tell me why I can’t use this number with Google voice?, I think I used the same number with Google a year before.
Google voice is for “real” Americans/Canadians not like us :D. Google somehow detects voip and did numbers which in callcentric case is a did number. They dont let you get google voice number with this. I just tested but it still works to verify google accounts which is great.
Yeah, Agree. But we need US number for a lot of internet stuff so Google voice is one and only best way to get US number. I am using it from last few years and its amazing. You can make free calls to US for free, which is great.
It worked! – Great.
Have you used Google voice number for verification on sites like fiverr or other? Btw there is a windows software knctr. Google it. You can make free US/CA calls as well.
I have used on a lot of platforms and it works pretty well. Thanks for recommendation. I will try.
Please find a way to get Google voice number for us and share on your website. Thanks
Not working now because Callcentric does not have Free phone number feature.