Most solo tradies are either giving out their personal cell to every customer on the planet, or paying $40–$60 a month for a dedicated business line they forward to that same personal cell anyway.
Both are bad deals.
You don't need a separate line. You need a separate identity — a business number that behaves differently from your personal number, costs almost nothing, and lets you know before you answer whether you're picking up a job or a text from your mother-in-law.
The actual problem you're solving
When every call hits the same number, you lose control.
You can't set different voicemail for business hours. You can't see "this is a job call" before you pick up. You can't hand the number off to an answering service or AI screener without also handing off your personal digits. And when a customer Googles you and calls at 10 PM on a Sunday, your phone rings with zero context.
The fix isn't a second phone. It's a second number that routes to your existing phone — with its own caller ID, its own greeting, its own rules.
The $5 solution that actually works
Google Voice gives you a free US business number you can ring straight to your cell. Free is fine to start, but the Google Workspace version (currently $6/mo on the Starter plan) adds voicemail transcription, do-not-disturb scheduling, and a proper business greeting. If you want SMS features and call recording baked in, OpenPhone runs $15/mo and is built specifically for this use case.
In practice, most solo operators don't need anything above the $10–$15/mo tier.
You get a number with your local area code. You put that number on your truck, your Google Business Profile, your invoices, and your website. Your personal number goes to family and existing contacts only. From day one, every unknown ring on your cell is a potential job — because the people who have your personal number already know you.
That context alone is worth the $5.
How to set it up in 20 minutes
Pick your provider — Google Voice, OpenPhone, or Grasshopper all work. Grab a local number in your area code. Record a short business greeting (your name, trade, and "leave your name, number, and what you need"). Set after-hours calls to go straight to voicemail instead of ringing through. Forward the number to your cell during business hours.
Done.
You now have a business identity without a second phone, second SIM, or second contract.
What this unlocks
Once your business number is separate, you can start making smarter decisions with it.
You can route it through VettedCalls so an AI screens and qualifies the lead before it ever rings your phone — which matters when you're 30 feet up a ladder or under a sink. You can see in your call log exactly how many inbound leads you got this week. You can swap the number onto a new phone without notifying a single customer. And if you ever hire someone or sell the business, the number goes with the business, not with you personally.
In practice, the tradies who mix personal and business numbers end up losing leads two ways: they miss calls because they didn't recognize the number, and they answer calls they didn't want because they couldn't tell the difference.
A separate business identity solves both.
The real number is this — missing one booked job because you screened an unknown number probably costs you more than a full year of whatever tool you pick. A $500 job lost to a missed call is 4 years of OpenPhone. Do the math once, make the switch today.
This week's move
Go to voice.google.com right now, claim a local number in your area code, and update your Google Business Profile to show it as your primary contact number before end of day.
Forward this
If another tradie you know is still losing leads to voicemail, send them VettedCalls.