People sometimes think that they should “park” their toll free number, holding it like a domain name. But if you think about it, a “parked” domain name is really just going to a simple web page. And if you didn’t have to build a website or have any of that expense would anyone really put a domain name on hold? You certainly wouldn’t wait till the last minute to turn a domain name on, especially if you didn’t have much up front expense in turning it on. A toll free number is a great way to fake it till you make it so it’s usually one of the first things people do when starting their business.

You only pay for the amount of calls you receive so if you don’t get many calls it costs you almost nothing to have it before you start to advertise and promote it. I think the confusion some people have is with the term Active. Active does not mean it’s necessarily in use, or that it’s being called and answered. Just because your toll free number is Active doesn’t mean that you have to advertise it. And contrary to what many people seem to think, although they do get some wrong numbers, you don’t usually get any significant amount of calls just by having a toll free number. There is also nothing that says you have to answer it either. For instance if you point it to your fax number how long are most wrong numbers going to stay on the line, a couple second? Yet people really desperate to reach you can still fax you a message if they need too.

There are some more advanced techniques such as limiting the calling area to Alaska or Wyoming or your state for example. That can keep the number active but insure you don’t get many calls. Internally one of the tricks we use is to point it to a carrier that we don’t work with in order to turn it on and off quickly and easily. You could also point it to a local number that is disconnected. Sometimes people point their numbers to a voicemail message that says it’s inactive or available or whatever you want to tell people and giving out another local number for more information. All of these things and several more would keep a number “Active” in the database without having to answer it or it costing very much.

The bottom line is that rather than trying to find a way to hold your number inactivate you really just want to use a good competitive service that sets it up with a without much of a monthly fee. Toll free numbers are much cheaper to have than most people realize especially if you’re not advertising it yet. Another interesting article I wrote, using a 1-800 Car Wash analogy explains how the calls you receive while you’re setting up your business will probably be even more important than the regular customer calls you’ll get once you’re underway. And you also have to be careful because the cost of waiting to get your number working can be much higher than most people realize, especially if you wait until the last minute to make sure it’s working.

It’s also important to remember that once you transfer the number from us to your carrier you can transfer it away, but you do have of keep it active somewhere. But Active doesn’t mean it has to cost you more than literally just a couple bucks per month (probably what you thought parking was going to be!)

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