Phone numbers: rotation pools, daily caps, and spam-flag detection

The Phone numbers page manages the numbers your leads see when the AI calls. You can buy numbers directly into your Twilio account, group them into rotation pools to spread volume, and watch for spam flagging — all from one place.

Connect Twilio first (Connecting your accounts) — every number here lives in your own Twilio account.

Buy a number in-app

Click Buy a number, search available numbers by area code, and purchase one with a single click. The number is bought directly into your own Twilio account (Twilio bills you approximately $1.15 per month for the number). lead2inbound automatically handles the setup: registers the number in your Trust Hub profile for CNAM, Voice Integrity, and SHAKEN/STIR attestation; links it to ElevenLabs so it can carry AI calls; gives it your AI agent for inbound calls; and adds it to your inventory with a 75-calls-per-day starter cap. New numbers build carrier reputation over days and weeks — watch your answer rates and raise the cap once they stabilize. Buying, rotating, and releasing require the Admin role.

Which area code should I buy?

Under the search box we list the area codes your own uncalled leads are in, biggest first — click one to search it. Each is marked so you can see where you have coverage: a check means you already own a number in that area code, a tilde means an in-state number already covers it well enough for rotation, and an unmarked one is your best candidate to buy. Calling from a number local to the lead ("local presence") tends to get answered more often.

Warming up a new number

A brand-new number has no reputation with the phone carriers. In real-world observation, carriers can outright reject its calls (the caller gets "busy" on their end), especially at night, and it takes days of modest, spread-out daytime calling before a number builds trust. Here's what works:

• Keep the automatic 75-calls/day cap for the first week. Your new number comes with this starter cap intentionally — it's gentle on reputation and the carriers watch calling patterns. Don't raise it fast or burst volume.
• Prefer daytime dialing while a number warms up (9am–4pm local time is safest). Night calls from an unknown number get flagged more aggressively.
• Watch the answer-rate chip. Each number shows a health indicator based on answers over the last 14 days — gray at first (not enough calls yet), then amber or red if the rate drops below your account's average (sign of a spam label). A healthy rate means the number is warming up; a sudden drop means the carriers caught it.
• Caller-ID registrations take days to propagate. CNAM, Voice Integrity, and SHAKEN/STIR are registered at purchase, but they don't reach every phone in the network instantly — expect 3–7 days for full propagation. Unregistered numbers screen harder.
• If it gets flagged, rotate it. Use the Rotate… button to buy a fresh number in the same area code (it inherits the daily cap and pool memberships) and retire the flagged one.

Your number inventory

Click Import from Twilio and every number on your connected Twilio account appears, with a badge on the ones that are also imported into ElevenLabs (an ElevenLabs campaign can only call from linked numbers; Retell campaigns and text messages can use any of them). Re-run the import any time you buy numbers — it also deactivates numbers you've released, keeping their history.

Inbound calls: callbacks to your numbers

When a lead misses your call and rings the number back, you don't want it going nowhere. So every number you buy or rotate is given your AI agent for incoming calls automatically, and every run of Import from Twilio does the same repair pass over your existing numbers — any number in your ElevenLabs workspace with no agent on it gets your most recently created agent attached. The import banner tells you how many it wired up.

Two things to know. It applies to numbers registered in ElevenLabs, and it only fills empty slots — a number that already has an agent is left alone, so a re-import never quietly changes which agent answers. If you bought numbers before you had an agent, click Import from Twilio once and they're covered. If you want a different agent answering a number that already has one, change it in your ElevenLabs dashboard.

Rotation pools and local-presence calling

Scroll to Pools, create a named pool and tick the numbers that belong to it. Then open a campaign and switch its caller ID from "one number" to "rotate through a pool". A pool that a campaign is using can't be deleted until you point that campaign elsewhere.

Each call goes out from the least-used number in the pool — but the system is smart about which one that is. It prefers a number matching the lead's own area code, then any number in the lead's state, then the overall least-used number. This local-presence routing happens automatically — no configuration needed — and coverage grows as you add numbers in more area codes.

Daily caps always win: a matching number that has hit its calls-per-day limit is skipped and the next preference is used instead. And when a pre-call text already went out from a specific number, that same number places the call no matter what — a matching text-and-call pair beats a local area code. The double-dial redial reuses the same number too. Texts stay consistent automatically: the heads-up text and any follow-up texts are sent from the same number that calls that lead, so the text and the call match on the person's phone.

ElevenLabs campaigns: only pool members registered in your ElevenLabs workspace are used. The campaign form warns you if a pool is only partly linked, and refuses to dial if none of it is.

Labels, caps, and switching a number off

Each row can be edited in place: give the number a label you'll recognize, set a calls-per-day cap, or untick active to take it out of rotation without releasing it. Rotation skips a number once it's at its cap; caps reset at midnight US Eastern. If every number in a pool is at its cap, the campaign simply waits for the reset — caps are a hard protection, not a suggestion. Around 75 calls a day is a sensible starting point while a number builds reputation.

Spotting a spam-flagged number

Each number shows its dials and answer rate over the last 14 days, with a health chip that compares it to the rest of your numbers:

• Not enough calls yet (grey) — under 40 calls in 14 days, too little to judge.
• Healthy (green) — answering about as often as your other numbers.
• Possible spam flag (amber) — drifting below your other numbers. Watch it, ease its daily cap down.
• Likely spam-flagged (red) — far below your others, or almost nobody answering at all. Rotate it.

Work the remediation steps in Why phones don't ring and let the rest of the pool carry the volume meanwhile.

Rotate a number

When a number gets spam-flagged, Rotate… replaces it in one step: a brand-new number is bought in the same area code, inherits this number's label, daily cap, and pool memberships, and the old number is released so its monthly charge stops. The old number's call history stays for your records. Order matters and is deliberate — the new number is bought first, so if the purchase fails your old number is untouched. The replacement starts with a fresh carrier reputation, so keep its daily cap modest at first.

Release numbers

Each number row has a Release… option. Releasing removes the number from your Twilio account (the monthly charge stops immediately; the number may not be recoverable if you need it again later), unlinks it from ElevenLabs, and removes it from any rotation pools. The call history and statistics for that number are kept for your records and reporting. A number cannot be released while an active campaign is currently dialing from it — pause that campaign or point it elsewhere first, and we'll tell you which campaign is in the way.

One setup step per number

Text-message replies (like STOP) are handled account-wide, but each number's Messaging webhook in Twilio must point at your inbound SMS URL — the same one shown on the Text messages integration card. Numbers bought in-app are pre-registered in Trust Hub; if you import an existing number from Twilio, register it there too (CNAM, Voice Integrity, SHAKEN/STIR) — the products are reusable, and assigning the new number takes a minute.