How to get a business phone number without carrying a second phone.

The short answer

For a sole trader or a small team, the best business number rings on the phone you already have. There are four ways to get one:

• A second line on the same phone. Recent iPhones take two numbers at once, one of them on an eSIM, and so do many Android phones. The business number is a second plan from a mobile network.
• A business phone app. The number lives in an app on your phone, and the same number can ring on a colleague's phone or a laptop.
• Google Voice. A free US number for calls you answer yourself, with paid plans for teams through Google Workspace.
• A landline or office line, forwarded to your mobile when nobody is at the desk.

Our pick for most trades and solo practices is the business phone app. It is the one route that answers all four questions below without bolting on another service. A second line on an eSIM is the simplest choice if you will always answer alone and never want automatic texts.

Why your personal number causes trouble later

Once your mobile number is on the van, the website, your Google Business Profile and every invoice, it is hard to take back. The trouble shows up later:

• Nobody else can answer it. When you are on holiday, ill or up a ladder, every call waits for you.
• You cannot tell a customer's call from your sister's, so you answer everything or nothing.
• Customers text you at 11pm, on the phone your family uses to reach you.
• If you take on a partner, hire a receptionist or sell the business, the number with years of customers on it stays with you as a person.
• You cannot switch the business off for the weekend without switching yourself off too.

A business number fixes this only if the business owns it. Open the account in the business's name, with the business's email address and payment details, and keep the login somewhere a second person can reach it.

Four questions that decide it

Every option gives you a number that rings. They differ in what happens later, so judge each one on these:

• Can you move it? A number you cannot take to another provider ties you to that provider, or makes you reprint everything when you leave. In the US, the FCC's porting rules let you keep your number when you switch between landline, internet and mobile providers in the same area. In the EU, the European Electronic Communications Code gives you the right to keep your number when you change provider, with no direct charge to you for the move.
• Can it text back after a missed call? An automatic text needs a system that knows the call was missed and can send from the same number.
• Can a second person answer it? A colleague, an office manager or an answering service, without your phone in their hand.
• Who registers it for business texting? In the US, texts sent by software from a local number have to be registered with the carriers before they go out. A2P 10DLC registration walks through the forms.

If you will only ever answer calls yourself and never want automatic texts, the first question is the only one that matters. If you might hire someone or want texts later, the other three matter from the start, because changing route means changing the number's home.

A second line on the phone you carry

An eSIM is a SIM card built into the phone, so a second plan is a download instead of a card. Ask a mobile network for a second plan, scan the code it gives you and the phone has two numbers. On an iPhone:

• Label the lines Business and Personal, so every call and text shows which number it came in on.
• Choose the default line for calls and texts to people who are not in your contacts. Make it Business if most new numbers you ring are customers.
• The iPhone calls each contact from the line you used last time with them, and you can set a line for each contact.

What bites later:

• While you are on a call on one line, a call to the other line may go straight to voicemail. Apple says that when the other line cannot take the call, you will not get a missed-call alert for it. Whether it can depends on your network supporting Wi-Fi Calling on that line.
• Only you can answer. A colleague takes the calls only if you forward the line to them.
• Every text is typed by you. A text after each missed call needs a separate service.
• Check Screen Unknown Callers in the Phone settings. Every new customer is an unknown caller: on Silence they go straight to voicemail, and on Ask Reason for Calling they have to explain themselves before your phone rings.
• It is an ordinary mobile number, so you can move it to another network later.

It suits someone who answers every call alone, such as a mobile dog groomer, a one-person mechanic or a private tutor.

A business phone app

A business phone app gives you a number that lives in the app, not on a SIM. Calls and texts to it arrive in the app on your phone and, if you want, on a laptop and on other people's phones. Quo, which used to be called OpenPhone, is one example. The better apps let you set:

• Business hours, with calls outside them going to voicemail.
• One number shared by two or three people, so whoever is free answers.
• Calls and texts from your phone that show the business number, never your personal one.
• An automatic text to a caller you missed. Quo offers this once the number is registered for business texting.

What to check before you sign:

• How it rings in a basement, on a farm or in a hospital car park. App calls need mobile data or Wi-Fi, so test it where you work.
• How it releases a number when you leave, and whether it charges for that.
• Whether it rings when your phone is in Do Not Disturb or a Focus mode, and what the caller hears when it does not.
• How it is priced: per user, per number and for texts.

Google Voice, and where it stops

Free Google Voice gives you a US number that rings in its app and can forward calls to phones you link to it. It suits a sole trader who answers every call and types every reply. Three limits decide how long it can stay:

• Google's acceptable use policy forbids sending messages through an automated process, so a text after every missed call, or reminders from your booking tool, are ruled out.
• It has one user. Google's paid standalone plans, for individuals in the US with a personal Gmail account, have one user too. A ring group, where one call rings several people, needs Google Voice Standard or Premier through Google Workspace.
• You can move the number away. On a personal account you first release it for transfer in the account settings, and on Workspace an administrator gets a port-out code from the Admin console.

Start on it if money is tight and you answer alone. Move off it before you hire, not after, so the new person starts on the system they will keep.

A landline or office line

A landline suits a clinic, shop or office with a front desk, where someone answers in person. When the desk is empty, forward calls to a mobile, and switch the forwarding off when you are back. If you later move to a phone app, the number can go with you, as long as you stay in the same area.

A landline cannot take texts until it is text-enabled with a texting provider, and customers will text it anyway. How to text from your business landline covers the three ways to fix that.

The four routes side by side

The same four questions, answered for each route:

• Second line on an eSIM. Moves to another network: yes. Text after a missed call: not by itself. Second person: only by forwarding. Registration for business texting: only once you add a texting service.
• Business phone app. Moves: usually, so ask how. Text after a missed call: in some apps, Quo among them, once registered. Second person: yes. Registration: done through the provider, with your business details.
• Google Voice. Moves: yes, once released in the settings. Text after a missed call: no, automatic texts break its policy. Second person: only through ring groups on the Workspace plans that have them. Registration: beside the point, since automatic texts are not allowed.
• Landline. Moves: yes. Text after a missed call: only once text-enabled with a provider. Second person: yes, on desk phones or by forwarding. Registration: through the texting provider.

Four businesses, four choices

• A mobile dog groomer who works alone from a van: a second eSIM line labelled Business, a voicemail greeting that says when she calls back, and Screen Unknown Callers set to Never. If she wants texts after missed calls later, she moves the number to a phone app.
• A two-van plumbing firm whose office manager answers while the engineers are under sinks: a business phone app, the number shared by the office manager and the owner, business hours set and a text to every missed caller.
• A physiotherapy clinic with a reception desk: keep the landline, forward it to the clinician on duty over lunch and text-enable it for reminders.
• A solo bookkeeper in the US who answers every call herself and never texts: free Google Voice until she hires help, then a phone app before the new person starts.

In each case the number customers already know stays the number. Changing the system behind it is fine. Changing the number itself costs you every customer who saved the old one.

Make sure the number stays yours

• Put the account in the business's name and pay from the business account. A number on a staff member's own plan leaves when they do.
• Ask your provider for a PIN or password on the account. The FCC warns about port-out scams, where someone moves your number to their own phone to catch the security codes your bank texts you.
• When you move a number, keep the old service running until the new one works. The FCC says not to end the old service before the new one is set up, and in the US the old company cannot refuse to release the number because you owe it money.
• In the EU, you keep the right to move a number for at least a month after your contract ends. Do not count on more than that.
• Keep a list of everywhere the number is printed: the van, the website, your Google Business Profile, invoices, email signatures and directories.

Set it up before you print it

Before the number goes on the van, set up and test the parts customers will meet:

• Record a voicemail greeting for the business line, separate from your personal one. Voicemail greetings for a small business has scripts.
• Set your hours, and decide what callers get outside them.
• Agree who answers on your days off, even if the answer is voicemail and a call back the next morning.
• Ring it from another phone and let it ring out. Then ring it while you are on a call on the other line.
• Text it, and see where the text lands.
• Change the number on your Google Business Profile and website the same day, so customers stop finding the old one.

When the calls start, how to answer the business phone has scripts for the first few seconds and the questions that turn a call into a booking.

If you want a text after every missed call

A text after a missed call catches the callers who will not leave a voicemail. Three things have to be true: the text comes from the number the customer rang, the system knows the call was missed, and in the US the number is registered for business texting. A reply to someone who has just called you sits closest to what they asked for, but consent rules still apply, and text message consent rules sets them out.

GGSites sets up missed-call text-back: a text within a minute to every caller you could not answer, replies landing where you already read messages, and the US carrier registration handled for you. The number you start from decides how much work that is, and the replies can feed the rest of your tools through automation.

Mistakes that are hard to undo

• Printing a number on the van before you know you can move it.
• A number on a staff member's own account or phone.
• A free trial number that lapses and takes the number with it.
• Leaving your personal mobile on old directory listings, so customers keep ringing it.
• Silencing unknown callers on the phone that carries the business line.
• Forwarding calls to a mobile whose voicemail greets callers with your personal message.
• A second number for texts while calls stay on the first, so customers save one and lose the other.

If the real question is who picks up when you cannot, a person, an answering service or an automatic text, AI receptionist, answering service or text-back compares them.