Our Service falls into 3 main categories

SEARCHING is FREE

Using our toll free number search programs is free. We don’t charge to use our search tools we only charge a small one time fee to activate the number you find if it’s available.

REGULAR 800#s are just $49

Regular Activations for numbers that say “Currently Available” are a one time fee of just $49. There are no other hidden fees or charges or any ongoing commitment at all!

90 to 95% of our customers get these regular activations.
This is also the price for Random 800 numbers although many customers sometimes purchase quantities of random numbers which qualify for volume discounts:

10 #s 10% discount
25 #s 20% discount
50 #s 30% discount
100#s 40% discount
250#s 50% discount

DISCONNECTED #s are $195 to $795

Disconnected numbers can be backordered for $4.95, and we ONLY charge the backorder fee if we’re able to get them when they come out of disconnect.

866 #s are $195
877 #s are $395
888 #s are $595
800 #s are $795

PREMIUM 800#s are $99 to $999

Premium numbers or nice numeric numbers are categorized into four levels:

1 star numbers are $99
2 star numbers are $299
3 star numbers are $599
4 star numbers are $999

Free Service and No Fees

There is NO other ongoing charge or fee at all. We give you free service for the first 30 days or 100 minutes so it’s working right away and we help you transfer it to whatever company you want to use it with. There’s no fee to transfer away from us or to most companies.

You’ll just pay whatever company you want to use it with for the ongoing service as if they got it for you, except since you had it active before transferring it to them, they can’t hold you hostage or claim they gave you the number as part of their service. Your ability to transfer your number is much more important t most people realize. That’s what keeps them honest, the rates low and the service good. And if it ever stops being any of those things you can just transfer YOUR toll free number away!

Numbers come and go all the time. We process several thousand queries a day just on our website and there are hundreds of phone companies that have access into the database as well. Thousands of numbers come and go from the pool every week, (usually at least a little more go out than go in). Many websites also Lock Up 800 numbers that their visitors inquire about, which is why we warn people about checking numbers at other websites.

Toll free numbers are given out on a first come first served basis, and if you thought a number was good, it kind of makes sense that other people would as well too. So the best numbers often tend to have a flurry of activity. This is especially true for some really good numbers that get disconnected and are available to backorder. But unfortunately we can only accept one backorder for a number and we have to turn anyone else that asks us to help them get that number away.

Read more about how to use the Monitoring Section to keep checking and find a good 800 number.

Toll Free Numbers never wear out or expire and only get more and more valuable the more you use them. Very few things you do when you start your business are going to last for the life of your business.

That cutting edge computer you invested in will be slow and out of date in 3 or 4 years. That sign you put out in front of your business may last 10 years and the phone system you buy may be good for 6 to 10 years. You might spend anywhere from $500 to $5000 or more to build a website that is great today but it’ll be out of date and need to be replaced in a couple years. Almost everything you do in starting your business will eventually wear out, break or have to be thrown away in a few years.

Picking a toll free number is one of the only things you’re going to do in starting your business that can last you literally for the life of your business. Picking a good number will increase the response rate for all of your advertising literally for the life of your business. That’s why this is important and you shouldn’t let the phone company talk you into taking a random number just because it’s easier for them.

The more you advertise your toll free number, the more people we get used to it and remember it. The more labels you put it on the more re-orders you’re going to get every month. The longer you have your number on your website the more likely it is to get listed in other places. The more people dial your number the more they program them into their phones and phone books. Your phone number is one of the most important items you’ll list if someone buys your business. So you’re not spending a few dollars to get a good number, you’re investing a few dollars to get a permanent marketing tool for your business.

I got a powerpoint slideshow from Phone Names recently explaining how blackberry users can enter vanity numbers with letters, even though they don’t line up in the traditional sense.

To dial a phone name from a BlackBerry device, the letters of the phone name are simply typed onto the screen using the shift key

When the call button is pressed, the BlackBerry automatically converts the phone name into the phone number and the call is connected

It’s very easy. I tried it on my blackberry to confirm it and it worked great. Now we just need to educate the public and get all cell phone companies to think about vanity numbers in their programming.

I admit that many of these tips apply to anyone but they apply especially for people in real estate, both real estate agents and for anyone buying and selling distressed property, pre-foreclosures etc.

1. Be more creative

Yeah I say that a lot but it’s even more true in the real estate 800 numbers because you’re competing with so many people and need to work harder to stand out from the crowd. This is especially hard for people in real estate in the buying and selling category who all gravitate to generic terms. But that’s why it’s even more important in that category!

2. Use your name

You may be selling homes but you’re really selling yourself. You may show them a lot of homes but what you really want them to remember is your name. It gets you more referrals and it makes you look like the expert and more professional than the other guy.

3. Use your geography

You can put your state initials in front of a generic term (link) or you can put in the city. I can hear you saying that you don’t want to limit yourself to one city or state. But you’re not. You’ve probably heard of Boston Market. They aren’t limited to Boston are they? Don’t give up a home field advantage on 90% of your business just because you think it makes you look like the away player for 10%. Use the digits or a different name in the advertising outside your area and you can have it both ways!

There are a couple more if you want to continue reading...

People often ask what the process is so I’ve tried to simplify and explain our process as much as possible, into 4 simple steps.

1. Find a Good Number

Probably the majority of our site is geared toward this step because this is the biggest weakness of most phone companies. But it’s our main focus because we know how vital a good front door is to all of your marketing. Check out our Search Section that explains each of our two main search tools, the Toll Free Search Engine and the Keyword Lookup. This post also simplifies the search process into 5 sentences.

2. Place your order

You can Activate whatever number you find available or backorder it if it’s in disconnect. There is information on Activations and Backorders in sections of our site. But this is extremely easy and just takes filling out a form online. We’re the only ones that do this anywhere near this quickly and easily.

Read MORE about picking a provider and transferring your number.

After you’ve searched and searched and come up a couple different options for numbers how do you decide? First of all, don’t go too crazy. Sometimes people get so caught up in this that they really drive themselves crazy with this. It’s not rocket science and by the time most people are at this point they’re deciding between a couple choices, all of which are pretty good.

Read about 12 factors you can use to evaluate an 800 number!

We just added a new feature to the website. When you do a query with the Toll Free Search Engine you’ll hear the touch tones of the query you just entered. I know it’s just a bell and whistle (literally) but it does make it kind of fun to play with the Toll Free Search Engine.

We know you often have to do a number of queries to find a number available so we’re trying to make it fun and entertaining to do multiple queries. That’s also why we put a few random messages in the Loading message. Firefox users will only hear the tones for the first entry in each session but other browsers do it on all subsequent queries.

If you notice any other issues with the touch tones or the third ‘possibilities’ box let me know, because we just added a new server for the possibilities searches. We’re working hard to make our tools better and better for you!

Sometimes people ask if we can do any better for them on the pricing. I understand that everyone wants a deal but I don’t think it’s fair to give different prices any more than I think it’s fair to treat certain people better than others. If someone is willing to play games with the price, what else are they willing to play games with? Are they giving some people bigger discounts than they’re giving you? If you didn’t ask for a discount would it have been fair for us to charge you more?

The truth is, that we’re too big to operate like a flea market table or a garage sale. We’re not big yet, not are we too big to have everyone making up their own prices. We’re also the only organization in the vanity number business with straight forward upfront prices. Everyone else makes up the price depending on how much they think t customer can afford or how badly they want it. They negotiate with people all the time. But they’re starting at 10 times our most expensive type of number or more.

We have to run this business as a business, not a garage sale.

After watching the president address the nation about the financial crisis we were talking and trying to figure out what things we could do to help people in this turmoil. We came up with a great new way to allow customers to get our best 4 star numbers for less than the 2 star upfront investment.

We’re only going to do this for a very limited time, until Election Day, November 4th. So for the next 38 days, we’ll get you one of our best 4 Star Premium Numbers that are usually $999, for 4 MONTHS for just $249. You’ll receive a form to set up an account with Opex and can pay less than 3 cents per minute for the nationwide usage for the service during the first four months. After 4 months, you can pay the remaining $750 to continue to use it and then can transfer it away. You obviously can’t transfer the number away to another carrier other than Opex until the balance is paid. But it’s your option to pay the remaining $750 at any point if it has worked out well for you. So it’s kind of like a 4 month test drive!
See a list of 200 4 star numbers you can get now for less than the 2 star price

We give several good options that are cheaper and better than most people can usually find themselves, in the toll free manual that comes via email after you activate a number. Ironically I got this question on a day that I’ve spent a couple hours researching the new system and designing the database and data we need to collect and display.

We’re working on a more thorough database of phone companies. We don’t just want a list of companies and links to their website. We’re trying to make something that’ll make it easy for customers who aren’t familiar with toll free service to understand the main options and to be able to tell which companies are real solid companies and which just look good on the net. We also want to have a way for verified customers to leave real feedback and rank companies.

Read more about the providers directory we're working on.

Only paying for results means we don’t get paid unless we get you the number we want. One of the biggest differences between us and large phone companies is that we’re accountable in everything we do. If we don’t get it for you, we certainly don’t charge you for it.

We're real people and we're reachable and accountable

Whenever you’re successful there are always a few people trying to tear you down. And unfortunately when you’re honest and open with people it gives them even more of a target to shoot at. This is especially true on the internet where some people love to say vicious things about other people just for fun. Add to that the fact that I give people my honest opinion about companies and point out negative things that go on within the industry and you’re gonna get a few stones thrown at you.

When you're honest and up front and successful you become a target

A lot of people come to our site wanting a specific number which often isn’t available. One important thing we can do to help you is to monitor the status of it for you. If you use our Keyword Lookup and put the term you’re interested in, in the Monitoring field and your email address and we’ll send you the status of each of the four area codes matching that term.

We’ll update this and send you a new email each month that shows a six month mini history for all four versions of that number. This doesn’t guarantee you that you’ll be able to get that number but it does help you to stay on top of it without a lot of additional effort. And since there is such a high turnover rate for toll free numbers it definitely pays to be patient. But make sure you have a good backup number though because it may not come out and you can always add the new number too if and when you do get it.

At TollFreeNumbers.com we don’t do any advertising. We earn our business the hard way, through natural search engine rankings and satisfied customers. Affiliate marketing is an important extension of that and we’ve tried a couple different things in affiliate marketing. We’ve had some issues with our affiliate program and have had some success and some failures. We’re going to try to correct those failures and build on the successes to make a better program for everyone.
Why we had to cancel the old Affiliate Program and what we’re looking to do next.

A lot of people come to us and need it yesterday. We’re good for those people because we activate numbers faster than anyone. Most numbers that say Currently Available are active about 30 seconds after you fill out the order form. But some people come to us well ahead of time before they’re ready to start their business. We have a great tool for these people, planning ahead that may help them find an even better number than they might find right now.

Learn how to use the time you have before you start to your advantage

At first glance we might look like we’re selling or brokering numbers but when you look beneath the surface our business model is more like GoDaddy’s than a domain name broker. We do a better job helping people find good numbers and only charge a flat fee for the searching and activating that number. The fee isn’t based on the value of the number, the amount of advertising the customer does or how badly they need the number. (Those are all things that brokers or any of the toll free number squatters do.)

Over 90% of the numbers we get for customers are just a $49 one time fee. We do have some numbers that take more time and effort to get, such as premium numeric numbers and disconnected 800 numbers. But even those which can be quite valuable at times, are just a slightly higher flat fee based on the area code for disconnected numbers or the star level for premium numbers.

Read the rest of this article if you want to contact us about selling an 800 number

Some web services give you a toll free number with their hosting package. They don’t charge you anything for the toll free number so you think you might as well put it on your advertising right? Wrong. They are giving it to you for free so THEY are the customer of record, not you. That hosting company that gives out a toll free number to a small business is paying a few bucks per month for the toll free service but in return they have you trapped or locked into their service once you put it into all of your advertising. There really is no such thing as a free lunch.

People ask this or variations of this sometimes, but it’s kind of like telling Match.com that you don’t want to waste time filling out the forms, to just send you a list of the “best” girls. Unfortunately it’s too big of a database and you need to give it more specific criteria. Our computer can search through the millions of numbers very quickly and give you options that are available which match your criteria. The computer can even find things that are related to what you’re looking for too. But you need to define “best” a little better for the computer to help you.

It might seem easier if we could just show you the secret list of all the best numbers, but it just doesn’t work that way. Our goal is isn’t actually to create a general list of all the “best” numbers. That wouldn’t really help very much because if we had that at least a thousand other people would have already looked at it just today, so how helpful would that really be?

Our goal is to be able to rank all of the numbers that are available or going to be available for your specific criteria. But in order to do that you need to put in your criteria. That’s why we have the Toll Free Search Engine to let you enter several terms or even specific combinations, so we can show you the best possible numbers for your specific terms which is ultimately much more valuable than trying to maintain a general list.

9/19: The third box in the search results is working and seems to be fixed.

Don’t worry! First of all, there are real people available to help you if you need it. Call us at 1-800 MARKETER. We are the internet’s leading experts by any measure. We’ve done this for 13 years, and have helped tens of thousands of companies from fortune 500 companies to home based start-ups get good vanity toll free numbers for their business. But even more important than our experience is what we give you that nobody else does.

We are the only service that gives you independent proof of ownership of your toll free number so you’ll be able to transfer it away from any company you transfer it to. Everyone else wants to sell you the service and keep you there as long as possible. Many even use the number to hold you hostage and keep you at their service. We’re the only ones that guarantee you’ll be able to change carriers as your business needs change or if they don’t turn out to be as good as you thought they would.

So don’t worry. As long as YOU had your number separately from the company you get the service from you can always switch to another carrier if you need to. So you don’t have to be nervous or worried. Even if something unforeseen happens you’ll be able to react and use your toll free number wherever and with whoever you want. That’s the security that you get with us that you really don’t get when you get your number from a phone company that’s trying to sell you their service and then keep you there. We can give you better more honest advice and better and faster service while empowering you!

Most people assume that a toll free number is expensive and that they’ll automatically get a lot of calls just because they have a toll free number. That would be great if it was that easy, but unfortunately it’s not. It takes more than just putting up a website to get customers and it takes more than just getting a toll free number to get your phone to ring (although some people do make money with misdials).

Read the rest about how an 800 number makes you look bigger even when you’re very small, just getting started!

1shopping cart was down for half the day yesterday and came back but it’s still having problems. People are reporting problems with the state selection. If you are having problems with the shopping cart, fill in the form as much as you can and either print it out and fax it to us at 800-FAX-0095 or email it to us. Please write on there a description of the problem and your compuer and browser details so that we can collect this information and try to track down the problem. I’m very sorry for any difficulty this creates and appreciate your patience as we attempt to deal with it as well.

The other day I needed to send a gift basket to someone. I usually look for the closest source to the recipient for gift baskets on the net with Google. Some locations don’t have websites, but I found one that had a decent website. I found a good basket that I liked fairly quickly and was at the shopping cart ready to pay for it within a couple minutes, but I felt like something was missing.

That thing that was missing was a way to reach a real person

We’ve posted about two dozen new original articles this month and this is a summary of most of them. The Wordle.net http://wordle.net image above is also an attractive way to summarize the words used in the articles as well. It’s been a busy month and hopefully this helps to make it easy to find any interesting articles.

Our NEW Toll Free Search Engine

The biggest news of the month is definitely the changes to our look up tool, now renamed the Toll Free Search Engine. It returns more results faster than ever before and really required changing the name because it really is a search engine now!

Click here to read the full article for all of the articles for the past month

Of course 1shoppingcart goes down again, right when we’re sending out the monthly 800 watch updates of new numbers available. I was so frustrated that I finally wrote a post for the 1ShoppingCartSUCKS.wordpress.com blog I registered last time I talked to their Technical Support. Anyway, I’m through trying to hide my frustration with 1sc but I do apologize for any difficulty or delay this causes our customers. The reservation form which doesn’t require the shopping cart is still working though. So feel free to reserve whatever number you want to activate and that will hold it securely until they fix the shopping cart.

UPDATE: The shopping cart was down from about 1:30pm till around 8:00pm. Now the question is what type of problems did their “maintenance” cause because it always causes other problems.

The new Toll Free Search Engine finds more Disconnected numbers so that’s what we’re putting on sale for the next two weeks. It’s less expensive to put disconnected numbers on backorder for the next two weeks. It’s ONLY 99 cents to request a Backorder and they’re also $50 off if we’re able to get them when they come out of disconnect, whenever they come out if you place the backorder now.

We don't put Backordered Numbers on Sale very often so don't delay.

The new data for September is online and the monthly 800watch emails will be going out starting Monday afternoon. There are some real gems available today so let the searching begin! But backorders will be confirmed a little slower since Rita’s power is out thanks to Ike.

Would you ever think of registering a memorable string of letters or numbers for a domain name that wasn’t related to your business, like pp900.com? Of course not! Then why would you think it was appropriate to use a nice numeric number just because it was easier to enter if it wasn’t related to your business.

For domain names it’s more important for the domain to be easy to remember and stick with the customer than it is for it to be easy to type. In pp900.com it has some repetition, and the p is near the 9 which is near the 0 key. It’s also much shorter than the typical domain name and it’s even available. It’s clearly easier to type than most of the domain names you see and use all of the time. And if you did enough advertising you could probably even make it memorable. I’m not sure exactly which this is so obviously wrong to people in terms of domain names but they think just taking an easy to dial string is acceptable and in some cases their preference on the phone.

More about vanity numbers vs numeric 800 numbers

“Mass Misdial Marketing” is the term we coined to describe companies that collect hundreds of thousands of toll free numbers strictly for the wrong numbers they receive. Wrong numbers are just a nuisance to most people but there are actually a couple companies that make a lot of money from wrong numbers. Most people have never heard of this because even if they run into this they don’t realize it’s a business and that the message they heard is really just an advertisement.

Read more about how these companies make money from wrong numbers.