What is the average price?

“What is the average price to ‘buy’ a toll free number from an existing customer?” That sounds like simple enough question. Unfortunately it’s not like your house. There is no book value or market rate that you can look up like you can a house or a car. The value of a toll free number is much more subjective, meaning it depends on how it’s used by the current owner as well as how it could be used by the purchaser or other potential purchasers.

When a number is only really important to one buyer it becomes even more depedent on what they want or think about it. That is especially true for company names that don’t mean very much to anyone else. Generic terms can be measured more against other transactions than fanciful names.

The best advice I can give to someone trying to pursue this is to take your time, because if you’re in a hurry and try to go to fast it make you look more desperate and gives the other party the upper hand in the negotiations. And you also have to go into it with the realization that your goal is to make a friend as much as anything else. Picture if a friend of yours from school found out that you had a number and he wanted to start a business around it. You’d almost certainly sell it to him for a fraction of what you’d try to get from a large company. So don’t come into this with a big company attitude, just try to make a friend and take your time. Unfortunately we don’t always have time, but at least knowing that may help a little.

The other thing that makes that a very hard question to answer is that you really have to do all of the work to complete the deal just to be sure what it will ultimately cost you and if they’ll ultimately go through with it and be willing to sell it to you. That fact, plus the fact that there’s no centralized list of transactions the way there is in real estate or cars for instance makes it very hard to answer that question.

I also like to tell people that when you only need one successful deal, the odds really don’t matter very much. If you needed to close 10 deals then the closing rate would be relevant, but if you only want one number and therefore need to close just one deal the odds don’t matter. It’s like asking a girl out or to marry you. You only need to get one good one so t doesn’t matter how many said no in the end or if the first one says yes. You just keep looking until you find the right one. You don’t need to find 10 right partners, just one. Hopefully at least one at a time, anyway.

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    8 Comments »

    Jerich Shellington says:
    January 27, 2008 at 8:08 pm

    What are the typical monthly costs for a service like this to maintain it? I know you probably can’t give me specifics, but a general area just for my reference would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

    Jerich S.

      Bill Quimby (346 comments.) says:
      January 28, 2008 at 1:12 am

      We’re working on a directory that will give you some prices plus a lot more information about most companies. But the simple answer is that the cheapest ones go down to about 3 cents per minute and about $2 a month. We don’t provide the ongoing service, but will give you some good option that are usually quicker, better and cheaper than any other carrier you’ll usually find yourself. The big carriers are usually about twice that.

      .Bill Quimby.

        Fred says:
        April 14, 2008 at 12:27 am

        Bill if you sell 800 numbers I have

        1800MarryMe along with the website 1800Marryme.com for sale.

        If you find any truly interesting offers and you wish to broker for 10% I am open to offers.

        fred

          Bill Quimby (346 comments.) says:
          April 14, 2008 at 10:22 am

          Hi Fred,

          Unfortunately I really can’t act as a broker like that. It’s much harder than the owners of toll free numbers ever think. Anyone that does that type of thing also has more good numbers than they are able to market because marketing them is really harder than getting decent numbers. The FCC also has regulations against Hoarding and Brokering. Here’s an article that goes more into the legal issues around buying and selling 800 numbers. Having a domain name can help plus any other material you’ve developed too.

          You can list 800 numbers on Ebay. There are a couple people that do that, but they don’t honestly sell that well there, but it’s worth a try. You could also put a small ad in some wedding industry publications or go to a tradeshow and hand out a few business cards.

          Bill

            Marcella Altamirano says:
            November 17, 2008 at 12:49 pm

            I don’t understand why we can get some numbers for $50 and this one that I just asked this morning cost $595 I don’t get it.

            Marcella

              Bill Quimby (346 comments.) says:
              November 17, 2008 at 5:40 pm

              Like most businesses we have more than one product. Some tires cost more than other tires at the tire store. Just like different types of tests cost different amounts at a doctor’s office. The difference basically comes down to the time and effort it takes to get the number.

              We have three main types of service, which you can see along with the prices at http://www.tollfreenumbers.com/price

              Bill

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