Buying & managing phone numbers
Your simulations call from real phone numbers that your workspace rents. You rent a dedicated number per country under Numbers in the sidebar, which has four areas: Rent Numbers, Manage Numbers, Compliance, and Port Numbers. Availability and the rules for using a number vary by country, so the flow is built around country compliance from the first click (see Country compliance).
Renting a number
- Open Numbers → Rent Numbers. Pick a Country and a Number type (Local, National, Mobile, or Toll-free). Countries where your people actually are get a Suggested tag, so you rent where you'll be calling.
- Available numbers appear as a list. Each row shows the number, its locality, and its type, with a Rent button.
- Click Rent, then Confirm rent. Setup is automatic and usually takes under a minute; on success the number is added to your workspace, ready for campaigns.
There's no per-number price in the flow: renting consumes one of your workspace's number slots rather than a separately-billed line.
Managing your numbers
Numbers → Manage Numbers lists what you own, with a Status for each:
- Active: ready to use in campaigns.
- Finish setup: rented, with one setup step left before it can call. Use the Finish setup action on the row to complete it.
- Request pending: awaiting provisioning by Callstrike (for countries that aren't instant self-serve).
From here you can also assign numbers to campaigns (a campaign picks one caller number per destination country, and you can swap which of your numbers it uses), and release a number you no longer need with Remove.
Country availability & compliance
Which countries you can rent in, and how, is driven entirely by each country's compliance state (the full model is on the Country compliance page). In short:
- Green countries are instant self-serve.
- Orange countries need an approved regulatory clearance before you can rent. From the Rent Numbers banner or the Compliance tab, choose Start regulatory clearance, fill in the details the destination requires (business, address, and any supporting documents), and Submit for review. Approval is a one-time, per-country step that usually takes 3 to 5 business days. The submission is reviewed and approved by the phone provider (Twilio or Telnyx), since it's their carrier relationship that authorizes the number.
- Red countries are available on request: the Callstrike team provisions the number for you rather than you renting it directly.
- Some cleared countries (for example France and Italy) are assisted: after clearance, the Callstrike team activates the eligible number for you instead of a self-serve rent, so you'll see "Contact Callstrike to activate" rather than a rentable list.
The Compliance tab is where you track every regulatory clearance (draft, pending, approved, or needs-action) and manage caller-ID options.
Reducing "Spam Likely" in the US
US carriers often flag unregistered numbers as "Spam Likely." After you rent a US number, Callstrike offers a one-time caller-ID attestation that covers all your US numbers; you can set it up then, or later from the Compliance tab.
Gotchas & limitations
- A number in use can't be released. If a number is assigned to a non-completed vishing campaign or an active voice-impersonation campaign, remove is blocked until that campaign finishes; the app names the campaign holding it.
- Two numbers per workspace. There's a cap of two rented numbers; to rent a third, remove one first.
- Rented isn't the same as callable. A freshly rented number needs its setup finished before it can dial; until then it shows Finish setup and doesn't make its country reachable in a campaign.
- Trial workspaces can browse but not rent. On a trial you can search availability and see what's possible, but renting, requesting, and starting clearance route to an upgrade.
- Most of the world is request-only for now. Any country not yet enabled for self-serve defaults to request-only as a fail-safe, so you won't see it as instantly rentable even if calls there are otherwise possible.