By Ad Hoc Labs
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 MoodAI-powered deep analysis surfacing high-signal insights. Still in beta, accuracy improves daily. For informational purposes only.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
How Is The App's Momentum Right Now?
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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
Who is Ad Hoc Labs?
Ad Hoc Labs has established a niche in the privacy-utility sector by focusing on the tension between digital connectivity and personal security. Their flagship product leverages a subscription-based model to provide virtual phone numbers, effectively serving as a gatekeeper for users navigating online marketplaces or professional networking. The primary strategic risk lies in the gap between their high-grossing performance and persistent user friction regarding billing transparency, which threatens long-term brand equity.
Who is Ad Hoc Labs for?
- Privacy-conscious individuals
- Online marketplace participants
- Professionals requiring secondary communication channels
Portfolio momentum
Released 12 updates across 2 apps in the last 6 months, indicating a high-frequency maintenance and development cycle.
What other apps does Ad Hoc Labs make?
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
What is the competitive landscape for Burner: Second Phone Number?
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.
| Country | Category | Chart | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸 US | Communication | AndroidGrossing | #6 | |
| 🇺🇸 US | Utilities | iOSFree | #85 | ▼2 |
The rivals identified
The Nemesis
Hushed: US Second Phone Number
★4.1 (54.7K)AffinityClick Inc.
⚡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.
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.
What sets Burner: Second Phone Number apart
Burner's UI is optimized for rapid number disposal and privacy-first workflows, reducing friction for casual users.
The brand positioning emphasizes personal privacy and boundary management rather than just utility-based communication.
What's Hushed: US Second Phone Number's Edge
Hushed provides a more flexible pricing structure for users who only need a number for a single transaction.
The inclusion of international numbers allows Hushed to capture a global user base that Burner currently ignores.
Contenders
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.
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.
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: WiFi Text & Calls
★4.7 (139.3K)TALKATONE, INC.
⚡Talkatone focuses on high-quality VoIP performance over WiFi, serving as a strong alternative for users prioritizing connectivity over anonymity.
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.
Peers
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.
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.
New Kids on the Block
Aggressive release cadence of 14 updates in six months suggests a rapid feature-testing and optimization loop.
Bundles proxy and VPN services to capture users looking for all-in-one privacy solutions beyond just phone numbers.
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.
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.