The main purpose of our whole site is to help you find a great toll free number that will increase the response rate of all your advertising.  This section explains the basic search process.  It doesn’t go to deep in the specifics of our two lookup tools, the Instant 800 Lookup and the Keyword Lookup because there are seperatesections for each of those.  There is also a seperate section called Consulting that explains how to dig deeper when a number says it’s not available (in use).

Regular phone companies (see Providers section for a list) do a fine job of providing the ongoing toll free service, but it’s gotten extremely hard to get even reasonable vanity numbers today.  The regular phone companies aren’t much help so we’ve developed this service to help you find the best number for your business. 

We activate number faster than anyone else, give you better proof of ownership than anyone else, give you free temporary service to get it started, and then help transfer the number to any carrier or service you want for the ongoing service.  But it all starts wth the Search Process which is our main focus, wich is why our one time fee is technically a “Search Fee”.

We’re kind of like the GoDaddy of the toll free world.  We do all of this for just a one time search fee of $49 for regular activations.  We’ve got a lot of information and great tools all designed to help you find a more memorable number that’ll increase the response rate for all of your advertising.

The first thing to explain about the search process is that there are TWO main look up tools on our site, at TollFreeNumbers.com.  The first one many people tend to start with on their first visit is the Instant 800 Lookup which checks specific numbers live into the database.  It’s on the top of almost every page.  If it says a number is “Currently Available” that means it’s really available at that moment.  For more information and the details about the Instant 800 Lookup see the #3 button on the keypad.

The other lookup tool is the Keyword Lookup which is on the left side of most pages.  It’s more like a search engine that takes your keywords and emails you a huge list of possible numbers for almost any words or phrases.  This is the one most returning visitors use because it’s so much easier to let the computer do all of the work and just send you a list of possibilities.  There’s a whole section of our site with more information about the Keyword Lookup.  It’s #9 on the keypad.

The Instant 800 Lookup on the top of the page allows you to check any specific number (with letters or digits).  When it says “In use”, that means that number is NOT available because it’s already active for another customer.  I’m sure that sounds obvious to most people but you wouldn’t believe the number of people that ask if that means it’s “available.” 

The Instant 800 Lookup checks live into the SMS800 database and if it’s available it will say “Currently Available” and give you links to Activate or Reserve the number for 15 days.  It will also show a couple other things when it’s able including numbers in disconnect which can be backordered.  There is more information on the messages and what they mean in the Instant 800 Lookup section.

People usually start with the Instant 800 Lookup because they generally come with a number or a couple numbers in mind. Unfortunately the first thing they think of isn’t usually available, because it’s usually the first thing most people in their business think of first too. That’s why we made the 2nd Lookup, the Keyword Search, which takes your keywords and does all of the research and emails you an extensive list of all the possible numbers. After you’ve tried a couple times with the Instant Lookup, you should definitely try the Keyword Search. It does hours and hours of research for you and emails an remarkable list of possibilities in about two minutes. And it’s amazingly easier to just pick from a large list of available or soon to be available numbers than to dream them all up and check them one at a time yourself.

When you use the Keyword Search, just make sure you watch your spam or bulk folder for a couple minutes because the email lists usually wind up in there in a minute or two. Then just click on any number you want or go back to TollFreeNumbers.com and enter it into the Instant 800 Lookup. You’ll get the status and the options to activate or backorder the number if it’s available, depending on the status of the number in the Search Results.

We give you amazing tools on the web so you can do it all right online yourself. But if you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call or email us. We really can’t take orders or do sarche over phone but we really want to help you if you have any problems or questions.

TIP: You shouldn’t decide what house to buy before checking to see if it’s for sale, and you shouldn’t decide what phone number you want before you check to see if it’s available or not.

You have to be careful who you tell what you’re looking for in the toll free business.  Our 800 lookup tools don’t reserve or do anything unless you specifically request it, but some other sites are set up to automatically reserve everything anyone finds available so that they have of get the service from them.  So you could find a number available here and then go to a different site to check it and wind up reserving it there dd be stuck ith their more expensive service.

Some “shared use” sites are even worse.  They will reserve a number that was available and you could have gotten from another service, and they’ll say it’s now their number but they’ll “rent” it to you for several hundred dollars per month.  They’ll even reserve all of the related numbers too just so that you can’t find any other alternatives anywhere else.

Every other service providing any type of lookup is doing this to “sell” the use of their service.  Our site is literally the ONLY lookup tool like this that isn’t designed to sell you our ongoing service or rented numbers.  You own any number you find with our system and can take any number you find with us, to any toll free service you want.  It takes a significant amount of resources to provide this service (over 25,000 dollars a month) but we prefer to earn your business just by doing a better job, not by trapping anyone.  But there are a lot of traps out there so be very cautious who you tell what number you’re looking for.

See also: When another phone company tries to steal your number…

The solution and single most important piece of advice that I always give anyone searching for a good number is to be CREATIVE!  People very often get stuck on their first thought and start the checking and pursuing that before they have thought about and ome up with all of the possibilities.  Working as a consultant a lot of my job used to be to just take a couple words and be thorough and creative to put together all of the possibilities. 

I link to a few Brainstorming Resources that can help but the best tool is our own Keyword Lookup.  The third section of the emailed search results from the Keyword Lookup is our More Creative Section.  It looks for words related to the terms you entered.  If you put in the word LIMO it’s going to find things with the word CHAUFFER, TOWN CAR, or STRETCH, even though you didn’t give it any of those terms. 

No matter how sure you think you are, if you haven’t figured out all of the options you really can’t say what’s ultimately the best or even the best one available.  I used to tell people they had to think up 50 to 100 possibilities or they weren’t trying hard enough.  Now the computer does a lot of that for you checking literally thousands of numbers in seconds with the Keyword Lookup.  Try it a few times if necessary and it’ll give you a lot of options and help you with the creativity part some too.

Know what you want but take what you can get.

If you haven’t found a decent number (notice I didn’t say the “Perfect” number) keep looking.  Don’t expect to find the perfect number.  If you do great, but don’t beat yourself up if you don’t get your dream number.  You probably don’t drive your dream car, but that doesn’t mean it won’t get you where you need to go. 

After you’re more successful, you can always pursue your dream number when you’ve got more resources and have proven your business.  When you start out a new business you don’t usually expect to have everything perfect.  You probably can’t afford to get all of the equipment you might want, the perfect employees or the perfect office.  I always say it’s great to know what want, but you also have to take what you can get sometimes too.

Numeric numbers available

If you didn’t find a decent vanity number we have some lists of nice numeric numbers available too.  They are repeaters, hundred or thousand numbers in different combinations.  They’re more than numbers from the spare pool because they’re harder to get and in many ways they’re not as valuable in many circumstances.  They may be a good backup though if you can’t find anything that really works in terms of a vanity number but you still want a good number.

A section about digging deeper

I’ll show you some more of the secrets to getting something that’s not available in my Consulting Section, but before you go digging deeper you really need to get a backup because there’s at least a reasonable chance that you won’t get that perfect number.  I know more than anyone, how incredibly valuable a great number can be and it doesn’t hurt too much to try, but I also know how hard it is and how often it doesn’t work too.  You can have more than one number too, so even if you do get that great number, your backup number will still be very valuable for tracking special projects too.  (See Tracking Services in the Providers Section)

If you did find a number you like, check it in the Instant 800 Lookup and it’ll show you the status and give you the options to activate or reserve it if it’s available, or to backorder it if it’s disconnected.  There’s more information about activations, reservations, and backorders, but to summarize it for you briefly, we not only do a better job of helping you find the best number, but we also activate it faster than anyone else, give you better proof of ownership than anyone else, give you free temporary service and finally we release your number to any company you want faster than anyone else too, all for only $49!