Case Study - Virtual phone numbers for privacy
Burner gives people a second phone number in the US, Canada, and UK with call forwarding, SMS, and recording. No extra device, no app.
- Client
- Burner
- Year
- Service
- Platform development
Overview
People give out their phone number every day for online listings, dating profiles, contractors, and side projects, and once it's out, it's out. Burner solves that by giving anyone a second, real phone number they can rent for as little as $1/mo. Calls and texts forward to the user's existing phone, recordings are stored against the number, and when they're done with it, they just release it.
We built the platform from the ground up. Users sign in, browse available numbers across the US, Canada, and UK, and provision one in seconds. Inbound calls forward transparently, SMS threads live in a clean inbox, and an admin console covers usage and billing. Behind the scenes, we wired up the telephony provider for number provisioning and call/SMS routing, Stripe for metered billing, and a job worker for asynchronous tasks like recording and transcription.
The whole product is designed around the privacy promise: no app to install, no extra device, no contract. The user keeps their main number to themselves and lets Burner handle the rest.
What we did
- Telephony integration
- Call & SMS routing
- Recording & transcription
- Stripe metered billing
- Usage dashboard
- Multi-region numbers