What is a Local Vanity Phone Number?
A local vanity phone number is a phone number with a local area code that spells a word or phrase related to your business. For example, 708-ROOFING, 312-LAW-FIRM, or 847-PLUMBER. The number forwards all calls to any phone you choose. Customers remember a vanity number far more easily than a random 10-digit number, making every piece of advertising you run more effective.
A vanity phone number is a number that spells something, and a local vanity phone number is a local (non-toll-free) number that spells a word or phrase related to your business. Local vanity numbers are harder to get than toll-free vanity numbers, because local numbers are given out slowly over 50-100 years but you can generally only get the local numbers that were given out in the past 6-12 months. And they're not in a searchable database like toll-free numbers that anyone can pull from.
Advantages of Local Vanity Numbers vs Toll-Free Vanity Numbers
The first and most important advantage of a local vanity number is that it says you're the local expert, and customers trust and want to buy from someone local. This combined with the instant credibility it gives you, establishes you as the de facto industry leader, right in their local area, all in just 10 characters!
Increases the Response Rate of All Your Advertising
The dollars and sense reason to get a more memorable front door to your business is simply that it increases the response rate of all your advertising by 10-30%. That means it pays for itself with just a few hundred dollars per month of advertising. But even a startup that isn't doing any advertising yet benefits tremendously from a good vanity number because it gives you the instant credibility of looking like the local industry leader right out of the box.
Creates a Brand Name
One of the big differences between this $79 investment and even investments thousands of times bigger, is that this tiny investment gives your whole business an instant and memorable brand name. That's why we recommend registering the matching domain name — if your number is 708-ROOFING, grab 708roofing.com too.
It's hard to get a good domain name, especially a short simple 10 character domain name. But having a matching phone number and domain name creates a killer combination that says who you are, what you do and how to reach you on the phone and internet, all in one memorable package.
Local Numbers Are More Textable
More and more customers want to text you questions, and customers are more comfortable texting local numbers than toll-free numbers. You'll get texts on the vanity number at no additional cost, forwarded via email.
No Incoming Call Cost
Toll-free numbers are free for the caller, but so are local phone calls. The difference is that you have to pay for the cost of the incoming calls with a toll-free number. You don't pay for incoming calls on a local number.
1/10th the Cost of Toll-Free
Generic toll-free vanity numbers can go for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, not because they're 100 times more effective, but because there are 100 times as many prospective businesses to sell to and sellers feel like they have to hold out for a larger business. Local vanity numbers are harder to get than toll-free numbers but they're 1/10th the cost or less. The specificity makes it both more effective and less expensive!
Simple, Transparent Pricing
One Price for Every Number
LVN has simplified the process in order to lower the cost and make it up by selling more. It's the only vanity number site where ALL numbers cost the same $79 per month ($2.63 per day) with no setup fee and no contract. Every other site charges as much as they think they can get for every number, which means the prices vary and therefore are negotiable. Here every number is the same price, there's nothing to negotiate. The price is the price, and it's already lower than what you'd pay anywhere else.
Why Not Free?
The price has to be high enough that it takes an actual business need to subscribe. If numbers were free or too cheap, people would grab them just because they could, and the number that would make a real difference to your business wouldn't be available. Regular phone companies have given them away to anyone for free, for a hundred years. That sounds great, but it ultimately means that the rare numbers that would make a huge difference to your business are never available.
First Come, First Served
We balance these two strategies with one simple flat fee, lower than anyone else in the industry, and give them away on a first come first served basis. We feel this makes the most valuable numbers available to the most possible customers, with an easy inexpensive monthly option and the option to own it with no strings too. There's no hidden cost or additional fees.
How to Search for Local Vanity Numbers
Searching for local vanity numbers is fundamentally different from searching for toll-free vanity numbers, and most people don't realize why.
Local phone numbers are issued by phone companies in blocks of 1,000 or 10,000 at a time, typically spread over 50-100 years. Most phone companies only make numbers available that were given to them within the past 6-12 months. That means barely 1% of all potential local numbers are actually available at any one time — even if you knew which company they were issued to, and even if that company would let you pick whatever number you wanted from their inventory. Neither of those things is true.
That's why you can't just call your phone company and ask for a specific local vanity number the way you can search a database of toll-free numbers. The system wasn't designed for it.
In an effort to solve this, LocalVanityNumbers.com has searched for potentially useful vanity numbers with all the major carriers for years, building a huge inventory of options organized by area code and industry — so you can browse what's actually available right now, instead of guessing and hoping.
An Investment, Not an Expense — You Own It After 48 Payments (4 Years)
Every other vanity number provider rents numbers to you forever. You pay every month — or thousands up front — and you never own the number. The day you stop paying, it goes back to them, even after you've put it on every truck, billboard, and business card you own. They can turn around and rent it to your competitor and build their business on the recognition you paid to create.
After 48 monthly payments (4 years), you own the number outright. We transfer it into your own account in your name, and from that point forward there are no more monthly fees, ever. You can keep it, move it to any carrier, call from it, text from it — it's yours the same way you own your cell phone number.
Think of it as 0% financing on a mortgage with no money down, instead of renting. Rent can go up and the landlord can take the place back. With a mortgage, every payment builds equity, and at the end the deed is yours. That makes your $79/month payment an investment, not an expense. They rent forever. We finance you to ownership.
And the buyout figure drops every month. 48 × $79 = $3,792 total at the start. After a year of payments you've already shaved $948 off. If you ever decide to own it outright, prepay the remaining balance at any point that's convenient for you — not up front, not under pressure, on your timing. It's your decision, not ours.
