How PhoneBorn works

PhoneBorn does not create phone numbers. Numbering resources are allocated to telecom operators, and we obtain ours through telecom partners who route SMS and calls for them. The numbers we offer come from mobile number ranges in each country — the same kind of ranges used for ordinary SIM-based phones.

When you buy a plan or place an OTP order, a number is assigned to your account only. Nobody else can see its inbox, and while a plan is active and renewed the number is not given to any other customer. You do not own the number — no customer of any provider does — but it stays assigned to you for as long as you keep renewing. If a partner ever withdraws a number during a paid period, the Terms commit us to replacing it or crediting the unused portion to your wallet.

Availability depends on stock in each country, which is why the countries page shows live availability rather than a fixed promise.

Every phone number carries metadata that other systems can look up: the country, the operator that holds the range, and the line type — mobile, landline, VoIP, toll-free and so on. Many sign-up flows run a carrier lookup or an HLR lookup before they send a code, and some refuse numbers classified as VoIP.

That is the practical reason PhoneBorn uses mobile ranges. Unlike VoIP or virtual numbers issued from internet-telephony ranges, a real mobile number is classified as mobile in those lookups. It is not a magic key, though: platforms also weigh the country, how the account behaves, how many sign-ups a range has seen and their own risk rules. Each platform decides which numbers it accepts. For a deeper look, read real mobile vs VoIP numbers and HLR lookups and why apps reject phone numbers.

In simplified form, a verification code travels like this:

1. The sender — say, a messaging app — asks its SMS provider to send a code to your number.
2. Aggregators and carriers route the message across the telecom network to the operator responsible for your number's range.
3. The number receives it on our telecom partner's side, and the message is passed to PhoneBorn.
4. PhoneBorn stores it against your number and shows it in your dashboard inbox, with detected codes highlighted for one-click copy. If you have configured a webhook, we also POST the message to your server.

Most messages arrive within seconds, but delivery depends on every link in that chain. Senders throttle repeated requests, some filter by country, and some choose a voice call instead. If a code does not arrive, why your SMS verification code never arrived walks through the legitimate fixes.

Outgoing SMS and calls from a plan work in the other direction: you write or dial in the dashboard, and the message or call is placed from your number through the same partners. Calls are connected in real time and their audio is not recorded.

An OTP order is a short, automated state machine.

OTP numbers receive one code for one service. They cannot send SMS or make calls, plan allowances do not apply, and the money-back guarantee does not apply either — the automatic refund above is their protection. Once a code has been delivered, the order is not refundable even if the platform later rejects that code. Details are on OTP numbers and the refund policy.

A plan is a number you keep. Its life looks like this:

1. Purchase. Choose a country and a term of 1, 3, 6 or 12 months (30, 90, 180 or 365 days). Pay from your prepaid USD wallet, or use a direct crypto checkout for the exact amount without topping up first.
2. Activation. The number is assigned to your account and PhoneBorn sends it an automatic welcome SMS, so you can see the inbox working straight away.
3. Allowances. Every plan includes unlimited incoming SMS and calls, 500 outgoing SMS and 1,000 outgoing call minutes. Outgoing allowances refresh every 30 days — on 3-, 6- and 12-month terms too — and unused SMS or minutes do not carry over.
4. Renewal. Renewing extends the plan on the same number. With auto-renew on, we charge your wallet within 24 hours before expiry for the same term. Manual renewals can switch to any term.
5. Grace period. If renewal fails, for example because the wallet balance is too low, the number enters a 3-day grace period in which you can still renew.
6. Release. After the grace period the number is released and messages to it no longer reach you. Your past history is never shown to a later holder of the number.

If you use a number for two-factor authentication or account recovery, keep auto-renew on and your wallet topped up — see keep your number for 2FA.

If your number has not sent or received a single SMS or call, you can get a full refund within 7 days of purchase — no questions asked.

• The automatic welcome SMS from PhoneBorn does not count as use. Any other SMS or call — including a verification code or a test message — does.
• Refunds are credited to your PhoneBorn wallet. Open the number in your dashboard and press Request refund; the button appears only while the number is eligible, and the number is released when the refund is made.
• The same rule applies to a renewal: within 7 days of it, if the number has had no SMS or calls since that renewal, you can get the renewal price back.
• The guarantee does not apply to OTP numbers, which are refunded automatically when no code arrives.

The full table of situations and outcomes is on the refund policy.

PhoneBorn is crypto-only: no cards and no bank transfers. You top up a prepaid USD wallet — or pay for a plan directly at checkout — with coins such as BTC, ETH, USDT, USDC, LTC, TRX, BNB, SOL and DOGE, with stablecoins supported on several networks.

Each invoice shows an exact amount, network, address and QR code for a limited time. Some stablecoin payments are detected by watching our own receiving addresses on-chain; other coins are handled by a payment processor. Always send the exact amount on the stated network: underpaid invoices are not credited automatically and are reviewed by support instead. You never connect a wallet to PhoneBorn and we never ask for your private keys or seed phrase.

Everything in the dashboard can also be automated. The REST API lives under /v1 and authenticates with an X-API-Key header; you can check your balance, list countries, services and prices, create and cancel OTP orders, buy and list numbers, read incoming SMS and request eligible refunds.

For push delivery, set a webhook URL in your account. When an SMS arrives we POST a JSON payload with the event sms.received, and sign the raw body with HMAC-SHA256 using your webhook secret in the X-PhoneBorn-Signature header, so your server can verify the message came from us. Webhooks are only sent to public internet addresses.

The endpoint reference and code samples are in the phone number API docs and the OTP verification API docs.