Phone intelligence APIs compared
Any number normalised to E.164 with its line type, carrier and the regulator's block status, plus the fictional, disposable and virtual flags.
Below are the 3 services Spaw is measured against for phone intelligence, each with the figures its own public pricing and documentation pages state. Every row carries the date that vendor's pages were read, which is its own and need not match the others'; a row those pages carry no value for reads "not on the pages read" rather than a guess. Corrections are welcome at [email protected].
| service | pricing model | free tier | price per 1,000 at ~10k | line type source | checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spaw | Pay-as-you-go credit packs, or optional monthly plans that deposit the same credits every month for less; both through Stripe Checkout, credits from either never expire | 10 free credits every month, no card required | $7.80 (Growth pack: 5,000 credits for $39), or $5.80 on the Growth monthly plan (5,000 credits for $29 a month) | The numbering plan metadata everywhere except the North American plan, where mobiles and landlines share blocks and the plan can only say fixed_line_or_mobile; there the regulator's block holder settles it — a wireless carrier's block is mobile, a virtual-number wholesaler's is voip. line_type_source names which of the two answered. | own pricing page |
| Spaw vs numverify | Monthly subscription tiers by request quota: Free 100 requests, Basic $14.99 for 5,000, Professional $59.99 for 50,000, Enterprise $129.99 for 250,000, each with a published overage price per call ($0.011992, $0.0047992 and $0.00207984 respectively) | 100 API requests a month, for non-commercial use | not on the pages read | Not stated. The product page advertises "Carrier & Line Type Detection" without naming the data behind it. | 2026-09-10 |
| Spaw vs Telnyx Number Lookup | Per query, priced per lookup type, with "$0 platform fee" | No free query allowance; an outbound CNAM listing is listed as free | $1.50 per 1,000 for a local routing number query ($0.0015 a query), $2.50 for MCC/MNC ($0.0025) and $3.00 for CNAM ($0.003) | No line type field is described on the pricing page. It says portability and carrier come from "the network's own data" and CNAM from the registry. | 2026-09-10 |
| Spaw vs Twilio Lookup | Per request, priced per data package on a Twilio account; the line status and reassigned number packages are tiered by monthly query volume | Validation and reformatting are listed as Free; no free allowance is published for the paid packages | $8.00 per 1,000 for line type intelligence ($0.008 per request), $10.00 for inbound caller identification ($0.01), $100.00 for identity match ($0.1, which the page says varies by country) | Not stated. The line type intelligence documentation lists twelve types (landline, mobile, fixedVoip, nonFixedVoip, personal, tollFree, premium, sharedCost, uan, voicemail, pager, unknown) and returns carrier_name with mobile_country_code and mobile_network_code, but does not say which data settles them. | 2026-09-10 |
Spaw vs numverify
numverify is a phone number validation API sold as a monthly request quota, returning validity, country and location, carrier and line type.
Where it fits better: A form or a script that needs validity, country, carrier and line type at a small monthly volume, with a fixed bill.
Full comparisonnumverify alternativesnumverify's own sitechecked 2026-09-10
Spaw vs Telnyx Number Lookup
Telnyx Number Lookup is a per-query number API sold beside Telnyx's carrier services, priced separately for local routing number (portability and carrier), MCC/MNC, and CNAM caller name.
Where it fits better: Teams that need to know who serves a number today, on numbers that have been ported, at the lowest published per-query price.
Full comparisonTelnyx Number Lookup alternativesTelnyx Number Lookup's own sitechecked 2026-09-10
Spaw vs Twilio Lookup
Twilio Lookup is a phone number API sold as separately priced data packages on top of a Twilio account: validating and reformatting a number is free, and line type, caller identity, line status and risk each cost their own per-request fee.
Where it fits better: Teams already sending messages through Twilio that want line type, caller identity and SMS-pumping risk billed on the same account as their traffic.
Full comparisonTwilio Lookup alternativesTwilio Lookup's own sitechecked 2026-09-10
What Spaw answers
- Line type source
- The numbering plan metadata everywhere except the North American plan, where mobiles and landlines share blocks and the plan can only say fixed_line_or_mobile; there the regulator's block holder settles it — a wireless carrier's block is mobile, a virtual-number wholesaler's is voip. line_type_source names which of the two answered.
- Numbering plan coverage
- libphonenumber metadata for every region it carries, plus weekly regulator allocation tables for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies, France, Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Mexico. Outside those, block_status and is_virtual answer null rather than a guess.
- Live network check
- Optional with hlr: true, 3 credits and only where the network answers, reported in its own reachable, ported, current_carrier and roaming fields. No carrier-network partner is configured today, so it answers hlr_checked: false.
- Ported numbers
- None from the tables, and the docs say so: carrier and line_type describe the block the number was allocated in, never a later port. Only the live network check can say who serves a number today.
POST /v1/phone — 1 credit for a valid number. Free: invalid numbers and unassigned blocks. Every rule is on the pricing page.
The other signals
Check the table against your own data
Every Spaw account gets free credits every month with no card, and one key answers every signal. Upload a list, keep your columns, and download only the rows you want. The pricing page has every billing rule in full.
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