I needed to change my mobile number recently after almost two decades with the same number — the old number was fairly memorable and easy to recite, but the thought of being assigned a completely random one didn’t seem great, so I went in search of a much cooler number.
The number I ended up with is very memorable (just 3 different characters make up the entire number), and I got it in a somewhat unconventional way, so I thought I’d share the technique as it’s very simple, and only costs ~£1.50 instead of the thousands I could have paid for this number at any one of the sites that sell unique and interesting UK mobile numbers.
This number is similar in structure to my new one, but uses 4 different digits to make up the number instead of 3, and is ~1300x more expensive.
Enter Twilio
Twilio is a cloud comms platform that enables businesses to integrate various communication channels — such as email, voice, WhatsApp, and SMS — via an API.
I use it for half a dozen still-active projects, and while I mostly use those numbers for business voicemail, or simple phone menus before the call is routed to myself or someone else at one of the companies, one very interesting aspect of the service is that it allows you to buy phone numbers — both landline and mobile, very cheaply.
We all have our weaknesses. Some people have gambling addictions. For others it’s Netflix binges. And some find comfort in spending eye-watering amounts on shoes.
I have many: I’m incredibly bad at responding to people quickly. I’m unfocused as the day is long. But more on topic, I’m a pathological domain name hoarder with literally hundreds tucked away either as tired reminders of projects that never got off the ground, or as investments (including a couple of four letter .com’s).
It’s clearly a deep-seated personality issue since over the past five years or so I’ve been doing the same with really unique phone numbers on Twilio. I typically only buy them for active projects that are actually getting some traction for customer support and so on, but when I do, I tend to buy 2-3 since Twilio’s search function is a little lacking, it’s often impossible to find the same number seconds later.
(If they were highly desirable numbers I couldn’t find again, I’d chalk it up to them being bought out from under me — but how many people want a landline number with the area code of a small village my mum lives in that spells ‘ROWESK’, as just one of dozens of examples)
So when I’m searching for something specific, I’ll buy a couple of really great numbers as soon as they pop up with the intent to choose just one to use in production and cancel the rest — but as with excellent domains, how can you just release such a great piece of digital real-estate into the ether?
In any case, since I was ready to switch number and carrier and had all of these great mobile numbers collecting dust in my Twilio console, I emailed them and asked if they were able to give me a PAC code my new carrier could use to port the number with.
And to my surprise, they responded a few minutes later, confirming I’d have a PAC number within 48 hours!
It was that easy.
I gave it to my new carrier and it’d the number I use today!
Step by Step:
- Sign up to Twilio if you haven’t already and in the dashboard, under “Phone Numbers” create a new ‘Bundle’. This is some basic KYC to confirm you’re eligible to buy numbers in a particular country and takes a couple of minutes. If you’re following along, since you’ll be using this as a personal number, register the bundle as an individual instead of as a business — the process is then much faster and is typically automated. It should take seconds to confirm, but can take up to 24 hours, so sit tight!
- Once you’ve been approved, Under Phone Numbers > Manage, select Buy a Number. Choose the filters that work for you (the ones I use are below) then search for the pattern you’d like in the number!
- Since really, really good numbers are rare even on Twilio, you might not find what you’re looking for straight away, but their inventory seems to be updated daily, so check back often if you can’t find it.
- Once you have your new mobile number, navigate to Twilio’s help section, ask the AI bot “How do I get a PAC code for a Twilio UK mobile number to move it to a new carrier?”. It’ll give you the next few steps and will offer to submit your ticket and have a human agent respond. Choose that, and you should receive an email with a PAC code in 24-48 hours.
Easy as that!
Tips from buying 50+ phone numbers:
- As mentioned, numbers seem to disappear from the search frequently — even un-aesthetic random numbers — so if you see something you feel pretty confident you like, but aren’t 100% sure, buy it, you might not be able to find it again. Consider it insurance. Spending £6 before you spot the perfect number is still hundreds (possibly thousands) of times cheaper than buying a very similar number from a broker.
- Consider how the number is said out loud — it’s often very easy to get repeating patterns of numbers, and almost impossible to get an ultra rare number with five 2’s in, for example.
- Consider how the number is typed — if it’s a number people might type in their phone’s number pad and not just something they’ll click on a website. This makes “36963” far easier to type than “19191” and just as aesthetic while being less desirable and thus more likely to be available.
- There is a REST API for searching for and buying numbers if you want to get weird [docs here] — but if you just had to have that number ending in “22222” running that search every 30 minutes and alerting you on a match is probably the most likely way of snapping it up before someone else does.
Good luck number hunting!