Hustle Harder with More Flexible Burner Subscriptions

We’ve had many productive conversations with customers who rely on Burner to make their living. These incredible people are entrepreneurs, freelancers, innovators, and networkers.

What all of our power users have in common is a need for more than one phone number to help them manage multiple side projects, or run a business, or manage complex social lives.

Their hustle is beyond question, but they also value their privacy.

So for these customers, due to popular demand, we’re pleased to announce that we’re expanding Burner’s subscription options. You can now get a 1 Line or 3 Line Burner subscription with flexible billing options.

All subscription plans include:

• Unlimited calls, texts, and picture messages
• Auto-renewing Lines
• Line swaps—change your number once a month per line
• Spam blocking on ALL lines with Nomorobo
• Priority support with faster response times

1 Line and 3 Line Subscription Plans

Formerly, we called our only monthly subscription plan Burner Premium. This term is now being deprecated in favor of the 1 Line Subscription.

So if you had a Burner Premium plan already, not much has changed except that now your plan is called a 1 Line Subscription. The price remains the same at $4.99 per month for unlimited calling, texting, and picture messaging.

What is new is the option to switch over to yearly billing, and save 20% ($3.99/month). Once you upgrade your app to Burner 3.6 for iOS or Android, look for the new 🔥 UPGRADE action in the menu.

In addition, we’ve also added a 3 Line Subscription for $14.99/month. This is where the power users mentioned above, those who need multiple lines to manage their side projects or business, to separate their work and personal lives in the Burner app, will really want to go. It means more auto-renewing Burner lines with less hassle, plus all the features you’ve come to expect from our subscription.

If you sign up for the 3 Line Subscription on a yearly basis, you’ll save about 22% ($11.67/month).

Zapier Enhances Functionality for Professionals and Idea People

Since the announcement of our Zapier integration beta last month, we've also added many more ways to enhance Burner's functionality for professionals.

If you’re looking for enhanced productivity in your communications, or a way to automate tasks or receive text-based notifications for important events, check out our list of recommendations.

New Zap templates include using Burner for managing event RSVPs, automating text messages to new clients, sending completed Asana tasks as a text message from Burner, or getting text messages when Calendly invitees cancel a meeting.

Burner Zapier Productivity Templates

Here are some of our favorite Zap templates.

You can see the full list of templates and read more about our Zapier integration for enhancing productivity at our Zapier + Burner page.

If you already have the Burner app, you can upgrade to a 1 Line or 3 Line subscription by clicking here.

New users get a free phone number with a 7-day free trial. Download Burner for iOS or Android.

Click for a 7 Day Free Trial

Unlimited calls, texts and pictures with a new number - Available on iOS and Android

Turbocharge Your Fundraisers with Burner Smart Phone Numbers

Whether it’s a walk-a-thon, Girl Scout cookies, gala tickets, silent auctions, or sub sandwiches, it always seems to be “that time of year” for the important causes in our lives and families.  

If you’re collecting donations, pledges, RSVP’s or volunteer commitments, however, there’s no question that SMS is the modern way to do it. But it’s unwieldy—and noisy—to do on your personal phone line.

Here’s one way to automate fundraising and sales efforts—use a smart phone number app like Burner to build an automated order line. Not only can a 5-minute setup help make fundraising fun again, but you’ll be able reach a whole new audience online, automate some repetitive tasks…and maybe even have some techno-fun in the process.

Automate Sales with Burner’s Smart Phone Number Platform

When we say an automated order line, we mean a smart phone number with autoresponders and direct integrations to popular apps like Google Sheets.

This simple setup with help you move beyond a simply “autoresponder” into something more intelligent and useful. With a few tweaks, this can quickly become a new direct sales channel that works even when you’re not.

Burner’s smart phone number platform has been designed to make it easy to create your own order line. Using the Burner app, you can:

1. Create a new disposable phone number that conceals your personal number

2. Set up simple autoresponder text messages

3. Customize your voicemail greeting, notifications, and other settings (so you can unplug or be very involved, depending on your preference)

4. Integrate with apps like Google Sheets, Slack, Dropbox, etc.

5. Manage everything right from your smartphone

The Girl Scout Cookie Line

To illustrate this example, we’re going to show you how one of our founders used Burner to help his daughter succeed in one of the most popular fundraising movements in the country: Girl Scout Cookie sales.

Selling the nearly irresistible Girl Scout Cookies is one of the primary methods that local Girl Scout Troops use to raise funds for their activities, while also providing a great opportunity to teach girls about business, goal setting, ethics, and more. Traditionally, cookie season means Scouts go door to door, relying on Thin Mint-vs.-Samoa rivalries and the hankerings of their parents, friends, and neighbors, or set up tables in front of the local grocery store. The visit to Mom or Dad’s office with a well-rehearsed spiel and an order form in hand is also a time-tested tactic.

Girl Scout cookies being no more immune to change than anything else, the digital realm is now part of the playing field for modern young entrepreneurs, too. And what better way to reach friends, aunts, and uncles—while teaching tomorrow’s CEOs about marketing and technology—than by SMS?

Of course you could use your parental cell phone, but Burner enables girls make their own custom phone lines that will maintain their privacy (an important concern for any kid) and help them gather and organize incoming orders using tools like text auto-replies and integrations with Google Sheets.

More tools and more methods mean more sales, and that will lead to more funds for the Troop.

Here’s how it works.

How to Create a Simple Automated Ordering Line

With a few easy steps, you too can have your very own automated Girl Scout Cookie Line to take requests or reservations for cookie sales. Note that with a few tweaks this can also be used for school fundraisers (kids selling coupon books or wrapping paper), or direct sales of any kind.

When it’s set up, you simply post the number online to reach a larger audience, take requests from a phone or computer, and delete the number when you’re done—all the while protecting your privacy and personal phone number.

Here’s the process:

1. Create a Burner line

2. Name it “Cookie Line 🍪” or something else that you’ll remember

3. Set up an auto-reply for texts that shows what inventory you currently have on hand

4. Connect Google Sheets to collect all the requests and keep them in one place

5. (Optional) Connect Slack so you can reply from the desktop computer.

6. Post the number to Facebook, Twitter, or directly message it to your friends

Once the reservations/requests start rolling in, simply show up with cookies and make the sale. This is a great time-saver because you can schedule the sales, and find people with real intent to buy rather than knocking on doors and crossing your fingers, or waiting outside department stores in the hot sun all day long.

As a parent, you’ll be happy because it’s more efficient. As a Girl Scout, you’ll be happy because it will lead to more sales.

With Burner, you can create as many automated order lines as you need, for any venture. Whether you’re selling clients, dictionaries, or girl scout cookies, this method could help expand your sales efforts into new territories.

Don’t be afraid to get creative. Put the technology to work for you, and you’ll leapfrog ahead of the competition.

Good luck with the fundraiser!

Why You Need Burner for Activism

Using Burner for phonebanking, supporting campaigns, canvassing and calling your reps

This piece was originally posted on Medium. Icons from The Noun Project: Phone by Magicon, Capital by Fabien Jouin.

It’s not always obvious to people why they might need a Burner line. We talk about online dating, Craigslist and running your own business as incentives for setting up a disposable phone number. But what about activism?

Before we dive into these specific cases, I want to give a shout out to privacy during this resurgence of civic engagement. Burner is one of many services that can help you decentralize your personal data. Think about all the online forms you put your info into. Think about how terribly designed most government, candidate and nonprofit websites are, and how poor their security is. Remember healthcare.gov Version 1? Even with the best of intents, good people often put you at risk with weak passwords and unencrypted spreadsheets full of your personal information. Yippee!

Here are some ways you can keep your main phone number out of the mix and increase your personal safety when fighting the good fight.

Phonebanking

During the 2016 Presidential election, we offered free Burners to anyone phonebanking to get out the vote. When we initially put it forward, we weren’t sure if people who had not yet used Burner would find it compelling — but the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. People were requesting several Burners at a time.

There are a few reasons you might want to use a Burner for phonebanking.

1. You’re calling an area whose area code does not match your phone number
   I called a lot of voters in other states using Burners created in local area codes. Anecdotally, our team had more answered calls when they called with a local area code than with an outside area code. This is particularly helpful for upcoming special elections and efforts to get out the vote for the 2018 election.
2. You’re calling lots of people you don’t know
   I’ve done a fair bit of phonebanking and I’m surprised how many people call you back or Google your number. If you use your main cell phone, it rings to your main voicemail message. Even worse, your personal information — like full name and address — can be found relatively easily by reverse searching online. If you use a Burner, you can destroy the line, control the voicemail message or turn off notifications per line — and no one can trace it back to you.
3. You want to track calls you’ve made and their outcomes
   Depending on whose behalf you are calling, you may have software that does this for you. Otherwise, you may be using good ol’ pen and paper. With a virtual phone number through Burner, you can connect your line to a Google Sheet and store all the numbers you’ve called for easy tracking. Then, you can mark their response in the Google Sheet.

Calling Your Reps

Many of us are calling to support or oppose bills across all levels of government. Perhaps you are calling your own reps (power to the people!), or maybe you’re calling other nearby reps or making cause-related calls. With a Burner, you can get some added benefits beyond your usual phone line.

1. You may not be on the same side as the rep you’re calling
   Politicians track their constituents and their support (or lack of). The more info you give them, the more they will document. If you’re concerned about any mismatch between your goals and theirs, set up a new number.
2. You can set up reminders to make calls
   If you’re like me, you don’t make phone calls often, and perhaps you forgot about that very important bill being proposed until it’s too late. Burner has a reminder feature to ping you to make calls. You just pull a call or message to the right and select when you want to be reminded of it. Now, if only it would remind your friends to call too…
3. Coming soon — Easier ways to add contacts
   Thanks to John Emerson at Backspace (and Burner’s Developer Platform), if you text your address to (520) 200–2223, you’ll receive a short list of your federal and state reps. Or you can look up representatives for other nearby districts. In the near future, we’ll have a fast way for you to save them to your contacts.

Leading and Organizing

“You mean I don’t have to get death threats on my cell phone?”
— Actual quote from a local leader when I told them about Burner

One of my favorite ways to use Burner is for organizing a group of volunteers or collaborators. Write your name and number down on a piece of paper at a meeting, and all the sudden it’s being emailed, unencrypted, to 1,000 people.

Whether you have started your own initiative or you’re joining an established crowd, a Burner can help you control who can contact you and when you can be reached.

1. Put a Burner number on business cards instead of your real cell phone
   I learned this one the hard way when people I didn’t know got ahold of my business card and started calling me for free advice. Use a Burner number and you can control when notifications are on or off — or you can destroy the number and start fresh if you have to. If you like the number, you can hold onto them indefinitely. (Insert plug for Burner subscriptions — seriously though guys, at $4.99 a month, it’s way cheaper than carrying around that second phone and paying for another carrier plan)
2. Call out from the Burner number when dialing on behalf of your cause
   People save your number when you call them. Call them from your new number so you can keep your personal and your community work separate. I find that my personal information gets spread so much more freely and rapidly when I’m working with a nonprofit or local organization. I’m so, so glad that I have given each cause their own line so I know who is calling and why. And if it gets too noisy, I just #burnit.
3. Save voicemails publicly and reuse them in social media
   This one is the odd man out but it’s a pretty cool, underutilized feature of Burner. Say you want to get people to share why they are passionate about voting. You can have them leave voicemails on your Burner line and then either save them to Dropbox or publish them to SoundCloud. Then, share them on social media to further build your momentum. Of course, make sure to let people know in the voicemail greeting that you’re going to do that.

I’m excited to see everyone out there working to improve our communities, our nation and our world. We, at Burner, support you 100% and are building additional tools to further propel your efforts. Please reach out to us on Twitter @burner or email me at lex@burnerapp.com if you are using Burner for civic engagement or if you have ideas in this space. We love hearing from passionate people and, obviously, from anyone using Burner.

Until then, keep up the great work.

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Built on Burner: Hostbot, a Case Study

This week we launched an exciting new addition to our virtual number platform for consumers: an API with the ability to authenticate using OAuth 2.0. Now it’s easier than ever to build an app on top of Burner, or integrate Burner’s contacts management, auto-reply, do-not-disturb, and texting functionality into an app of your own devising.

To accompany the launch, and give product managers and potential partners ideas about how the new platform can be used, we once again partnered with Voxable—the team that built Ghostbot.

This article is a case study of that project—how we found our audience, identified their needs, and built an app on Burner to help them run their businesses more efficiently. Follow along to learn how we did it, and how you can emulate this process to build apps of your own.

Finding Our Audience: Airbnb Hosts

When we first were developing Burner’s API with OAuth, we saw it as a way to enable developers and partners to build features and apps that we might not be able to build ourselves.

We wanted to build an app to demonstrate the capabilities, something that had a real impact on a real-world market. We had lots of possible directions. People use Burner for Craigslist, Airbnb, Tinder, Etsy, and much more. But we didn’t know exactly what the app would be.

After some discussion, we settled on an interesting fact: many Airbnb hosts are already using our numbers to manage their properties. They rely on Burner to help protect their privacy while still giving them reliable calling and texting with their guests across multiple properties.

We went forward from there, confident that we would be providing additional value to an active group of our customers.

Identifying the Pain Point: Wasted Time

Next, we needed to find out what kind of value a third party Airbnb app could add to a phone number already being used in the wild.

Through a series of interviews with Airbnb hosts using Burner, Voxable discovered that Airbnb hosts experience a high amount of call and text volume just to answer common questions from guests during their stay. Answering questions from one group of guests in a single property doesn’t take much time. But multiply that by several properties, and the time needed goes up by an order of magnitude.

Voxable landed on the idea of a simple auto-responder bot that could answer basic questions about a property, so the host didn't have to.

Minimum Viable Product: FAQ with NLP

Digging through the interview transcriptions, as well as Airbnb host data available in online forums, Voxable identified sixteen key questions that hosts get asked the most.

Once we had the questions worked out, our Minimum Viable Product (MVP) became clear: Voxable would create a simple online form that would allow hosts to answer those questions once, and then create a “smart agent” (bot) on Burner that auto-responds to common questions on the host’s behalf.

Enter HostBot

The result of this project was HostBot. It uses a Natural Language Processing (NLP) service called API.ai to help the bot identify multiple permutations of our sixteen common questions from guests.

Once it was ready, we sent it around to our Airbnb users for some testing. Our early beta tests found that while the bot handled many basic things well—and saved time for hosts—there were certain kinds of questions that needed direct human intervention.

Based on this feedback, we added a model where the agent auto-replies to questions it knows, but still passes the conversation through to the host so that they can listen in and intervene if they need to.

In subsequent builds, we plan on adding the ability for the agent to directly contact the host when it encounters a question it cannot answer or deems to be highly important. This kind of human monitoring is something only available because the app is sitting on Burner, which has a user interface through which to pass the message.

You can try HostBot out right now! (Make sure you sign up for Burner and create a number first.) Go to hostbot.burnerapp.com to get started.

Build Your App on Burner!

Anyone can create an app on Burner like this. Our new API has built-in text messaging, auto-reply, DND mode, and contacts management.

Using Burner, you get to the fun stuff faster than if you went with an API like Twilio or Broadband, where you would be required to build basic telephony functions from scratch first.

Burner is a natural fit for companies who want to help their users maintain control of their privacy while ensuring their own security quality. We can provide both peace of mind to you (with two factor authentication) and to your audience by allowing them to use the Burner app.

Read more about Burner’s API in the docs, about OAuth 2.0 specifically, or about the other OAuth examples and webhook examples we’ve put together on the platform.

Hostbot, a Burner Line for Vacation Rental Hosts

We’ve built a free utility for short-term rental hosts renting their homes through Airbnb, HomeAway, VRBO, and other vacation rental marketplaces.

We’re calling it Hostbot, and it is a smart agent that automatically interprets and answers the “frequently asked questions” all hosts find themselves answering again and again.

Hostbot is built on the Burner API, which was also announced today.

How Hostbot Works

Simply authorize Hostbot, attach it to a Burner, and give the number to your guests.

Then when they text common questions like “What’s the wifi password?” or “Where is the closest public transit?” the answers you wrote in advance will automatically be sent back to them.

We’ve identified sixteen common questions based on our research into Airbnb hosts. And if a question comes through that’s not in your script, no worries—just respond as you normally would.

Of course, using Hostbot for Burner comes with all the benefits of Burner itself—no one bothering you on your personal mobile, the ability to save contacts and customize the appearance of your lines, reminders, and much more. So after setting it up, all you have to do is sit back, relax, and enjoy your peace, quiet, and privacy.

We hope this example shows you how Burner can help people be more productive at work. Both hosts and guests benefit from automation workflows.

We think Burner is most useful for situations where people want to partition or control their identity. At work, at school, on dates, but also when you're renting out a vacation home, online shopping or looking for a new car.

Renting out your home and connecting Hostbot to your Burner is, of course, just the beginning of what’s possible when you take Burner—the phone number that lets you take control of your identity, privacy, and productivity—and turn it into an open platform.

See all the benefits of using Hostbot and how to get started here. If you have any questions about how to use Hostbot for your particular vacation rental business, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at support@burnerapp.com.

Build Apps on Burner: New API with OAuth 2 Support

Today, we’re launching the Burner REST API with OAuth 2.0 support, an important milestone for Burner as a consumer phone number platform.

It’s now easier than ever to build on top of Burner as a developer or integrate with Burner as a partner. Do you want to create tools that empower users, protect their privacy, and make phone numbers more useful and usable? Do you want to connect your app’s functionality to a rich client that treats phone numbers like software because you know this is the future of phone communications? You’ve come to the right place.

For existing Burner customers who already love Burner Connections, the Burner API enables open and advanced third-party integrations that make Burner more useful and powerful. Applications that attach voice and messaging functions to Burner, rather than simply delivering “UI-less” texts or calls, can offer their customers more options and rich client features for handling communications.

Users, of course, have complete control to revoke access to any third-party integration from within the Burner app, and we will continue to protect users’ personal data and identity like we always do.

Introducing the New Burner API

Last July, we launched the Developer Connection that allows users to listen through incoming webhooks and communicate through Burner numbers with outgoing webhooks.

The Burner API, a series of REST-based methods (accessed securely via the OAuth 2.0 authorization framework) expands upon that functionality, allowing more fine-tuned control over Burners, Contacts and Messages.

Practically speaking, this means developers will have access to set or toggle features such as the ringer, notifications, and auto-reply messages on an authorized Burner line.

The API can also add and update Contacts, as well as manage their status (i.e. block or mute).

Text messages are also included in the API controls. Third party apps can now process incoming text messages (for instance, through a Natural Language Processing service) on a person’s behalf, take programmatic actions, and/or respond or initiate new outgoing messages.

For example, any developer can now build an app like Ghostbot, or add Burner controls to an app with access to Google Calendar so it can place user lines in Do Not Disturb mode during scheduled meetings. (You can have that idea for free – we’ve got plenty more where it came from.)

Read the full Burner API documentation online.

OAuth 2.0 and Integration

The Burner API uses OAuth 2.0 for user authentication. It’s secure for users, and any authorized apps can be managed or disabled via the Burner app.

What this means in practical terms is that developers—from solo hackers to large-scale partners—can integrate Burner directly into their applications, enabling their users to benefit from the tools Burner has built to help users protect their personal phone number, and therefore their identity.

Leveraging Burner’s app, along with all of the features, business model components, and back-office elements that come with it, will save developers time, lower barriers to adoption, and allow innovators and entrepreneurs to focus on building new apps and agents into consumer phone numbers.

Zapier

Since the Developer Connection update last year, you’ve been able to use Burner with Zapier by utilizing incoming and outgoing webhooks on the Developer Connection.

You can still do this, if you want to—but we’ve made it easier. Burner is now available as a first-class Zapier Integration enabled via OAuth. No developer experience required!

Zaps allow you to connect your Burner number to other apps like Google Calendar, contact managers, customer support tools like Desk, productivity tools like Trello, social networks, and much more. The Zapier integration literally adds thousands of potential workflows to Burner, with more apps coming online every week.

Examples of creative ways you could use this include…

Send Welcome Text to New Hubspot Contact

If you are using HubSpot as your CRM, you can use Zapier to have Burner send new contacts a customized welcome message when they are added to a list.

This could be a welcome message to a new client, for instance, “Welcome to Our Awesome Agency! It’s great to have you as a client, and we appreciate your business.”

Or it could be a welcome message to someone you met at a networking event. For instance, “Hey [name], this is Bob from Awesome Agency, and it was great to meet you at the event! Now you have my direct number, feel free to call or text me back.”

Since the message comes from your direct number, any responses they send will go straight to your phone in the Burner app.

One Click Do Not Disturb

Using the Zapier Chrome plugin, you can add one-push actions to Burner. For example, with one click you can turn off the ringer and notifications, and turn on your auto-reply with a pre-set message. With another click, you can turn the ringer and notifications back on and turn off the auto-reply. You could also set up a Zap with a custom auto-reply message.

RSVP to Wedding Zap

If you’re like many people using a website builder to create your wedding site, you probably have your RSVP page hooked into a Google Sheet. Now you can hook Google Sheets up to a Burner outgoing text message and be notified as soon as someone RSVP’s. You can even customize the message based on the fields in the Sheet.

For example, this is the guest’s name and the RSVP status:

Check out our updated Zapier page for detailed walkthrough of how to get started with Burner on Zapier.

Hostbot, a Bot-Enabled Burner Line for Vacation Rental Hosts

To further demonstrate the capabilities of our new API with OAuth, we also built a smart agent for short-term rental hosts to communicate with their guests. Once Hostbot has been authorized to a particular Burner line, the host answers sixteen common questions we’ve identified in our research of Airbnb, Homeaway, and VRBO hosts. Hostbot will then respond automatically to corresponding guest questions via text message. Learn more about Hostbot in this blog post.

In the API docs, we have more bot examples and webhook examples with which you can experiment.

We look forward to seeing what you come up with, and to hearing your questions and feedback. You can shoot us a text at (323) 391-4827 or email at developers@burnerapp.com.

Burner + Nomorobo: Empowering People to Silence Spam Calls

Our fight against needless calls and spam messaging continues. Today we’re pleased to announce an exclusive partnership with Nomorobo, winner of the FTC Robocall Challenge, to block robocalls and telemarketers for Burner customers.

Burner is the first and only virtual phone number app to integrate Nomorobo's technology. Adding Nomorobo to Burner’s arsenal of Connections also extends our mission to create the first truly open phone number platform.

Would you like “Rachel from Card Services” to stop ringing you every time you sit down to dinner? Us too!

Here’s how it works:

1. Activate Nomorobo

First, make sure you update your app to the latest version (iOS 3.5.1 or Android 3.5.4) on your device.

Also, you’ll need to have a Premium subscription. Only Premium customers will have the Nomorobo Connection.

Once the app updates, the Nomorobo Connection will be turned on by default for all Burner lines for Premium subscribers. A prompt will appear indicating the new Connection, and give you the option to turn it off.

2. Robocalls and telemarketers are filtered out automatically

Once you turn on the Nomorobo Connection, robocalls and telemarketers are pre-scanned, and filtered out automatically. Those calls won’t ring to your phone.

Nomorobo works by cross-referencing the incoming number with “a MASSIVE database of known, illegal robocallers ... compiled with the help of the FTC, user reports, and [their] own honey traps.” Honey traps, also known as honeypots, are hidden security mechanisms designed to fool robots and other spammers (see Nomorobo’s FAQ).

For you, it’s zero hassle. No extra action is required, nor is there any inconvenience for legitimate callers. Your friends and colleagues won’t even know you’ve turned it on.

3. View Filtered calls

If a call finds a match in Nomorobo’s database, it gets placed into the “Filtered” section of your call history.

If there’s no match, the call goes through.

4. Whitelist non-spam numbers

If a call was Filtered incorrectly (or you believe the system made an error), tap the call and then select “Move to Inbox” to whitelist the number.

In the future, calls made to you from this number will ring to your phone.

 

5. Turn it off at any time

You can manage the Nomorobo Connection in the “Details” section of each Burner line, so that you can activate it on a line-by-line basis.

To improve our user’s overall experience, Nomorobo will be turned on by default for all lines for Premium subscribers.

A free bonus for Premium customers

For Premium subscribers, the Nomorobo Connection will be available at no extra charge—a great benefit for great customers.

If you’re not subscribed, you can learn more about Burner Premium and upgrade to an unlimited Burner line for only $4.99/mo.

Do you have feedback or questions about Burner or the new Nomorobo Connection? Feel free to email us at support@burnerapp.com.

In the meantime, enjoy your peace of mind while calls from "Rachel from Card Services" go right where they belong!

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Ready to get started with a new disposable number that can block robocalls and telemarketers while protecting your privacy and identity? Click the button below to search for available numbers in an area code of your choice!

Working the Election? Phone Banking? Get A Free, Unlimited Burner

Today we announced that we are making Burner numbers available free of charge, on an unlimited-use basis, for all people who want them for the purposes of getting out the vote or otherwise supporting the election.

Thanks to all those working this important election season from Burner.

I'm beyond proud of how the Burner team dove into action on this, which all started literally yesterday when we read that the NYTimes was making itself free for election coverage and thought, "what a wonderful idea -- we should do something like that too".  In the course of half a day, the team spun up and shipped this, and we're all happy to share it.

I hope you will join me in sharing to social media channels, friends, and relevant influencers and politicos who might be interested.  As I am sure you know, turnout will be a key driver of the outcome of this election at the top of the ticket and down-ballot -- as will the work of those out there helping ensure fair and legal voting procedures are followed.  

No one should have to compromise their own privacy to do this kind of work, and we've actually had a number of requests for bulk numbers for electioneering.  This is now available for everyone -- and if using Burner helps a few people out there be less reluctant to participate in our great (if occasionally crazy) democracy, we will consider this a home run.

Thank you so much for your work.

Click here to get a free Burner number for Get Out The Vote & Election volunteers

Every Day Is a GIF with Burner 3.4: Now Updated for iOS10

A brand new release of Burner is hightailing it to the App Store right now. Who likes to stay up to date? We do. You do, too? Well, that’s why we get along so well.

The latest version of Burner includes some updates for iOS10, support for GIFs (I can hardly believe it!), and a few bug fixes, of course.

Sending a GIF in a message

 

 

GIFs, the gift that keeps on giving

We now support sending and receiving GIFs in messaging. Add a GIF from your favorite GIF keyboard or upload one from photos on your phone. Say it with animation!

 

 

 

 

Burner Today View widget

 

Your Burners at a glance in the Today View

Did you know you can add a Burner widget to the Today View on your iPhone? Our latest update delivers an improved preview of all your Burner numbers and their statuses. This is useful for finding your Burner numbers without opening the app or seeing how many minutes and texts you have left.

You can add or remove this widget using the circular “Edit” button from the bottom of the Today View.

Locations on the number picker

Early releases of new features

We’re also rolling out some new features that may not reach everyone right away. You might spot them early and if you have feedback or questions, drop us a line at support@burnerapp.com.

Locations added to number picker
When you choose a phone number, you will now be able to see the city and state it’s associated with. For example, I only want Manhattan phone numbers. It’s easier to get a reservation at Babbo.

New tutorials  
For our newest members of the Burner community, we’re introducing some in-app tutorials to help you get your Burner set up. We’re not yet rolling them out for everyone, but if you’re a new user, look out for the new tutorials when you set up your first Burner.

More, better things

A few other improvements we made to the Burner app include:

- Save SMS draft - When you’re writing a message and you don’t send it, it saves as a draft!
- Improved timestamping - Timestamps now show at the minute you sent or received a message.
- More stable colors - When you customize your Burner, the color sticks around even after a re-install. How grand!

Thanks for being a part of our community. Do keep us updated on how you’re using the app and what you think. See this post or hit us up on Twitter @burner.

Lifehacker: Five Useful Things You Can Do With a Burner Phone Number

Fantastic Burner rundown by Lifehacker's Patrick Allan! That and we're gonna need this graphic as an oil painting for the office!

Full story at Lifehacker.com

Burner featured in Lifehacker

“When you think of “burner” phone numbers, espionage and spies probably come to mind. But there are plenty of reasons regular folks would want a burner number, and a few apps, let you create as many as you need. Here are a few ways you can use a burner number professionally, to protect your privacy, and even kill text message spam.

Before you begin, you’ll need the right app for the job. Burner, available for iOS and Android, is the most popular, and the one we’ll reference most in this guide. ”

— http://lifehacker.com/five-useful-things-you-can-do-with-a-burner-phone-numbe-1787635006