Free number for ICQ: free vs paid

Occasionally, but you should not count on one. Public receive-SMS websites publish a handful of numbers for everyone to share, and ICQ sees the same numbers being used again and again. Most of them are already tied to an existing ICQ account or have been refused as virtual, so the code never arrives.

No. We don't run a public inbox, because a number anyone can read is a number anyone can use to take over the account you create with it. What we sell instead is the cheapest private option: a number only you can see, from $0.01, refunded automatically if ICQ never sends the code.

Every code sent to it is visible to every visitor of the page it is published on. Whoever reads your code can finish your signup, and later, whoever asks ICQ for a password reset on that number receives the reset code too. The account is only as private as the inbox.

When nothing about the account matters: testing that your own app sends an SMS, checking what a message looks like, or a throwaway sign-up you will never log back into. Never for anything holding money, messages, contacts or your identity.

$0.01 on the cheapest country in the table on this page, out of 24 countries with ICQ numbers in stock right now. That buys one private number for one ICQ code; nothing is charged if the code doesn't arrive.

No. You add a balance and pay per number. There is no monthly plan and nothing to cancel afterwards.

Then neither a free number nor a one-code number is right — rent one instead. A rented number stays assigned to you for the whole rental and receives every SMS sent to it, so logins and resets keep working.

The price follows supply. Countries with plenty of numbers that ICQ accepts are cheap; countries with few are dearer. The price shown on each row is the one you are charged, because the table is read from live stock rather than typed in.