How to Set Up a Virtual Business Phone Number with CallHippo

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Your personal mobile number is on your website, your invoices and every supplier’s contact sheet. The day you hire someone, take a holiday or want to stop answering sales calls at 10 pm, that number becomes a problem.

A virtual business phone number fixes that. It is a real phone number that lives in the cloud instead of on a SIM card, so calls can ring in a browser, a mobile app or a forwarded phone, and you can share it across a team, set office hours and add a phone menu without buying any hardware.

This guide walks through how to set one up with CallHippo, a cloud phone system aimed at sales and support teams. We cover choosing a plan, buying (or porting) a number, the document checks you should expect, adding users, business hours, IVR menus, call forwarding and connecting a CRM. Every step below is based on CallHippo’s own help center articles, and pricing is as of October 2026.

What is a virtual business phone number?

A virtual number is a phone number that is not tied to one physical line or device. Calls travel over the internet (VoIP) and are delivered wherever you tell the system to send them: a web dialer, a desktop or mobile app, a teammate, a phone menu, voicemail or an external phone.

For a small business, that brings a few practical benefits:

• Separation: customers get a business number, and your personal number stays private.
• Sharing: one number can ring several people. CallHippo’s help center says the same number can be assigned to multiple users, and they can make concurrent calls on it.
• Local presence: you can hold a number in a city or country where you have customers but no office.
• Control: business hours, after-hours messages, voicemail and menus are settings, not hardware.
• Records: calls can be logged against contacts in your CRM.

Why CallHippo for a virtual business phone number

CallHippo positions itself as a cloud phone system for sales, support and call centers. Its homepage lists a core business phone system (virtual PBX), global virtual numbers, a call center suite with IVR, routing, queues and live monitoring, conversation intelligence, omnichannel messaging and an AI voice agent.

For a small team setting up its first business line, the parts that matter most are:

• Number coverage. The homepage claims virtual numbers in 150+ countries, while the virtual number landing page’s description mentions 50 countries. Treat the in-app country list as the source of truth, since availability depends on the country and number type.
• Self-serve setup. Buying a number, inviting users, setting hours and building an IVR are all done from the dashboard, according to the help center.
• Integrations. The integrations page lists CRM tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Copper and Kommo, plus helpdesks such as Zendesk, Freshdesk and Intercom.
• A free trial. Paid plans come with a 10-day trial that CallHippo says needs no credit card.

CallHippo pricing (as of October 2026)

We reviewed CallHippo’s pricing page in October 2026. The main “office phone system” plans are billed per user per month. The page has a Monthly/Yearly toggle advertising “Save 3 Months’ Cost” on annual billing, but the figures below are the ones displayed, and the page does not clearly label which billing period they assume. Confirm the final amount at checkout.

Plan	Listed price	Calling included	SMS included	Notes
Basic	$0	None listed, you pay for numbers	Not listed	Free for the first 6 months, then you must move to Starter. Card shows “Billed annually”.
Starter	$18 / user / month	1,000 US/Canada minutes	100	10-day free trial. One landing page shows $19, so check the live price.
Professional	$30 / user / month	Unlimited US/Canada	500	10-day free trial
Ultimate	$42 / user / month	Unlimited US/Canada	1,000	10-day free trial
Enterprise	Not shown in USD	Unlimited to 48 countries	Custom	Minimum 50 users

A few pricing details worth knowing before you start:

• You pay per user, not per number. The help center says each user occupies one seat at your plan’s price, and users who share a number are each billed a seat.
• Numbers. CallHippo’s help center says each user receives one free number. Prices for extra numbers vary by country and type and are shown when you click a number in the dashboard. No single USD price for numbers is listed on the pricing page.
• Adding users is prorated. New seats are charged immediately to your saved card for the days left in the billing cycle.
• Add-ons. The pricing page lists extras such as CNAM, spam monitoring, branded calling, SMS services and an AI voice agent. Some of these were displayed in a local currency when we viewed the page, so check them in your own region.

Which plan should a small business start on?

If your team makes most of its calls within the US and Canada and talks for less than about 1,000 minutes per user each month, Starter’s minute bundle may be enough. If you expect heavier calling, or you need more SMS, Professional’s unlimited US/Canada calling removes the minute tracking. Because the trial is free, the simplest approach is to set everything up during the trial, watch your call volumes for a week and then pick the plan.

Before you start: documents and number rules

This is the part most setup guides skip, and it is the main reason a number takes days instead of minutes. Phone numbers are regulated by each country’s telecom authority, and CallHippo’s help center is clear that it cannot make exceptions to those rules.

Local, mobile and toll-free numbers

When you buy a number in CallHippo you choose between three types:

• Local: tied to a city or region through its prefix. The help center notes local numbers usually do not support SMS and generally need documents issued in that country (for example, a UK local number needs UK-issued documents).
• Mobile: prefixes not tied to a location. These usually support sending and receiving SMS and often accept documents from any country, though not always.
• Toll-free: free for callers to dial. Requirements depend on the country, so check the number’s details before buying.

Which numbers need documents?

According to CallHippo’s “How to buy a number” article, most numbers need address or document verification before they are activated. Only two can be added without documents: a US local number and an Australia mobile number. For everything else, the dashboard shows the required documents when you click a number, and the article warns that buying without the right documents can cause delays or extra replacement charges.

Verification usually takes 24 to 48 business hours, according to one help article, and another gives a 24 to 72 hour window for verification and procurement. Status updates go to your registered email address.

Porting an existing number

If you already have a business number with another provider, you may be able to move it to CallHippo instead of buying a new one. The help center’s porting article lists these requirements for US numbers:

• Only virtual numbers can be ported, not physical SIM numbers.
• US virtual numbers can be ported from the dashboard. Non-US numbers require contacting support.
• You need a real US physical address. P.O. boxes, mail-forwarding and virtual addresses are not accepted.
• A signed Letter of Authorization (LOA), which you download from the dashboard, fill in and upload.
• A billing statement from your current carrier showing the number, dated within the last three months.

CallHippo says porting within the US and Canada is free, while other countries carry a one-time fee that varies by country. Port-ins typically take 2 to 4 weeks, so keep your old service active until the port completes.

How to set up a virtual business phone number with CallHippo: step by step

These steps follow CallHippo’s help center articles. Menu names may shift slightly as the dashboard is updated, but the flow stays the same.

Step 1: Create your account and start the trial

1. Go to CallHippo’s sign-up page and start the free trial.
2. Complete sign-up with your business email. CallHippo says the trial runs for 10 days with no credit card required.
3. Log in to the web dashboard. Most of the setup below happens from the left-hand menu.

Step 2: Buy your first number

1. Open the Numbers section in the left menu.
2. Click Add Number.
3. Select your country. If it is not on the first screen, use the search bar. If it still does not appear, click “Contact Us” and the sales team will follow up.
4. Choose the number type: Local, Mobile or Tollfree.
5. Filter by prefix, full number or location to find a number you like, for example your city’s area code.
6. Check the number’s capability. A number marked “Voice Enabled” cannot send or receive SMS or MMS, so pick an SMS-enabled number if you need texting.
7. Click the number to see its price and document requirements.
8. If documents are required, fill in the details and upload them. If not, procure the number directly.
9. Proceed to payment. If you have a card on file, the amount is deducted automatically.
10. Wait for verification where documents were needed. You will get email updates.

If a number shows as “available on request”, the help center says to email support@callhippo.com for availability, required documents and a timeline.

Step 3: Invite your team and assign the number

1. In the left panel, open Users & Performance, then click Users.
2. Click Invite User in the top right corner.
3. Enter the person’s email address and choose their role from the drop-down. You can optionally set who they report to.
4. In Allocate Numbers, tick the numbers this person should use. You can pick more than one.
5. Click Invite 1 User to send the activation link.

The user stays pending until they click the link in their email, and each user needs a unique email address. Remember that each invite adds a paid seat, charged pro rata, and that a user only sees the numbers allocated to them. If you delete a pending user before they accept, CallHippo says the charge is not applied.

Step 4: Set business hours on the number

Business hours decide when the number rings your team and what happens the rest of the time.

1. Go to Numbers and DID, then Numbers.
2. Click the settings icon next to your number.
3. Choose Business hours on the left.
4. Select Always Open, Custom or Always Closed.
5. For Custom, click the + icon to add shift times for each day. They repeat weekly until you change them.
6. Check the timezone in the top right. Hours follow the number’s timezone, not your device’s.
7. Configure the After Work Hours options (see below).

Outside your custom hours, calls go to voicemail by default. You can instead turn on an After Work Hours Message (text-to-speech or an uploaded .mp3 or .wav file under 5 MB) that either ends the call or invites a voicemail, or turn on Forward to External Number. The help center notes those two options cannot be active at the same time.

Step 5: Build an IVR phone menu

An IVR is the “press 1 for sales, press 2 for support” menu. It makes a small business sound organized and routes callers to the right person without a receptionist. CallHippo’s help article on multilevel IVR describes this flow:

1. Open your number’s settings.
2. Go to Music & Messages, select IVR and turn on the toggle.
3. Optionally upload an .mp3 or .wav greeting instead of a text welcome message.
4. Click Add Multi level IVR.
5. Give the menu a title and write the message callers will hear.
6. Set an action for each key press: route to a user, a phone number, a team, another IVR or a webhook.
7. For nested menus, create child IVRs and link them with the “Setup new IVR” action.
8. Save each IVR.

A simple starting menu for a small business might be: press 1 for sales (routes to a sales team), press 2 for support (routes to a support team), press 3 for accounts (routes to one user). Keep the greeting short; you can add depth later. The article does not say which plans include IVR, so confirm this on the pricing page or with support for your chosen plan.

Step 6: Turn on call forwarding to a mobile

Forward-to-Device sends calls from your CallHippo number to a personal or business phone when you are away from the app.

1. Open Users & Performance, then the Users tab.
2. Click the gear icon next to the user.
3. Open Forward-to-device and switch the toggle on.
4. Enter the destination number with the correct country code.

How it rings depends on where the user is logged in. According to the help center, if the user is on both the web dialer and the mobile app, the call rings there for up to 30 seconds before forwarding. If only the web dialer is open, the dialer and forwarded phone ring at the same time.

Two cost points matter here. First, forwarded calls are charged twice: once as an incoming call on your CallHippo number and once as an outgoing call to the destination. The help center suggests answering in the CallHippo mobile app instead if you want to avoid forwarding charges. Second, each user can have only one forwarding number, and forwarding fails if the destination is outside your plan’s countries and you have no calling credits.

Step 7: Install the apps and make a test call

1. Have each user accept their invite and log in to the web dialer.
2. Install the CallHippo mobile app on phones that will take calls on the move.
3. Call your new number from an outside phone during business hours to check it rings the right people.
4. Call again outside business hours to check the voicemail, message or forwarding rule.
5. Walk through the IVR and press each option to confirm it routes correctly.

Step 8: Connect your CRM

Connecting a CRM means calls and texts get logged on the right contact automatically. CallHippo’s integrations page groups its connectors into sales automation, CRM, helpdesk, productivity, e-commerce, reporting, marketing and recruitment categories.

Here is how the HubSpot connection works, based on CallHippo’s help article:

1. In CallHippo, click Integrations in the left pane.
2. Find HubSpot and click Connect, then Connect Now.
3. Sign in to HubSpot if prompted and choose the account to connect.
4. Click Connect app on the permissions page.
5. Back in CallHippo, the status should read “Integrated”. You get an email when the contact sync finishes.
6. Review the settings toggles: log calls and SMS on contacts, sync contacts back to HubSpot, log against deals, and create a “CallHippo Contact” for unknown numbers.

Once connected, existing HubSpot contacts with a phone number sync to CallHippo, and calls made through the CallHippo dialer appear on the contact’s record (and the deal’s, if one exists). You can also start a call from a HubSpot record by choosing CallHippo as the calling provider. Optionally, map CallHippo’s call statuses to HubSpot call outcomes under HubSpot’s call configuration settings; otherwise they map automatically.

Not using HubSpot? Use a simple Notion CRM

Plenty of small businesses are not ready for a full CRM subscription. If that is you, a lightweight pipeline in Notion is a practical middle ground: log who called, what they wanted and the next follow-up date, and link it to the deal. Our Sales CRM for Business Notion template gives you a ready-made contacts, deals and activities setup, and our guide to choosing a Notion CRM template explains how to structure one. You can run it on a free or paid Notion workspace. CallHippo’s integrations page does not list a native Notion connector, so this setup relies on logging calls by hand or through an automation tool such as Make, which does appear on CallHippo’s integrations list.

Setup checklist

Task	Where in CallHippo	Typical wait
Start trial	Sign-up page	Immediate
Buy a US local number	Numbers, Add Number	Usually immediate (no documents)
Buy a number that needs documents	Numbers, Add Number	24 to 72 hours for verification
Port an existing US number	Numbers and DID, port-in requests	2 to 4 weeks
Invite users	Users & Performance, Users	Until each user accepts
Business hours	Number settings, Business hours	Immediate
IVR menu	Number settings, Music & Messages	Immediate
Forward to mobile	User settings, Forward-to-device	Immediate
CRM connection	Integrations	Until contact sync email arrives

Common mistakes to avoid

• Buying the wrong number type. If you need to text customers, filter for SMS-capable numbers. Many local numbers are voice only.
• Skipping the document check. Look at the requirements before you pay. CallHippo warns that missing documents can mean delays or replacement charges.
• Leaving the timezone on the default. Business hours run on the number’s timezone, so a mismatch can send daytime calls to voicemail.
• Forwarding everything. Forwarded calls are billed on two legs. Answering in the mobile app avoids the second charge.
• Cancelling your old line too early. When porting, keep the old service active until the port is confirmed.
• Inviting users you do not need yet. Each user is a paid seat. Several people can share one number, but each still needs a seat to take calls.

Is CallHippo the right virtual business phone number provider for you?

CallHippo is a sensible fit if you want a self-serve cloud phone system with numbers in many countries, IVR and routing, and a long list of CRM and helpdesk integrations. The setup is mostly toggles in a web dashboard, which suits teams without IT staff.

It is less of a fit if you only need a single personal second line with no team features, since per-user plans and add-ons can be more than you need. It is also worth checking local pricing carefully: when we viewed the pricing page, some plans and add-ons were displayed in a local currency, and one landing page showed a different Starter price from the pricing page. The trial gives you time to confirm the real cost in your region before you pay anything.

If you are ready to give your business its own number, the fastest route is to start the trial, grab a US local number (or the number type you need), and work through the steps above in one sitting.

FAQ

How long does it take to get a virtual business phone number with CallHippo?

A US local number or an Australia mobile number can be added without documents, so they can be ready almost immediately. Most other numbers require document verification, which CallHippo’s help center puts at roughly 24 to 72 hours depending on the country and number type.

Does CallHippo have a free trial?

Yes. As of October 2026, CallHippo advertises a 10-day free trial on its paid plans with no credit card required. The pricing page also lists a Basic plan at $0 that is free for the first 6 months, where you pay only for numbers.

Can I keep my existing business number?

Often, yes. CallHippo supports porting virtual numbers (not physical SIM numbers). For US numbers you can start the port from the dashboard with a Letter of Authorization and a recent carrier bill, and you need a real US physical address. CallHippo says US and Canada port-ins are free, while other countries have a one-time fee. Ports usually take 2 to 4 weeks.

Can several people answer the same number?

Yes. When you invite users you can allocate the same number to several people, and CallHippo says they can make concurrent calls on it. Each person is still billed as a separate user seat.

Can I send texts from a CallHippo number?

Only if the number supports SMS. The help center notes that local numbers usually do not, while mobile numbers usually do. Check the capability label when you pick a number: “Voice Enabled” numbers cannot send or receive SMS or MMS.

Does CallHippo integrate with my CRM?

CallHippo’s integrations page lists CRMs including HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, Microsoft Dynamics, Copper and many others, plus helpdesks such as Zendesk and Freshdesk. The HubSpot integration logs calls and SMS on contacts and deals and lets you dial from HubSpot records. If you track customers in Notion, you can log calls manually or connect through an automation tool.