Which Apps Send the Most Verification Codes to Free Phone Numbers?

Google sends more verification codes to free public phone numbers than any other app. In the 47 hours from 7 to 9 November 2026, the numbers we track received 37,288 Google SMS, more than twice as many as Uber (17,665) or Instagram (17,442). SHEIN reached the most numbers, 2,802, almost all of them British. At the other end, LINE, Steam, Spotify and Zoom sent between 1 and 5 SMS each.

The top 10 apps by SMS

In those 47 hours, 426,336 SMS reached the free numbers we track. We could attribute 166,159 of them (39.0%) to one of the 49 apps we follow. These are the ten that sent the most.

Rank	App	SMS	Numbers reached	SMS per number	Countries
1	Google	37,288	928	40.2	38
2	Uber	17,665	923	19.1	30
3	Instagram	17,442	1,678	10.4	34
4	TikTok	14,467	1,443	10.0	37
5	Tinder	10,464	1,323	7.9	29
6	Alibaba / AliExpress	8,648	850	10.2	35
7	WhatsApp	7,074	1,407	5.0	34
8	Microsoft	7,047	475	14.8	19
9	PayPal	5,724	788	7.3	32
10	Apple	5,542	920	6.0	34

The list is top-heavy. Google alone sent 22.4% of all attributed SMS. The top five sent 58.6%, and the top ten 79.1%. Twenty of the 49 apps sent at least 1,000 SMS in the window.

Google's codes are also concentrated. It reached 928 numbers, about the same as Uber (923) and Apple (920), but averaged 40.2 SMS per number. Instagram and TikTok averaged about 10 per number, and WhatsApp 5. A Google number on a free site is a busy number, with many codes arriving on it.

Just below the top ten sit Amazon (5,502 SMS), Facebook (4,824), SHEIN (4,680), Shopee (3,835) and KakaoTalk (3,338).

By numbers reached, SHEIN and Facebook lead

Counting SMS and counting numbers tell different stories. An app that sends one code to many numbers ranks low by SMS but high by reach.

App	Numbers reached	SMS per number	Share of those numbers in the UK
SHEIN	2,802	1.7	95.2%
Facebook	1,726	2.8	65.2%
Instagram	1,678	10.4	60.5%
TikTok	1,443	10.0	40.9%
WhatsApp	1,407	5.0	40.7%
Tinder	1,323	7.9	59.3%

SHEIN sent only 4,680 SMS, but spread them over 2,802 numbers, 53.0% of the 5,284 numbers that received any SMS in the window. Facebook did something similar: 1,726 numbers, under 3 SMS each.

The UK share matters here. The UK holds 3,240 of the 4,625 numbers that were live on 9 November, so any app that sends to UK numbers gets a high count. Of SHEIN's 2,802 numbers, 2,667 were British. Google, Microsoft and PayPal are the exceptions in the top ten: their top country was the US (230, 115 and 192 numbers). Only 17.0% of Google's numbers were British. Our UK numbers page lists the British numbers that are working now.

Which apps reach the most countries

Reach across countries shows which apps send codes to numbers almost anywhere.

Facebook: 40 countries
Google: 38
TikTok: 37
Amazon: 36
Alibaba / AliExpress: 35
Instagram, WhatsApp and Apple: 34 each

Twenty-eight of the 49 apps reached numbers in 20 or more countries. Two big senders stand out for the opposite reason. Shopee sent 3,835 SMS, but only to numbers in 7 countries, led by the US (96 numbers), Poland (87), Sweden (87) and the UK (86). Microsoft sent 7,047 SMS to numbers in 19 countries.

If you need a number from a particular country, an app's country page narrows it down. TikTok in the United States, for example, lists US numbers that TikTok has sent codes to.

Apps that barely appear

Fifteen of the 49 apps sent fewer than 100 SMS in the window, and four sent fewer than 10:

Spotify: 5 SMS, all to a single number
Steam: 4 SMS to 4 numbers in 2 countries
LINE: 3 SMS to 3 numbers in 3 countries
Zoom: 1 SMS to 1 number

Netflix (40 SMS on 11 numbers) and Airbnb (21 SMS on 14 numbers) were also rare.

A low count doesn't prove an app blocks free numbers. It could mean the app refuses or quietly drops shared numbers. It could also mean few people try to use a public number for it, or that the app mostly verifies accounts in other ways. These counts can't tell those apart. What they do tell you is that, for these apps, very few free numbers have shown recent proof of delivery.

What this means if you need a code

The ranking tells you which apps send to free numbers at all. It doesn't tell you which number will work for you. A few practical points:

Start from the app's page, not the number list. Each app page lists numbers that received that app's SMS recently. Those numbers have shown that the app still sends to them.
Check the live status first. For apps with few recent codes, the code-not-received page shows whether anything arrived lately, for example WhatsApp's status. If nothing has arrived for hours, switching numbers probably won't help.
Expect company on busy numbers. A number that averages 40 Google codes in two days is a busy, shared number. Note the minute you asked for your code and match it by time and sender.
Try newer numbers. Newest numbers first puts recently listed numbers at the top.

The live version of these counts, updated as numbers come and go, is on our statistics page.

How we counted

Window: the 47 hours from 19:44 UTC on 7 November to 18:55 UTC on 9 November 2026. In that time, 426,336 SMS reached 5,284 numbers.
What the counts mean: "SMS" is the number of messages received from an app. "Numbers reached" is how many different numbers got at least one of them. "Countries" is how many countries those numbers belong to. They count codes received, not sign-ups, and we can't know whether a person or a script asked for any code.
Attribution: we assign a message to an app from its sender name and text, such as "G-123456 is your Google verification code". Codes that don't name the app, or that use wording our rules don't match, stay unattributed. One sender called Cogni sent 2,681 SMS, and its messages included Arabic-language Signal codes that weren't counted as Signal, so Signal's 454 may be too low. Treat every app's count as a minimum.
UK skew: 3,240 of the 4,625 live numbers are British, which inflates "numbers reached" for apps that send to UK numbers.
Short window: two days of data. The gaps near the top are wide, but smaller apps could rank differently over a longer period.