Three options dominate the "cheap business phone number" conversation for solo tradies: Google Voice (free), OpenPhone ($15/month), and Twilio (pay-per-use). One of them will quietly cost you more than a van payment in lost jobs. One is genuinely solid. One is a developer tool you probably shouldn't touch.
Here's how to read the map.
Google Voice: Free Until It Isn't
The price is right. The problems start the day a customer tries to call you from a landline.
Google Voice has known spam-flagging issues. Carriers regularly tag Voice numbers as "potential spam" because the number pools are shared and abused by telemarketers. In practice, real customers see "Spam Risk" on their screen and don't pick up — or worse, they called you and your number showed up flagged on their missed calls.
There's no business SMS auto-reply, no call routing to a second person, no call recording for training or disputes. If you ever need to hand a call to an employee or a virtual receptionist, you can't — not cleanly.
For a side hustle testing the waters? Fine. For a real service business doing $5,000+ a month in revenue? The cost of one missed $800 job wipes out a year of "savings."
OpenPhone: The Actual Right Answer for 1–5 People
At $15 per user per month, OpenPhone gives you a real business number, shared inboxes, voicemail transcription, auto-replies, business hours settings, and call recording out of the box.
The number is ported to a dedicated pool. Spam flagging is rare. Your team members can all see the same inbox, which means if you're on a roof and a lead calls, someone else can respond. That alone is worth the price.
The real number is this: one extra booked job per month — a job that would have gone to voicemail and been lost — is worth anywhere from $300 to $2,000 depending on your trade. OpenPhone costs $180 a year for a solo operator. The math is not complicated.
The one gotcha: OpenPhone is VoIP, so call quality drops if your internet or cell signal is weak. On a job site with poor signal, forward calls to your mobile number through the app settings before you go up the ladder.
Twilio: Not for You
Twilio is what developers use to build phone systems. It's pay-per-use — roughly $1/month per number, $0.0085 per minute, $0.0079 per SMS — and it's extraordinarily powerful if you have someone writing code to configure it.
You don't.
Without custom development, Twilio is a blank phone number that does nothing. There's no interface. No app. You're looking at a dashboard full of API documentation. Some AI call tools (including VettedCalls) are built on Twilio infrastructure on the backend — but that's invisible to you as the end user, and it's not the same as subscribing to Twilio yourself.
If someone on a Facebook group told you to "just use Twilio, it's cheaper," they're a developer describing their own workflow. It doesn't apply to yours.
The Gotcha Nobody Talks About: Porting
Whichever service you pick, think about porting before you commit.
If you've had your personal cell number on your truck wrap, website, and Google Business Profile for three years, that number is your brand. You can usually port it into OpenPhone or Google Voice — but the process takes 2–10 business days and can fail if you have an active device installment plan on the account.
Plan the port before you print new materials. Don't announce a new number, put it on your van, then realize the old number still rings your personal phone for the next two weeks while customers get confused.
Second gotcha: free trials. Both OpenPhone and Google Voice let you start with a temporary number. Don't give that number to customers. Get your permanent number sorted first, then start handing it out.
Which One to Pick
Solo, low volume, testing the market: Google Voice, eyes open about the spam risk.
One to five employees, real business: OpenPhone at $15/user/month. No contest.
Building a custom AI call system or automations: find a developer who knows Twilio. Don't DIY it.
The goal isn't the cheapest phone bill. The goal is that every call that comes in gets answered, logged, and followed up. The number on your truck is a sales asset. Treat it like one.
This week's move
Log into your Google Business Profile today and call your own business number from a different phone to confirm it rings correctly, isn't flagged as spam, and reaches a real response — not a dead voicemail.
Forward this
If another tradie you know is still losing leads to voicemail, send them VettedCalls.