Number Lookup overview

Important

This feature of Azure Communication Services is currently in preview.

Preview APIs and SDKs are provided without a service-level agreement. We recommend that you don't use them for production workloads. Some features might not be supported, or they might have constrained capabilities.

For more information, review Supplemental Terms of Use for Microsoft Azure Previews.

Azure Communication Services enable you to retrieve insights and look up a specific phone number using the Azure Communication Services Number Lookup SDK. It is part of the Phone Numbers SDK and can be used to support customer service scenarios, appointment reminders, two-factor authentication, and other real-time communication needs. Azure Communication Services Number Lookup allows you to reliably retrieve number insights before engaging with end-users.

Number Lookup features

Key features of Azure Communication Services Number Lookup include:

• Simple Our API is easy to integrate with your application. We provide detailed documentation to guide you through the process, and our team of experts is always available to assist you.
• High Accuracy We gather data from the most reliable suppliers to ensure that you receive accurate data. Our data is updated regularly to guarantee the highest quality possible.
• High Velocity Our API is designed to deliver fast and accurate data, even when dealing with high volumes of data. It is optimized for speed and performance to ensure you always receive the information you need quickly and reliably.
• Number Capability Check Our API provides the associated number type that generally can help determine if an SMS can be sent to a particular number. This helps to avoid frustrating attempts to send messages to non-SMS-capable numbers.
• Carrier Details We provide information about the country of destination and carrier information which helps to estimate potential costs and find alternative messaging methods (e.g., sending an email).

Value Proposition

The main benefits the solution will provide to Azure Communication Services customers can be summarized on the below:

• Reduce Cost: Optimize your communication expenses by sending messages only to phone numbers that are SMS-ready
• Increase efficiency: Better target customers based on subscribers’ data (name, type, location, etc.). You can also decide on the best communication channel to choose based on status (e.g., SMS or email while roaming instead of calls).

Key Use Cases

• Validate the number can receive the SMS before you send it: Check if a number has SMS capabilities or not and decide if needed to use different communication channels. Contoso bank collected the phone numbers of the people who are interested in their services on their site. Contoso wants to send an invite to register for the promotional offer. Contoso checks before sending the link on the offer if SMS is possible channel for the number that customer provided on the site and don’t waste money to send SMS to non mobile numbers.
• Estimate the total cost of an SMS campaign before you launch it: Get the current carrier of the target number and compare that with the list of known carrier surcharges. Contoso, a marketing company, wants to launch a large SMS campaign to promote a product. Contoso checks the current carrier details for the different numbers he is targeting with this campaign to estimate the cost based on what Azure Communication Services is charging him.

Pricing

Request	Price per API query
Get Number Type and Carrier details, query per phone number	$0.005

Next steps

Get started with Number Lookup API

The following documents may be interesting to you:

• Familiarize yourself with the Number Lookup SDK