What are the best phone number validation tools for US numbers?
Here's our breakdown of must-try phone number validators for the US market.
Abstract
Available in multiple libraries with documentation and code guidance, Abstract’s phone number validator is easy to implement and maintain. There’s also documentation on how it can be implemented with jQuery. It’s designed to be fast and to scale to all levels of use cases from small organizations right up to enterprise level.
This phone validator API can detect both landline and mobile phone numbers. It’s also capable of geolocation and encrypts data using 256-bit SSL encryption. There’s a free version available for non-commercial use cases. The only major difference between this and the paid tiers is the level of API calls that it can make per month and per second.
Best for
A great all-rounder capable of scaling to many different use cases and it supports over 190 countries across the world.
Cons
- Supports fewer countries than some other APIs so check the list of supported countries first
Pricing
- Free, 250/month, 1/sec, $0
- Starter, 1,000/month, 3/sec, $9
- Pro, 7,000/month, 10/sec, $49
- Enterprise, 75,000/month, 100/sec, $499
Veriphone
Veriphone offers detailed information on phone numbers in all of Earth’s 248 countries. That makes is a great option for truly global businesses where the need to ensure that lists of international phone numbers are kept current is critical. It also has the capability to carry out bulk phone number validation via upload of CSV files.
Best for
The Veriphone phone validator API has lead scoring functionality which makes it a great choice for global marketing campaigns.
Cons
- Hard to find customer reviews, so its capabilities may need to be tested extensively
- Uses a credit system, so assess your likely level of usage first
Pricing
- Starter, 5,000/month, $6.99
- Professional, 50,000/month, $29
- Business, 250,000/month, $79
- Enterprise, 1,000,000/month, $199
Vonage Number Insight
This phone validation tool enables businesses to establish the legitimacy of personal and business numbers. Phone validation features include functionality to detect if a phone number was recently transferred to a new phone company.
Best for
The real time analytics may prove very useful in support of marketing campaigns phone number verification is essential to maintain clean lists free of invalid phone numbers.
Cons
- The pay per phone number may prove expensive in high use cases so assess carefully first
- Features are locked behind higher price tiers
Pricing
- Basic, 5,000/month, $0
- Standard, 50,000/month, $0.0056 per phone number
- Advanced, 250,000/month, $0.0333 per phone number
Byteplant
Byteplant’s phone number verification tool has been designed to integrate with applications including web forms and mobile apps. This ensures that only active phone numbers make it onto your marketing list to increase business performance.
Best for
Customer facing solutions where its WordPress plugins are going to be maximally useful. If a business is already using Zapier, then the Byteplant phone verification API can integrate with that service.
Cons
- Marketing relevant features but no analytics
Pricing
This phone number validator tool doesn’t have a pricing structure as you might see with other services. Instead, you purchase a certain number of credits which never expire.
NumVerify
NumVerify is a phone number validator that help ensure that only accurate phone numbers are stored. It can also cleanse phone numbers that are inaccurate from marketing lists. Keeping phone data up to date ensures that only good leads are kept to help maximize revenue opportunities.
Best for
With phone validation supporting automated phone number validation work in about 232 countries, it’s best for high levels of use in an international commercial context. There’s also very few differences between the different price tiers, but there is a big exception.
Cons
- The free version is limited and unencrypted
Pricing
- Free, 100/month, $0
- Basic, 5,000/month, $9.99
- Professional, 50,000/month, $39.99
- Enterprise, 250,000/month, $99.99
How phone number validation works
Phone validation works by sending a call to a database via an API. By sourcing this information, a company can validate a phone number by automatically comparing that phone number to expected formats for that country to ensure that it’s a valid number.
This means that, when selecting a phone number validation tool, it’s important to establish how often services verify that their phone data is current. If it isn’t updated regularly, your phone validation tool is going to be an expense that doesn’t deliver for you.
What to look for in a validation tool for US numbers
In the USA, phone number validation service has to have the capability to verify phone numbers irrespective of line type. Put simply, it needs to be as effective with a landline as it is with a cell phone. It needs to be capable of detecting carrier name because mobile usage is today can fluctuate with people willing to change carrier or even cell phone regularly.
Not only does phone validation need to be capable of following customer use patterns, it needs to support your business appropriately. For example, if you need to send text messages to customers as part of sales efforts, then the capability to generate real time analytics is going to be important too.
Why verifying phone numbers is important
The capability to validate phone numbers using a phone verification tool is important because a customer or lead database is only going to grow over time. Therefore, you’re quickly going to reach a point where the phone data you’re storing scales beyond the capability of a sales assistant to stay on top if it manually. Also, is that really a good use of their time? You should be keeping them focused on productive tasks and automating low value tasks like validating phone numbers.
Not only will this save time, it’ll save money because you won’t be calling invalid phone numbers. You won’t be doing text message marketing to wrong numbers.
Also, bear in mind that services such as whocalledme exist to enable users to log the phone number of nuisance callers with a comment. This means that a company can very quickly develop a bad reputation simply by failing to store validated phone numbers. Remember: brand reputation is lost quickly and cheaply, and is gained slowly and expensively.
