Report updated May 7, 2026
Burner: Second Phone Number
For individuals seeking privacy for online marketplaces, dating, or professional communication who need to keep their primary number hidden.
Burner: Second Phone Number is a struggling utilities app that is available. With a 4.6/5 rating from 173.2K reviews, it struggles with user retention. Users particularly appreciate reliable call and text quality provides functional utility for users needing secondary communication lines, though misleading free trial offers result in immediate unauthorized charges to user payment methods remains a common concern.
What is Burner: Second Phone Number?
Burner is a utility app for iOS and Android that provides temporary, disposable phone numbers for anonymous calling and texting.
Users hire Burner to maintain personal privacy and communication boundaries without the social cost of sharing a primary number.
Current Momentum
v7.9 · 1d ago
Active- Shipped media attachment fix for Samsung.
- Ships stability updates for conversation history.
Active Nemesis
Hushed: US Second Phone Number
By AffinityClick
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
UtilitiesRating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User Mood
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
What Are The Key Features?
Generation of temporary, anonymous phone numbers for calling and texting with the ability to delete them instantly
No-logs VPN for anonymous browsing and tracker blocking
Automated transcription and organization of incoming voicemails
How much does it cost?
- Free trial (3-day)
- Monthly subscription at $9.99/month
- Annual subscription at $59.99/year
- Premium annual subscription at $89.99/year
Subscription-only model anchored at $9.99/month, utilizing a 3-day trial to convert users into recurring revenue.
Who Built It?
Ad Hoc Labs
Providing privacy-focused communication tools for users seeking to manage digital boundaries and reduce unwanted contact.
Portfolio
2
Apps
What other apps does Ad Hoc Labs make?
Explore the full Ad Hoc Labs report
Portfolio breakdown, audience, momentum, and every app published by Ad Hoc Labs.
What do users think recently?
High confidence · Latest 100 of 184 total reviews analyzed · Based on 184 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a upset sentiment. Users appreciate reliable call and text quality provides functional utility for users needing secondary communication lines, but report misleading free trial offers result in immediate unauthorized charges to user payment methods.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
View the full user-sentiment analysis
Mood gauge, ratings & review-volume history, every praise / complaint / request, and sentiment over time.
What is the competitive landscape for Burner: Second Phone Number?
Where is it available?
Localized markets (1)
How's The Utilities Market?
How does it evolve in the Utilities market?
Burner sits #10 Grossing in the US Utilities category, but its rank is trending downward. The reliance on a subscription-only model creates a conversion ceiling compared to ad-supported rivals.
Rank progression
7 active rankings tracked — 30-day window
The rivals identified
Nemeses(1)
Hushed maintains a direct feature-for-feature overlap in the virtual burner number niche with a high release cadence of 6 updates in the last six months.
Differentiators
- Offers international number support across multiple countries, whereas Burner focuses primarily on North American area codes.
- Provides a pay-as-you-go credit system for short-term usage, contrasting with Burner's subscription-heavy model.
- Integrates directly with Slack and Dropbox for business-oriented users, targeting a professional productivity segment.
Head to head
Burner must decide whether to expand into international markets or double down on its privacy-first, domestic-focused brand identity to defend against Hushed's flexibility.
Contenders(4)
Text Free maintains a long-standing presence in the communication space with a focus on simple, reliable messaging.
Differentiators
- Focuses on a simplified messaging-first experience that removes the complexity of managing multiple burner lines.
- Provides a robust web-based interface for desktop messaging, which is a significant gap in Burner's mobile-only strategy.
Talkatone focuses on high-quality VoIP performance over WiFi, serving as a strong alternative for users prioritizing connectivity over anonymity.
Differentiators
- Optimized specifically for high-quality VoIP calls over unstable WiFi connections, reducing reliance on cellular data.
- Provides a more streamlined, simplified interface that appeals to users who find Burner's privacy features overly complex.
TextNow dominates the ad-supported communication space, offering a free, permanent number model that challenges Burner's subscription revenue.
Differentiators
- Operates an ad-supported model that provides free unlimited calling and texting, undercutting Burner's paid subscription model.
- Offers a unique SIM card program that allows users to turn devices into full-service mobile phones.
Google Voice is a massive, high-velocity competitor that leverages ecosystem integration to provide a permanent secondary number solution.
Differentiators
- Deep integration with the Google Workspace ecosystem allows for seamless synchronization across Gmail, Calendar, and Drive.
- Provides free, permanent number retention without the subscription-based expiration cycles typical of Burner apps.
Same space(2)
Getcontact operates in the phone utility space by providing caller identification and spam protection at a massive scale.
Differentiators
- Leverages a massive crowdsourced database for caller identification, creating a strong network effect moat.
- Focuses on transparency and identity verification, which is the functional opposite of Burner's anonymity-first mission.
While not a burner number app, it occupies the same 'phone utility' space by solving the spam problem that drives users to Burner.
Differentiators
- Uses AI-powered answer bots to waste spam callers' time, providing an entertainment layer to security.
- Focuses on blocking unwanted traffic rather than providing a secondary identity for outgoing communication.
New entrants(1)
A newer entrant showing strong update activity and high user engagement in the privacy utility category.
Differentiators
- Focuses on high-speed connection protocols that differentiate it from slower, legacy privacy utility apps.
- Utilizes a simplified, one-tap connection UX that lowers the barrier to entry for non-technical privacy users.
Compare Burner: Second Phone Number against every rival
All rivals in one side-by-side table — identity, store metrics, ratings & sentiment, and strategic intel — plus a head-to-head page for each.
The outtake for Burner: Second Phone Number
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Privacy-first workflow reduces friction for casual users
- Color-coded inboxes increase session duration for power users
- Brand recognition in major tech publications
Critical Frictions
- High refund surge due to misleading trial billing
- Persistent message delivery failures
- Subscription-only model limits top-of-funnel conversion
Growth Levers
- Expansion into international markets to counter Hushed
- Development of a web-based interface to match Text Free
- B2B integration for professional marketplace users
Market Threats
- Google Voice's permanent free number model
- TextNow's ad-supported undercutting
- Emerging VPN-bundled competitors with higher release velocity
What are the next best moves?
Audit trial billing logic because 1★ reviews flag unauthorized charges as the top complaint → reduce refund surge
Misleading trial billing is the #1 complaint theme in sentiment analysis.
Trade-off: Pause the price-test on the annual tier — refund surge has 4× the revenue impact.
Ship message delivery stability fixes because persistent glitches are the #2 complaint theme → halt user churn
Technical failures in core messaging are driving high churn rates.
Trade-off: Push the wearable companion app sprint to Q3 — wearables waitlist is 3K vs 142 cloud-save requests.
A counter-intuitive read
Burner's subscription-only model is a strategic liability that prevents it from capturing the casual, low-intent market segment that TextNow currently dominates through ad-supported volume.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- International number support (available in Hushed but missing here)
- Web-based interface (available in Text Free but missing here)
- Pay-as-you-go credit system (available in Hushed but missing here)
Key Takeaways
Burner holds its category lead through sticky privacy-first workflows but bleeds users to ad-supported alternatives, so revenue growth hinges on fixing the billing trust gap.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
The privacy-utility market is consolidating around high-velocity entrants that bundle VPN and proxy services. Burner's reliance on a rigid subscription model leaves it exposed to competitors that offer more flexible, ad-supported access, so the app must pivot to a hybrid model to defend its market share.
Misleading trial billing reports are driving a surge in refund requests, which erodes long-term brand trust and increases churn.
Persistent message delivery failures in the latest release prevent core utility, directly impacting the daily active habit and rating baseline.