Reliable VoIP: Connecting Your Business, Simply.

Local number vs toll-free has been the talk of the town for the past few years. There is no match for both of these features. The reason is that both are helping businesses thrive better. Both service features are posting remarkable results considering their utilisation in customer support centres.

Moreover, the two services have their own restrictions, and those restrictions don’t affect their credibility in scaling up any business. Local numbers help companies establish and strengthen their local presence, while toll-free numbers make it easy for customers to engage with a company.

It is confusing for businesses to select one. Both have their perks and are essential for businesses. Here in this blog, we’ll be explaining the defining factors that should be noted before choosing one for your business.

Local Number vs. Toll-Free Number: Which One is Dominating

Local Number	Toll-Free Number
1. The regional area code ensures local presence	1. It is easy to contact the company’s representative.
2. International companies can easily reach out to a targeted customer market.	2. It represents your business as a more legitimate one.
3. Improve customer experience	3. It also enhances the customer experience.
4. Outgoing call charges are paid by the company, while incoming calls are free.	4. The company has to bear the expense of all call minutes.
5. Good for small or local companies. It can also facilitate international companies.	5. It is good for both national and international companies.
6. It might be difficult to remember.	6. It is very easy to remember.

Choosing between local and toll-free numbers has been confusing. The reason is that both work perfectly in a certain scenario. To help you find out the exact difference between both of them, this section is a must-read for you. Before getting into further details, let me clarify the basics of both numbers. This will help you shape the actual difference.

What is a local number?

A local number is a number that represents a particular region. It starts with a three-digit area code and is mostly used by businesses to communicate with the local community of a particular region. The best thing about these numbers is that the companies don’t have to pay for the incoming calls on them, but they’ve got to pay for all outbound calls. These numbers are familiar; therefore, customers are more likely to answer your calls.

What are toll-free numbers?

A toll-free number is more of a business phone number that has three unique numbers on its start. The number with a three-digit code can be dialed from anywhere in the world. The most common toll-free numbers have codes such as 800, 833, 844, 866, 855, 888, and 877.

These are often termed 800 numbers. If you’re acquiring a toll-free number, your company has to charge for all minutes and calls. Moreover, the caller doesn’t have to pay a penny for a call. The use of a toll-free number is to encourage customers to ask for help, to provide information, or to facilitate purchases.

Pros & Cons

Both local and toll-free numbers come with their own strengths and limitations. Understanding these pros and cons will help you choose the right option for your business.

Benefits of Local Numbers

• Build trust within a community and local market
• Higher call answer rates from local prospects
• Cost efficient for regional campaigns
• Projects authenticity and reliability

Drawbacks of Local Numbers

• Limited reach beyond the local area
• Can make a business appear small or less capable
• Out of region customers may hesitate to call

Benefits of Toll-Free Numbers

• Free calls for customers, encouraging contact
• Enhances professional image and credibility
• Ideal for nationwide or international marketing campaigns
• Easy to remember, especially vanity numbers
  

Drawbacks of Toll-Free Numbers

• Businesses bear all call costs
• May seem impersonal to local customers
• Can attract robocalls or spam if using low quality providers

Why are local phone numbers preferred?

In the past few years, local numbers have been a hot favourite for companies. Customers would love to dial a local number while looking for products and services in their surroundings. Here are the reasons that make local numbers a dominating choice for business:

Customer Satisfaction

Local phone numbers assure customers that there is a high possibility of human customer service. Automated replies are frustrating, as customers give priority to someone who listens to them and tackles their concerns personally.

Credibility

Local phone numbers are best for enhancing the credibility of your business. It gives customers a sense of belonging and community. It’s best for businesses that want to capture a local market, as it gives them a local presence.

Local Presence

International businesses like to have someone who represents them in a local market. The local market ensures a local presence. This is possible if you get a virtual local number from a reliable service provider, such as Contactivity.

Authenticity and Professional Image

regional numbers depict a business as authentic, which gives it a professional image. Your advertisements with local numbers will look more attractive and compelling.

Why are local numbers not preferred?

In Benefits and Drawbacks: Local vs. Toll-Free, the cons section is to be read carefully as it helps you in making the final decision. Here are the points you should note before acquiring a local number for your business:

• Besides, a local number gives your business a local presence, but it also indicates that you’re operating a small business. This gives the customer a feeling that your business might not be able to fulfill their demands if they’re huge.
• It’ll be difficult for customers to call a local number from a different region. Thus, in such a scenario, a toll-free number is a perfect solution.

Why are toll-free numbers preferred?

There are countless factors in deciding between local numbers and toll-free choices, but it all depends on your needs. For instance, if you have a local business or a small unit, you can get a local number. Otherwise, a toll-free number is a good choice to make. To help you make a good choice, let’s consider plus points for toll-free numbers:

Enhanced Brand Image

A toll-free number gives your business booming brand awareness. Your business looks authentic and compelling. It gives customers a sense that your business is well-established and has national autonomy.

Enhance Customer Service

With a toll-free number, you’re equipping your customers to reach out to you at the time of need. Your customers will prefer to communicate with your service agents for help with purchases, information, or resolving service issues. As a whole, it plays an important role as a facilitator.

Affordable and portable

Toll-free numbers are easier to set up as they don’t require you to master technical expertise. Moreover, the subscription charges are very low as compared to their counterparts. The best part is that you can take this number anywhere and answer calls. You don’t have to stick to your old telephone system to answer calls.

Perfect for marketing campaigns

Your company’s marketing campaigns will look more compelling and appealing with toll-free numbers on them. There is no winner in this case, as they look best if mentioned on social media posts or marketing campaigns. They’re best when you offer your customers a click-to-call option, and most importantly, they don’t have to pay call charges.

Why You Shouldn’t Prefer Toll-Free Numbers?

The end of local number vs. toll-free is going to be interesting, as it will help you find out which one is better. You should consider the following drawbacks of having toll-free numbers with you:

1. Scam or Robo Calls: When you get a toll-free number from a low-quality service provider, you face a lot of problems. One of the main problems is robocalls, or spam calls. The automatic robocalls often list the company’s number as a scam, and it ends up adding huge call charges.
2. Is Often Misunderstood: Toll-free numbers are perfect for all incoming calls. Yet, if your team makes a call from it, they might end up with no response or a dropped call. This is because toll-free numbers appear unfamiliar.

FAQs

Can I use both local and toll-free numbers?
Yes, a hybrid approach lets you build local trust while maintaining national or international accessibility.

Which number type gets higher call response rates?
Local numbers usually get better response in their region, while toll-free numbers are ideal for nationwide reach.

Which is better for small businesses?
Small or local businesses benefit most from local numbers to strengthen community trust and credibility.

Do toll-free numbers improve brand image?
Yes, toll-free numbers signal professionalism and make your business look established and trustworthy.

Are toll-free numbers more expensive than local numbers?
The business pays for all incoming calls, so costs can be higher, but they provide wider accessibility and convenience.

Can customers call a toll-free number internationally?
Standard toll-free numbers usually work only within the country; international toll-free numbers are needed for global reach.

Do local numbers enhance customer trust?
Absolutely, customers feel a personal connection and are more likely to answer calls from familiar area codes.

Technology has brought the world closer together. It has become a family, and being a part of it, it is necessary for us to help you set up a virtual local number. Especially if your business is largely dependent on telecommunication services. Nevertheless, telecommunication services are changing the world right now.

Communication has become easier than ever before. If you lived through the 1990s, you’re aware of the opportunities and challenges of traditional landline systems. One of the main drawbacks of a traditional phone system is that it’s expensive. Significantly, their drawbacks simply don’t allow businesses to rely solely on them. Moreover, a major disadvantage includes interruptions due to weather conditions.

Keeping the disadvantages in mind, modern technology is always needed, and that space is filled by VoIP. Modern VoIP service providers like Contactivity help companies build their profiles and strive in their respective niches.

Before We Proceed, Let’s Know the local numbers.

A virtual phone number, or local number, is a number that is represented by a specific area code. These numbers are available on the Internet, and unlike traditional phones, you can use them on your smartphone. This gives you the ability to use it from anywhere at any time.

Ultimately, it makes it easy for you to make and receive calls from the comfort of your home. It also helps you expand your business globally while ensuring continuous communication with your customers.

How do I set up a virtual local number?

Getting a local business phone number is not a problem, but using it effectively is. The more effective your strategy is, the easier it will be to manage and use. This section is designed exclusively for you to ensure the easy implementation of virtual local numbers.

Step 1: Select the Reliable VoIP Service Provider

The most important step in virtual local number configuration is choosing the ideal VoIP service provider. Contactivity can certainly help you achieve your desired results. The reason for recommending Contactivity is that it offers solutions that are tailored to your business needs.

It doesn’t matter if you are a large or small business; we have solutions that fit all. You can choose plans that fit your needs and have a good range of additional features to help you. Our network carrier and phone service include domestic call termination service. The most important thing you need to know is about uninterrupted call termination. Here’s what you’ll get with us:

1. Lower call charges per minute
2. No or little maintenance charges
3. Support of additional features
4. Allow remote working
5. Effective domestic call termination

Step 2. Assign Phone Extensions To Make Team Collaboration Easy

The key to smooth internal communications in a company is the assignment of an internal extension. The purpose is to ensure that all incoming calls are routed perfectly to their destination. Most importantly, extensions make it easy for cross-functional teams to collaborate and communicate. Therefore, setting up a virtual local number allows for easy internal call routing and makes communication more efficient and effective than ever. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Assign Toll-Free Numbers and DID: Connectivity can help you set up local and toll-free numbers for your help desk. Direct Inward Dialing, also known as DID, makes it easy for your customer service representatives to route calls to specific extensions without having to navigate through an auto attendant. Similarly, toll-free numbers make it easy for your customers to call you for free.
2. Setup Extensions and Departments: The key step is to obtain numbers, and once you have them, you need to set up extensions for each department. You can assign an extension either to an employee or to a specific service in your company. If you’re an individual, you definitely don’t need to set up extensions; you’re already on your toes. All of this makes for easy call routing.

Step 3: Customize It

If you’re a business with a lot of customer support, then you need customization. You need to have features at your disposal to ensure that your customer care is above par. You need to craft the phone greeting features and professional tone to make business communication effective. You can also set up an auto-attendant feature to make sure your customers don’t feel unattended.

Step 4: Initiate and Manage Calls

Once you’ve set up your virtual phone number, you’re ready to make and receive calls using your local phone number. Now you can easily initiate calls from your device, i.e., a smartphone, laptop or computer. You should be able to use all the features of audio call termination. Contactivity can help you with this. We’ve got top-notch solutions that fit your needs and can surely help you be better at your telecommunication services.

Step 5. Train Your Team—That’s It

The most important and sensitive part of the virtual number deployment strategy is to train your team. The better you train your team, the better fruits you’ll reap. It is a critical thing, as it can either scale up or scale down your services. A bad team can destroy the image of your company, while a good and well-trained team can do the opposite. Apart from this, you need to make sure that you equip your team with good tools and resources so that they can ensure continuous communication.

Why Should You Consider Contactivity for a Virtual Phone Number?

Local numbers have proven to be a great resource for cross-border businesses, especially call centers. There is nothing more than a blessing for you when you get a good service provider like Contactivity. We have been helping companies, both small and large, excel in their respective fields of business. Our excellent solutions include toll-free numbers, local numbers, and call termination services. We provide continuous support to ensure that our services remain up-to-date. Here is why you should choose us over other VoIP service providers:

1. Affordable packages
2. Safe and secure
3. Good Customer service
4. Domestic call termination
5. Availability of toll-free numbers

FAQs 

What is a virtual local number and how does it work?
A virtual local number uses VoIP to route calls over the internet, allowing businesses to receive local calls without a physical phone line.

Why should businesses use a virtual local number instead of landlines?
Virtual local numbers are cost-effective, scalable, and reliable, unlike landlines which are expensive and prone to outages.

How does a virtual local number improve local customer trust?
Customers are more likely to call a local number, which builds familiarity, trust and higher call engagement.

Can a virtual local number work from any location?
Yes, calls can be answered from anywhere using an internet connection, making it ideal for remote and global teams.

Is a virtual local number suitable for small businesses?
Absolutely, it helps small businesses appear local, professional, and established without high infrastructure costs.

It is one of the most common questions we hear from small business owners in the United States of VoIP phone users:

“Can I just give my username and password to my sales team so they can all share one line?”

The short answer is yes, technically you can, but you probably shouldn’t.

While sharing softphone credentials might seem like a quick way to achieve business phone cost savings,

it often leads to technical conflicts, security risks, and frustrated customers.

At Contactivity, we believe in doing things the right way. There is a massive difference between “sharing a login” and “sharing a phone number.” Here is everything you need to know about sharing VoIP phone accounts legally, securely, and professionally.

Method 1: How to Efficiently Share Phone Numbers With VoIP

Many businesses try to cut costs by purchasing a single user “seat” and sharing that login across five different smartphones. While some unified communications apps might allow concurrent logins,

This method is fraught with “hidden” technical issues.

1. The “Call Collision” Nightmare

Imagine two employees, Mark and Sarah, are both logged into the same account on their laptops. Mark tries to make a sales call at 2:00 PM. At 2:01 PM, Sarah tries to dial a vendor. Because they are using the same identity, the system may block Sarah’s call or, worse, disconnect Mark mid-sentence. This is known as call collision, and it looks incredibly unprofessional to your clients.

2. Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) Conflicts

Modern VoIP phone security relies on 2FA, making password sharing a nightmare.

Imagine a worker in Texas waiting for a code that just pinged the manager’s phone in New York. This doesn’t just kill productivity; it exposes your business to unnecessary security risks.

3. Call Logging Confusion

When five people share one account, your analytics are useless. You will have no way of knowing if it was John or Jane who spoke to that angry customer, because the CRM only sees “User 1.”

Method 2: The Professional Way (How Contactivity Does It)

• The professional alternative is simple: stop sharing passwords.
• Instead, start using features designed for remote team collaboration. This allows you to route one phone number to multiple people—without the technical headaches.

Shared Call Appearance (SCA)

Also known as bridged line appearance, Shared Call Appearance (SCA) mimics the old-school “Key System” phone lines.

• How it works: “Line 1” appears on everyone’s desk phone or app.
• The Benefit: If a call is on hold on Line 1, anyone in the office can see the blinking light (or icon) and pick it up. This prevents call collision because the system knows the line is in use.

Ring Groups & SIP Forking

To achieve simultaneous ringing—where every device rings at the exact same time—you simply need a Ring Group.

• Ring Groups: All phones ring at the same time; the first person to pick up gets the call.
• Hunt Groups: The call rings User A first, then User B, then User C.

Virtual Extensions

You can use auto-attendant routing (e.g., “Press 1 for Sales”) to direct calls to specific people. This allows your team to answer calls without needing full administrative access to the main account.

Can two devices share one phone number?

Sometimes, you aren’t trying to share a number with a colleague, but with yourself. You want the phone to ring on your desk phone, your laptop, and your cell phone app.

This is standard multi-device support. However, be aware of SIP registration limits (the device limit per extension). Most providers allow 3 to 5 devices to be registered to a single user extension. If you try to log in on a 6th device, the 1st one may be kicked offline.

Comparison: Shared Logins vs. Shared Extensions of VoIP Phone Account

If you are debating between “hacking” the system by sharing a password or setting it up correctly with Contactivity, here is the breakdown:

Feature

• Sharing Login Credentials (The “Hack”)
• Sharing via Ring Groups/SCA (The Pro Way)
• Simultaneous Ringing
• Unreliable; often causes disconnects.
• Seamless; powered by SIP forking.

Call Visibility

• None. You can’t see if the line is in use.
• Full. Bridged line appearance shows active status.

Security

• Low. 2FA conflicts and password leaks.
• High. Each user has their own secure login.

Call Reporting

• Broken. Call logging confusion ruins data.
• Accurate. See exactly who answered the call.

Cost

• Lowest (Free).
• Affordable (Standard feature included in most plans).

Conclusion: Share Lines, Not Passwords

While you can share a VoIP phone account login, the concurrent logins often lead to dropped calls and security nightmares. It is simply not worth the risk for a growing US business.

By using professional features like Ring Groups and Shared Call Appearance,

You can enjoy true business phone cost savings.

Need help configuring a shared line for your team? Contactivity simplifies shared calling without the technical headaches. Stop fighting with passwords and start communicating.