With a free USA virtual mobile number, you have the power to receive SMS verification codes and call at all times from anywhere in the world. No matter whether you are settled abroad, travel often or work remotely, you can always enjoy your virtual presence in the United States.
Google Voice changed that by actually taking over your phone’s calls and texts and making them smarter, but it requires you to have a U.S. number.
Twilio is an open PaaS platform for cloud services. It’s turned voice calls and SMS messages into an API that you can easily integrate with another app. Although Twilio is aiming at developers, for us who aren’t developers—especially those who live abroad. It’s an easy way to get a phone number in dozens of countries, make calls on the cheap to almost anywhere, automate text messages
Since Twilio provides free trial money for trial accounts to buy U.S. phone numbers, we can use Twilio to call and SMS messages, especially receive verification SMS online.
Creating a new Twilio account will get a $15.50 trial credit, which can be used to buy a U.S. phone number to receive and send text messages. Twilio will deduct a US number monthly fee of $1 and a fee for sending and receiving text messages from the trial fee.
Basically, numbers cost $1/month. Trial money can be used for 1 year.
If you need to keep the number later, you need to add credit to Twilio, with a minimum deposit of $20 from PayPal.
First, sign up for your free Twilio trial account. The signup process includes verifying your personal phone number: this is a security measure that is mandatory before you can try Twilio. If you upgrade to a paid user, you will not have this restriction on the need to verify before sending text messages.
1.The Twilio Setup
Sign up for your free Twilio trial
Vist www.twilio.com/referral/U9yonT in your browser to get an additional $10 trial credit through my referral, then, click sign up at the top right of the page to enter the registration page.
2.Verify Email
Open the email and click the Confirm Your Email link.
3. Verify your personal phone number
When you signed up for your trial account, you verified your personal phone number. You can see your list of verified phone numbers.
You must verify any non-Twilio phone numbers you wish to send SMS messages or MMS messages, or place phone calls to while in trial mode. This is an extra security measure for trial accounts that we remove once you upgrade your account. You may verify as many phone numbers as you like.
To make other non-Twilio phone numbers available to you in trial mode:
I use the Philippine number in cloakmobile.com, to receive the verification code.
4.Select your needs
Twilio is aimming to software developers, not a SMS receiving platform. If you don’t know how to fill it out, you can also fill in the options below.
5. Get a small preloaded balance
Twilio gives you a small preloaded balance to test out Twilio’s functionality. You will not be charged for Twilio phone numbers or usage until you upgrade. You’ll get a new US phone number
2. Buy new US phone number
After signing up for your trial account, navigate to the Phone Numbers page in your console. Click Buy a Number to purchase your first Twilio number.
On the “Buy a Number” page you’ll see a list of all available numbers as well as their capabilities (Voice, SMS, MMS, and Fax). You can customize the country and area code, as well as select any of the capabilities you’d like this number to have. When you find the one that meets your needs click Buy to review the number.
For example, here I got the number 216-508-7135. Click choose this number if you like it. If you don’t like it, click Cancel. Then go back to the previous step and click Get a Trial Number to get a new number.
Of course, you can also choose other numbers outside the United States. Click the image below to search for a different number to get other country numbers.
The monthly fee for other country numbers is 1 to 15 US dollars. The key is that the free trial fee cannot be used to pay for the number of countries outside the United States.
If you don’t use your phone number for more than 30 days, Twillio will remove it from your trial project. If you decide to return, you can always pick a new phone number.
3. How to release a Twilio phone number
Twilio only allow one Twilio phone number per trial project. If you select a number or choose your own and decide that you’d like a different phone number, you must first release your current number, then pick a new number from the Buy a Number page.
To release your current Twilio phone number:
- Go to the Manage Numbers page.
- Click on the number you would like to release.
- Click on the link at the bottom of the screen that reads Release this Number:
4. Check whether the number is a mobile number
US phone numbers are divided into mobile phone numbers and fixed numbers, both of which are 10 digits in format. We can use the freecarrierlookup.com website to find out if a US number is mobile or fixed. Query the Twillio number, it can be seen that is wireless is y, indicating that it is the mobile phone number. Number Carrier: Twilio/Inteliquent (SMS-Sybase) (MMS-SVR)
5. Inquiry number fraud score
I use the US number lookup tool realphonevalidation.com to look up Twillio’s fraud score (the higher the score, the lower the quality of the number). The Twillio number here scored 645 points, same as Knowroaming, Piranha Mobile, not high quality.
The query results page contains a lot of information:
- Phone Type: Phone type, mobile phone and fixed, and VOIP
- Risk Level: Risk level, the higher the level, the greater the risk
- Recommendation: Recommendation, the website will give a suggestion for the query number, either allow, or block, and also have marks. Recommendations for this number base used by some platforms for screening of registered phone numbers
- Score: refers to the risk score, the higher the more unreliable
- Carrier: the carrier of the displayed number
- Location-City: You can query the city and country information of the number attributable to
6 . Receive SMS Message with Twilio
Click on your number in the main menu # -> Phone Numbers -> Number column.
Click Message Log –> Incoming –> Hover the mouse cursor to your number under the To column, you can see the content of the received text message in the pop-up prompt box
7 . Send an SMS Message with Twilio
You cannot send SMS messages from your personal phone number with Twilio, whether on a paid or a trial plan. You can always send messages from Twilio numbers.
When you send an SMS from your free trial phone number, it will always begin with “Sent from a Twilio trial account.” We remove this message after you upgrade.
While in trial mode, you can only send messages to non-Twilio phone numbers you’ve verified with Twilio.
While in trial mode, you cannot send messages using an alphanumeric sender ID
This number is restricted to domestic calls and messages and has Voice, SMS, and MMS capabilities.
You can send international messages from your trial project as long as you:
Add SMS recipient number. Go to Phone Numbers –> Verified Caller IDs –> + in the red circle
Remember, you can only send messages to verified phone numbers when you’re in trial mode. Make sure you verify the international phone number you’re sending to in the Console.
In the pop-up window, select text you instead (send text messages instead of calling for verification), select the country, and enter the phone number to receive the verification code. Then submit the verification code and add the number successfully.
3 Create an SMS program. Go to Programmable Messaging – Messaging Services – Create Messaging Service
4. Enter the Messaging Service information service name, and then click Create
5. Add the current number to the SMS program. Click start set up to start the SMS program you just created. Then select Add this number
6. Go to Programmable Messaging –> Try it Out –> Try SMS
7. Enter the recipient number in turn, select the SMS program, and enter the content of the SMS. Send test SMS to send text messages.
8 .To view the text messages in the outbox, click on the main menu # –> Phone Numbers –> Your number under the Number column –> Message Log –> Outgoing
Sending from a Twilio number to a US number requires registration of brand and advertising information, so there is no registered brand information, so even if the sending to a US number is successful, the SMS cannot be received.
In addition, when the recipient’s number is added to China or the United Kingdom, the text message cannot be sent successfully. The reason is that sending to this area is not supported for free users
8. Elastic SIP Trunking
When you sign up for Twilio, you will get a free telephone number and a free trunk. You can fully configure this SIP Trunk for testing and placing actual calls to and from your business. Twilio Trial accounts can take full advantage of SIP Trunking services for testing, there are a few restrictions that apply only to trial accounts. Keep these in mind as you develop:
Trial Accounts have a maximum of:
- 1 unique SIP trunk
- 1 origination phone number
- 1 Trunking termination call per second (CPS)
- 4 concurrent calls
9. Trial Account restrictions and limitations
The processes for sending messages, making phone calls, and setting up an Elastic SIP Trunk are the same for a trial account as a full paid account. However, there are some restrictions and limitations imposed while you are in trial mode.
If your Twilio needs to expand, or you need to accomplish something that isn’t available to your trial account, you’ll need to upgrade your trial account to a full paid account. All you need to do to upgrade is provide payment information — your credit card details or Paypal account — on the billing page.
10. Conclusion
Twilio’s 1-year free US number to receive text messages is a great resource.
I need it