Choosing an option
What the options for a platform and country are, what quality and stock mean, why one provider can offer several prices, and when to choose a shared number.
Embed
<a href="https://numestri.com/guides/choosing-an-option"><img src="https://numestri.com/guides/_api/public/orgs/25229885-9620-4c08-bd2e-a0d0d74ac8b6/spaces/eff30848-7ff1-4a21-8a5f-1f282c362fb6/pages/9160a7de-61e0-4cc5-8e7f-f936120043a4/social-card.svg?v=3e7ae33eec8b" alt="Choosing an option" width="600" height="315"></a>When you pick a platform and country, Numestri shows every way to fill it. Each option is one provider selling from one of its pools of numbers, at its own price.
Reading an option
You see | It means |
|---|---|
Price | What you pay for this number. It follows the provider's cost, and is exactly what you'll be charged. |
Quality | Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor, learned from real orders on this exact platform and country. No badge means too few orders to rate yet — we show nothing rather than a guess. |
Stock | Plenty, Limited or Sold out. Exact counts aren't shown. |
Options are listed best first: in stock, then by how well they have delivered on this platform and country, then by price.
Which one to pick
Most of the time: the first one. It is the best balance of record and price, and if it can't deliver, a plain order moves on to the next.
A platform that rejects many numbers: prefer an option with a proven quality badge, even at a higher price — a rejected number still costs you.
Several prices from what looks like one provider: suppliers sell from several pools. Cheaper pools can be busier; a pricier pool with a good badge may be worth it.
Shared numbers
Some countries also offer a shared number at a much lower price. Its inbox is a public web page: anyone can read the code. It is fine for something throwaway and never for an account you care about.
For developers
Every option has an id you can order by in the API, and providers have stable anonymous ids. See Options and providers.