Googlevoice virtual numbers for SMS verification

How a Googlevoice number behaves in the wild

A Googlevoice number is in stock in 96 countries right now, 121.7M lines in total, and the entry price is $0.27 in United States. The price gap between countries is not arbitrary: it follows what the local networks charge and how often they actually deliver, which is why the table above shows both next to each other.

Price is not the only thing that separates those 96 countries. Local networks recycle their lines at different speeds, so the number of free lines moves through the day — the figures above are read at the moment you load the page, not cached from this morning. And nothing is charged until the code actually arrives, so a country that turns out not to work costs you a wait, not money.

The reason most people take a number for Googlevoice is not that they lack one. It is that a personal line attached to an account is a permanent link between the two, and there is no way to undo it later. A one-time line covers the verification step and disappears, which leaves the account without that link.