Twilio Phone Number Pricing: Local, Toll-Free and Mobile

Twilio rents a US local number for $1.15 a month and a toll-free number for $2.15 a month. It sells no US mobile numbers, but in the UK a mobile number costs $2.50 a month. Dograh, the open-source AI voice agent platform we build, uses your own Twilio numbers. You can self-host it or run it on Dograh Cloud.

Key Takeaways

• Toll-free numbers cost more per inbound minute as well as per month.
• Outbound minutes cost $0.0140 from either US number type.
• A local number is enough for outbound AI calls.

This post is part of our guide to Twilio pricing, which works through the number, minutes and media stream of one AI call. Here we cover the number: monthly prices by type, mobile numbers outside the US, which type suits inbound or outbound calls, and numbers in Dograh.

What each Twilio number costs a month

Twilio charges a flat monthly fee per number, and in the US there are two number types to pick from. The table shows each one beside the rate it pays to receive a call.

Emergency calling is an optional extra at $0.75 a month per number. Twilio offers five number types across more than 100 countries in all, so what you can rent depends on where your callers are.

The monthly fee is a fixed floor under every call. One local number spread over 1,000 calls a month adds about a tenth of a cent per call, while the same number with 20 calls adds almost 6 cents to each. A quiet line pays most of its cost in rent, not minutes.

Mobile numbers outside the US

Twilio sells no mobile numbers in the US, so a US agent answers on a local or toll-free number. Other countries do sell mobile numbers, and the UK is a clear example. In the UK, Twilio charges these rates, shown in US dollars:

In the UK the mobile number is the lowest monthly fee of the three, and it receives calls at the same rate as a local one. Toll-free is the costly choice again, at almost eight times the local inbound rate. Calling out from the UK costs $0.0158 a minute to a landline and $0.0305 a minute to a mobile.

Local or toll-free for inbound AI calls

For inbound calls, the number type changes the minute rate, and that gap outgrows the monthly fee fast. Twilio charges $0.0085 a minute to receive calls on a local number and $0.0220 on a toll-free number.

As an example, take 1,000 inbound minutes a month. On a local number they cost $8.50, and on a toll-free number they cost $22.00. The toll-free line's extra $1.00 of monthly rent is the small part, and the extra $13.50 in minutes is the large one.

Toll-free still earns its place in some cases. Callers pay nothing to reach it, and a national business may want one number for the whole country. A support line for customers who call from many states is the classic fit. For a clinic, a shop or a local service business, a local number with a familiar area code does the same job for less per minute.

An AI agent also needs Media Streams at $0.0044 a minute on top, whichever type answers. That line doesn't change with the number, so it never tips the choice.

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The right number for outbound AI calls

For outbound calls, Twilio prices the minute by where the call goes, not by the number it leaves from. A call to US and Canada numbers costs $0.0140 a minute from a local number and $0.0140 from a toll-free one. Paying for toll-free buys nothing for outbound.

We would also pick a local number as caller ID, since it carries an area code the person you call may know. Twilio's branded calling, which shows your business name on the recipient's phone, costs $0.12 a call and is worth testing on large campaigns. Our post on STIR/SHAKEN and caller ID for AI calls covers how carriers decide whether to trust the number.

Here is a worked example for a small team. It keeps one local number for outbound calls and inbound callbacks, and one toll-free number for a national help line. The two cost $1.15 plus $2.15, so $3.30 a month before any minutes.

Putting Twilio numbers to work in Dograh

Dograh doesn't sell numbers, so you rent them in Twilio and connect your Twilio account to use them. Each number has an Inbound workflow setting that picks the agent which answers it. Several numbers can point at the same agent, and the number a caller dialled reaches the agent's Pre-Call Data Fetch, so one agent can tell a sales line from a support line.

Saving an inbound workflow on a Twilio number switches it to Dograh straight away. Removing it later leaves the number with no destination in Twilio, so note the old setting before you switch. For outbound calls, the configuration you mark as the default supplies the caller ID.

Self-hosted Dograh has no per-minute platform fee, but servers, model keys and phone minutes still cost money. Dograh Cloud charges a 1¢-a-minute platform fee. The number fee and its minutes stay on your own Twilio invoice either way. For how numbers, carriers and SIP trunks fit together, read Telephony 101 for voice AI.