You are paying somewhere between $80 and $120 a month for a business phone line that does nothing a $15 VoIP number couldn't do.
That's $840 to $1,440 a year leaving your pocket for the privilege of having a second phone or a second SIM that rings, takes voicemails you ignore, and sits in your work truck.
Here's the fix. It takes one afternoon, costs almost nothing to set up, and in practice saves most solo tradies right around $70 a month from day one.
Why You're Overpaying
The carriers know tradies feel like they need a "real" business line. So they charge for it.
A standard small-business mobile plan from any of the major carriers runs $85-115/month per line. You're paying for a network allocation, a physical SIM, and a billing department that markets to you constantly.
What you actually need: a number that looks professional, rings to your phone, and can be screened or forwarded when you're on a roof or under a sink. That's a software problem, not a hardware problem.
The Stack That Replaces It
Two pieces. That's it.
An eSIM data plan. Carriers like Visible, Mint Mobile, or US Mobile sell unlimited data eSIM plans for $25-35/month. No physical SIM. No contract. Your existing unlocked phone adds it in Settings in about four minutes. This becomes your data backbone.
A VoIP business number. Services like Google Voice (free for personal, $10/mo for Workspace), OpenPhone, or Grasshopper give you a real local number, call forwarding, voicemail transcription, and business-hours rules for $10-20/month. Your clients call that number. It rings your phone over data or WiFi. Nobody knows the difference.
Total monthly cost: $35 (eSIM) + $15 (VoIP) = $50/month.
Compare that to $120 for a business line. You just freed up $70 a month, every month, without losing a single incoming lead.
The Porting Process (Plain English)
Before you cancel anything, get your VoIP number set up and test it for a week. Forward calls from your old number to the new one during the transition. Most carriers let you do this for free.
Then port your existing business number into the VoIP service if you want to keep it. Porting takes 1-3 business days. You fill out a form, give them your account number and PIN from your current carrier, and they pull it over. Your old carrier is required by law to release the number.
Once porting is confirmed, cancel the old plan.
The whole process: one afternoon of setup, a few days of overlap, then you're done.
The One Thing That Can Kill This Setup
If you're away from data coverage frequently — dead zones on rural job sites — test your eSIM carrier's coverage map before you commit. Mint Mobile runs on T-Mobile's network. Visible runs on Verizon. US Mobile lets you choose. Match the network to where you actually work, not where you live.
A dropped call from a hot lead costs more than the $70 you saved.
The real number on this: about 80% of tradies working in suburban and metro areas will have zero coverage issues switching to the eSIM-plus-VoIP stack. If you're in a rural county doing well service or septic work, test first.
Where Call Screening Fits In
Once your number lives in a VoIP layer, you can bolt on AI call screening — like VettedCalls — without any extra hardware. It just sits in front of the VoIP number and handles the spam, the time-wasters, and the after-hours calls before they ever ring through to you.
The infrastructure you built to save $70/month also becomes the infrastructure that stops you from answering a call mid-job only to find out it's a warranty scammer.
One stack. Lower cost. Smarter routing.
This week's move
Pull up your current carrier's app right now, find your exact monthly bill and contract end date, and text yourself the number — that's your starting point before you do anything else.
Forward this
If another tradie you know is still losing leads to voicemail, send them VettedCalls.