Number Type Recommender
Answer five questions about your volume, traffic style, budget, timeline, and brand needs and get a recommendation: 10DLC, Toll-Free, or a dedicated Short Code — with the runner-up and the reasoning.
Picking the wrong number type is expensive: short codes lock you into a ~$500–$1,500/month lease and an 8–12 week wait, while 10DLC throttles a high-volume blast to a crawl. This recommender encodes the full decision matrix into five questions and scores all three options against your answers.
How it works
The tool scores each option — 10DLC, Toll-Free, and Dedicated Short Code — across five weighted dimensions and recommends the highest scorer, with the runner-up shown for comparison:
- Monthly volume — high volume (>1M) pushes toward short codes; low/moderate volume favors 10DLC and toll-free.
- Traffic style — two-way conversational traffic suits 10DLC’s local presence; one-way blasts suit toll-free and short codes.
- Budget sensitivity — short codes carry the heaviest fixed cost; toll-free verification is free.
- Time to launch — toll-free clears in ~3–5 business days; short codes take 8–12 weeks.
- Brand recognition — short codes carry the strongest brand association; toll-free reads as national; 10DLC reads local.
It is a directional aid, not a substitute for the matrix. Many high-volume senders run a hybrid: a short code or toll-free number for broad outbound and 10DLC for local two-way flows. See the decision matrix for the full dimension-by-dimension comparison.