Receiving Calls on Your Number

How inbound calls work on your dedicated US number. Push notifications, browser ringing, cell forwarding, voicemail fallback, and per-minute billing.

When someone calls your dedicated US number, where it rings depends on whether you've turned on cell forwarding: with forwarding on, the call goes to your cell; with forwarding off, it rings your web dialer in the browser. Either way, if nobody answers the caller can leave a voicemail. Here's exactly how each path works and how to control it.

Where the call rings

1. Forwarding off — your web dialer.If you're on BubblyPhone, the dialer rings in your browser and you can answer or decline directly. If you've granted notification permission, a push notification also fires — click Answer on it to open the call screen.
2. Forwarding on — your cell.If you've enabled forward-to-cell, the incoming call is sent to your cell phone and you answer there. It does not ring the web dialer at the same time in this version.
3. Voicemail.If nobody answers within ~25 seconds — whether it rang your browser or your cell — the call rolls over to voicemail: your greeting plays (if you've uploaded one), then up to 90 seconds of recording.

Setting up push notifications

Push is the most reliable way to know your number rang. To enable:

1. Go to your number's detail page (My Numbers → click your number).
2. Find the Push notifications card.
3. Click Enable and accept the browser's permission prompt.
4. The first time, your browser registers a service worker — this happens automatically.

Push works even if you don't have a BubblyPhone tab open. You can enable it on multiple devices (laptop + desktop + tablet, etc.) and they'll all ring. Push doesn't work on iOS Safari unless your iPhone is running iOS 16.4 or later, and the page must be added to your home screen first.

Configuring cell forwarding

If you want incoming calls to ring your cell instead of the web dialer:

1. Open the number's detail page.
2. Find the Forward to your cell card.
3. Enter your cell number in international format (e.g., +14155551234).
4. Toggle Enabled on.
5. Click Save.

From then on, incoming calls go to your cell rather than your browser. When forwarding is on, the forward leg to your cell is billed at that destination's per-minute rate — an international mobile, for example, costs more than a US one — and is debited from your balance. Turn forwarding off whenever you want calls to ring the web dialer again.

What if nobody answers

After ~25 seconds with no answer, the call goes to voicemail. If you've uploaded a greeting the caller hears it; otherwise they just hear a short beep — there's no robotic auto-greeting. They then have up to 90 seconds to leave a message. Once they hang up, we automatically transcribe the recording and email you with the transcript and a link to listen to the audio. See Voicemail features for more.

Inbound call billing

Receiving a call costs a small per-minute fee that's deducted from your balance once the call ends. If the call is forwarded to your cell, both legs are billed: the incoming leg per minute, plus the forward leg to your cell at that destination's per-minute rate (an international mobile costs more than a US one). Both show up in Billing & Activity as separate lines. Missed calls and voicemail-only calls are free.

Things that can go wrong

• I'm not getting push notifications.Check that you allowed notifications in your browser (see Site settings). Some browsers also need notifications enabled at the OS level. Try disabling and re-enabling on the number's settings page.
• The call hits voicemail too fast. The total ring time is capped at ~25 seconds. This is fixed per call.
• My cell isn't ringing. Check that the forward number is in international format starting with +. US cell numbers should be like+1....
• The caller hears nothing. If your balance is negative or close to zero, we send incoming calls straight to voicemail to prevent us absorbing the per-minute cost. Top up to restore live ringing.