You need a business number for the same reason you need a business email. Customers reach the company rather than you personally, the number stays when an employee leaves, and you can stop giving your cell number to strangers. Getting one now takes about ten minutes and costs somewhere between nothing and $20 a month.
The confusing part is that four different products all answer the question. A second number on your existing phone, a full business phone system, a virtual number that forwards anywhere, and a toll-free number are not the same purchase — and the cheapest one that fits is usually the right one. This page sorts them out.
Best for one person
Grasshopper
from $14/mo
A real business number with a professional greeting on the phone already in your pocket, flat $14/month for the whole account — no per-user pricing, no new hardware.
Numbers plus the virtual receptionist and everything else a small office needs, on the base plan — the pick when the number is only part of what you're buying.
Prices read from each provider's own pricing page, checked Sep 2026.
*The measured columns stay empty until we have tested these providers ourselves. For numbers we also plan to track something you can't see when shopping: how long each provider takes to complete a number transfer. Nothing here has been measured yet. See our published measurements or read the methodology.
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The contenders, one by one
Grasshopper
from $14/mo
A business number, not a phone system
If you're one person, this is almost certainly what you want. You get a dedicated business number — local or toll-free — with a greeting and extensions, business texting, and voicemail transcription, all layered over the phone you already carry. Callers hear a company; you carry one device; your personal number stays private.
Pricing is per account rather than per user, so $14/month covers a solo operator completely. That structure is the whole appeal: nothing scales up as you take more calls.
Watch out: Calls ride your existing cell service, so wherever your phone has poor coverage, so does your business line.
Pick Grasshopper if you're a contractor, consultant, or solo shop who just needs to stop handing out a personal number.
At $10.50 per user, each person on your team gets their own direct business number and extension, plus a shared main number with a menu in front of it. For a five-person office that's real business telephony for about the price of two streaming subscriptions.
Extra numbers beyond the first are inexpensive, which makes it easy to add a dedicated line for a marketing campaign or a second location and see exactly which one produced the calls.
Watch out: The entry plan is metered for outbound calls — fine for offices that mostly receive, worth upgrading for teams that dial all day.
Pick Zoom Phone if several people need their own numbers and price is the deciding factor.
Ooma includes a local number, a toll-free option, and the virtual receptionist on its base plan, aimed squarely at the small office that wants the whole problem solved at once rather than assembling parts. Setup is genuinely self-serve, and existing analog phones keep working through an adapter.
Watch out: You'll outgrow it if you scale past a couple dozen people or need deep integrations.
Pick Ooma if you need numbers, a greeting, and routing all at once and don't want a project.
Every user gets a business number, and every call on it gets transcribed and summarized automatically — included at the $15 entry price rather than sold as an upgrade. For a business where calls contain details worth remembering, that's a genuine reason to choose one number provider over another.
Watch out: Test transcription accuracy on your actual calls during the trial; accents, jargon, and bad audio all degrade it.
Pick Dialpad if you take lots of detail-heavy calls and nobody writes anything down.
Local numbers in almost any US area code, toll-free, vanity numbers, and direct-dial numbers for each employee — all managed from one dashboard, with the routing to send each wherever it should go. If your number needs are varied or likely to grow, this removes the need to think about it again.
Watch out: You're paying for a full communications platform; if you only need a number, cheaper options do that part identically.
Pick RingCentral if you need several kinds of numbers and expect that list to grow.
The strength here is the human help getting existing numbers moved — a dedicated team handles the port and the setup. If your numbers are currently tangled in an old carrier account or bundled with internet service, that assistance is worth more than a few dollars of monthly price difference.
Watch out: Entry pricing assumes annual billing; the plans stack up if you add everything offered.
Pick Nextiva if moving existing numbers is the hard part of your project.
Vonage's per-line structure suits businesses that want to add a number for a specific purpose — a new location, a campaign, a department — without upgrading a plan tier to do it. Its developer tools also make it the pick if a number needs to connect to custom software.
Watch out: Per-line pricing that starts cheap can assemble into a premium bill; price your full configuration.
Pick Vonage if your number needs are specific rather than broad.
If you're one person and just want to stop giving out your cell number: a second business number over your existing phone, around $14/month. If several people each need a number: a business phone system at $10–20 per user. If you want customers anywhere in the country to reach you free: add a toll-free number for a few dollars on top of either. If you want a number that just forwards somewhere: that's the same product as the first option, sold under a different name.
The mistake to avoid is buying a full phone system when a second number would do, or hanging a business on a personal mobile because a system seemed like overkill. There's a $14 option in between.
Is a free business number real?
Partly. Some services genuinely give you a free number — Google Voice being the well-known one — and for a side business or a freelancer that can be enough. What you give up is business-grade support, guaranteed availability, and in most cases the ability to port that number out later, which matters enormously once it's printed on a vehicle or a sign.
The honest rule: free is fine for a number you could afford to lose. Once customers know it, pay the $14 and own it properly.
Local or toll-free?
For most businesses, local. A number in your own area code gets answered more often by nearby customers, because it reads as a neighbor rather than a call center. Toll-free signals national reach, which is worth having if you sell across state lines — and it's cheap enough to add as a second number rather than choosing between them.
One practical note: memorable numbers in older codes (a clean 305 in Miami, a 407 in Orlando) are genuinely scarce now, so if you have one, port it rather than starting fresh.
The fine print that changes your bill
→Per-account vs per-user pricing changes everything at small scale — $14 for the whole account beats $10.50 each once you have two people.
→Extra numbers usually run about $1/month each, which makes campaign-tracking numbers cheap; check that they're not tier-locked.
→Business texting requires a one-time carrier registration (A2P) on any number type — budget a small fee and a few days.
→Free numbers often can't be ported out. Check portability before you print the number on anything.
→Vanity numbers are bought on a secondary market and range from hundreds to tens of thousands — they are not a monthly-fee item.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get a business phone number?+
Pick a provider, choose a number from their available list, and it's active within minutes — no application or approval. For one person, a service like Grasshopper gives you a business number on your existing phone for about $14/month. For a team, a business phone system at $10–20 per user gives everyone their own. If you already have a number you want to keep, you port it instead of choosing a new one.
Can I get a business phone number for free?+
You can get a free number from services like Google Voice, and for a freelancer or side business that's often enough. The trade-offs are real though: limited support, no service guarantees, and usually no ability to move the number to another provider later. Once customers actually know your number, that last one matters — paying $14 a month to properly own it is cheap insurance.
Can I get a business number on my personal cell phone?+
Yes, and it's the most common setup for solo businesses. The business number rings through an app on your existing phone, with its own greeting and voicemail, and your personal number stays private. Outbound calls show the business number. Nothing new to carry, nothing to install on a wall.
Should my business number be local or toll-free?+
Local, for most businesses — nearby customers answer and dial local numbers more readily. Toll-free is worth adding when you serve customers nationally or want the national-company signal. Both cost only a few dollars a month, so plenty of businesses run a local main number with a toll-free line alongside it.
Can I keep my business number if I switch providers?+
Yes — porting is your legal right, and your current provider can't refuse a valid request, even if you owe it money, though some charge a porting fee. Single numbers usually move in one to three business days. The exception to watch for is free number services, which frequently don't allow porting out at all.
How many numbers does a small business need?+
Usually one main number plus direct numbers for anyone customers call repeatedly. Extra numbers cost about $1 a month from SIP trunk providers and around $5–$10 as an add-on on business phone plans. That is cheap enough that many businesses add tracking numbers, one on the vehicle, one on the website, and one on a mailer, to see which marketing actually produces calls.