Search runs on the platform account (availability is global) and covers both countries, requiring SMS, MMS and voice on local numbers. Purchase runs in the builder's own subaccount, sets the voice webhook at the moment of purchase, attaches the number to the builder's Messaging Service, points the service at the inbound receiver, records the number in the inventory, and joins it to any existing call-trust registrations.
Also called: get a phone number · area code search · local number · toll free · buy a number
- 1Search by three-digit area code, or by city name using the locality filter.
- 2Pick a number; purchase happens in the account that will send from it.
- 3VoiceUrl is set at purchase so a caller is never met with a hangup.
- 4The number is attached to the builder's single Messaging Service; the service's inbound webhook is set so replies have somewhere to land.
- 5The number is written to org_phone_numbers with its owning account SID, and attached to live call-trust products.
Several failures are recorded here. City search exists because area codes lie: '604 is nearly sold out; the city's inventory lives in 236/778.' Purchase-account matters because 'a number purchased by the parent cannot be attached to a subaccount's Messaging Service, so buying in the wrong account does not fail loudly — it produces a number that can never be used for the campaign it was bought for.' The voice URL is set at purchase because 'without it a caller hits Twilio's default and the number hangs up on them.' And the inbound webhook is non-negotiable: 'WITHOUT THIS, Twilio has nowhere to deliver replies and every one is silently discarded — a number that can send and cannot hear is worse than no number, because the customer gets no bounce and assumes they were heard.'
- Numbers bought in the wrong account could never be used with the builder's campaign.
- A purchased number with no voice URL hung up on every caller.
- A number with no inbound webhook silently discarded every reply.
- Area-code search missed inventory in overlay codes for a given city.
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