TextNow: Call + Text Unlimited Ratings and Reviews

For 99 cents and $5 dollars a YEAR i can make phone calls, text unlimited, and have better service than when i had at&t! Im not working right now and Text Now was a life saver. i would be without a working phone right now, but instead i have a perfectly functioning phone for less than six dollars. the $5 a year is to be able to receive codes to your number which is unbeatable. The only thing I can say i wish worked better was the functionality of the app. sometimes it lags or wants to work slow. still cant beat it!

im updating my review after having the paid plan for almost a year. i still stand by what i said in the beginning. we had an ice storm recently that knocked our power out for two days. If it wasn’t for text now I would have had no form of communication, but I was texting and calling, as if nothing was going. Sometimes the LTE that comes free with text now lets me do simple google searches which is amazing, especially when you don’t have wifi. This is hands down the best texting app on the app store. it’s even better than line!

Hi there! Thanks for your feedback and your positive response. We would like to help you if the app lags for you. Please email community@textnow.com with any feedback you may have for us.

I absolutely love TextNow as a service. Unlike other apps, there’s no catch to it. All you do is make free texts and calls, no credits or payments involved, no time limits or message caps, just pure, simple communications. Sure it might show you some ads, but there’s no full ads that I’ve ever seen. All of the ads I’ve seen are banner ads or ads that appear as a panel in your next messages, and that are completely unobtrusive (though ugly.)

I do find how ads show up in the main menu for my contacts and conversations. Just opening the app, you see ads. When you’re in public and open the app, the first thing that pops up in the screen is a banner ad. It’s quite embarrassing to be honest. I feel like keeping ads INSIDE the texts would be much better as I only see them when I choose to open a message or make a call. Also, the lack of a dark mode is very uncomfortable for someone who has very sensitive eyes and can’t look at bright things directly for an extended amount of time, and as someone who prefers the dark aesthetic, it’s unappealing. I can easily see a dark mode appealing to a lot of other people, so it would be great if it was a feature.

That’s it. The app may be an eyesore to some, but for me it’s only a two star deduction, and it doesn’t look that bad. The service itself is very capable for being completely free and it’s great even as a primary phone number.

Hey there, we really appreciate you taking the time to provide us your feedback. We are always looking at ways to improve and will take your comment into consideration for the app in feature updates. If you need any assistance with your account you can email us at community@textnow.com for help!

I am new to TextNow. Loved it for a few hours but then tried to understand some of the options and differences among add-ons, subscriptions, premiums, etc. Their posted “help” articles were contradictory, so I used their chat help fcn w an agent. I followed all his instructions and was not able to get a new premium number unless I waited 15d. But he didn’t tell me that before I gave up my number. I continued to ask for clarification and then he abruptly disconnected the chat (after I had already been chatting and waiting for at least an hour). I continued to try to get a new number (as he had instructed). Then I got locked out and needed to recover my acct, which I attempted to do, but never received the email from them that it said I was supposed to. So I navigated around more, closed the app and reopened it, etc. And then my acct was completely suspended! Then I attempted to rechat but no one would pick it up. At least 10 minutes later an agent finally picked it up and said there is no account with my email/acct details. I’m still trying to resolve it, but this is terrible service. Been chatting for over 2 hrs and still not resolved!…

…Someone finally paid attention and said they don’t support VPN… although I had t been having any problems w it while using VPN until this afternoon. And my current VPN server is in NY. TextNow requires a North American IP address. So that doesn’t really explain all the problems to me…

Thanks for the feedback, and we apologize for your experience using our app. We are always looking at ways to improve and will take your comments into consideration. Our service is currently only supported in North America, and we don't support the use of a VPN to change the IP address.

I paid the $4.99/yr for locking my number, and now all of a sudden a month later i click on the app to try and look at what number i have so i can log back into my Telegram account that i needed it for, and it will only ask for me to choose a new number. It’s clearly a glitch though, because it will show the list of texts i have gotten on the number i already paid to use and keep for less than a second before the other screen pops up in front of it. I can’t get around it.

Update: i went back and forth with customer service over email and provided them the information they asked for, and a week later even after i ask if there’s been any update on progress, i get nothing back. I found out whoever has my number now deleted my telegram account to make their own with the number, so trying to keep it is just pointless now. Don’t use this app. They put receiving verification codes and “locking in” your number so that people don't take your information or number behind a paywall, but then it doesn’t even lock it in! I still got my number reassigned to somebody else and they were still able to log into my account and delete it so they could make their own. Waste of time and money. It took me two weeks of being logged out of my account for me to finally realize that all of this has been for nothing.

Hi there, In order to help improve your experience with TextNow we'll need to get some clarification to determine how we can help with any issues you're experiencing, as we haven't been able to find any emails or chats regarding this issue. Please email community@textnow.com with more details for additional assistance, and include a copy of this review if you can.

So I work really really hard but like a lot of people- sometimes in between paydays comes that phone bill. Which can be that little extra that’s either going to get you by or give you phone. Of course I choose to use it to get by! Downloading this app- I have Wi-Fi at home and at work. So while I’m here or at home I can call my FS card to check my balance (which can be VERY important when I need milk for my 2 yr old ect;) and I’m unsure of what I’ve got- and avoid embarrassment in the store being declined for misunderstanding my balance. It can be helpful for a lot. I need it for little thank God but where I need it- it comes in clutch like any phone I PAY for to make calls. I don’t use it as my main use but it’s definitely 1000% my go-to in a tight spot. Thank you Creators!
(If you use this for texting pics, videos, voicemail; I think you pay for it but it’s like $10 a month…whiiiich is still $50 MINIMUM cheaper than a lot of plans elsewhere- I only use it for sparingly important phone calls in-between paydays so it’s perfect for users like me and that function- really is free.)

Hi there, Thanks for your positive review. If there's anything we can do to provide you with an even better experience please let us know!

don’t bother downloading this glitchy app. they have to make issues that they need to fix. i’ve been blocked from both accounts for no reason, they’ll say your account has been flagged for a violation but will not tell you why. if you don’t subscribe asap they will block your account, you won’t be able to logged in, and when you submit an appeal it will take a month for them to respond. if they think they didn’t make an error on their end with blocking your account they will not respond and you just won’t have access to your account. the chat agents aren’t helpful at all, they don’t even know how to fix the issues you’re having. one agent told me that i had to make a whole new Apple ID in order to subscribe to lock in my number all because my old account still had a subscription WHICH IS CANCELLED AND DELETED. it doesn’t make sense how a cancelled subscription messes with a new account and subscription. when you want to delete an account they will not actually delete it, they will just keep it blocked. TextNow is not a good app! they just take your money, if they don’t like how you speak to them they’ll block your account and you won’t be able to have access to it and you can’t make a new account until the appeal is resolved. i’ve had so many issues with this app in the past 3-4 months.

Hey there, thanks for your feedback. We apologize for your experience! An account would only be flagged if our system detects activity that violates our Terms of Use. If you would like us to investigate this further, email us at community@textnow.com, and we would be happy to help!

I’ve had TextNow for over 4 years and counting. I used to love this app because the ads while they were there (as they ought to be since it’s a free service), they were non intrusive and bearable. It was a tiny banner ad in between messages in the inbox . That’s it.

However in the past few months it has gotten so bad that I’ve considered simply uninstalling the app and moving on . I’ve always used this service as a secondary number for non personal stuff (I even paid to get my number locked in) , but now it seems it’s not even worth it.

To say that the ads are very frequent would be a total understatement.. it literally seems that after every call made , you get blasted with a 20-30 second full screen ad (which you cannot skip or close or do anything with other than wait it out) . Why should I have to deal with that so often ? It never used to be like this and if it had to come to the point in which full screen ads like that had to be implemented , then ok if it was once in a while fine , I would just deal with it. But every other phone call or 30 seconds of going through messages? Nah that’s too much I’m sorry. You guys sold out plain and simple.

Hi, Thanks for your feedback. Ads are required to keep the app available for free. If you are unhappy with the amount of ads you can upgrade to Ad Free Lite to remove some of the ads or for a completely ad free experience we have Ad Free+ which is available. This will allow you to use the service ad-free as well as provide you with additional premium features like call-forwarding!

I am just so very pleased and thankful for a company like this and the app!! As someone who keeps having the worst luck with typical cell phone companies constantly screwing up my accounts and leaving me to be the one to pay the price for their mistakes. I’ve been in a position several times where my phone service was interrupted and unable to use my phone. So I am extremely grateful for this company. And the fact that they have a free service of using a phone number that only needs wifi to make it work. Which has saved me many times when I was in a position of needing to make an emergency call. I’ve tested just about every app that is similar to this one. But their services are very limited and only offer a few features that are free before they cut you off and demand some sort of purchase. I’ve now purchased services from this app simply because I want to show my appreciation and support to a company and app that gives their customers an option of service for free and without ever trying to force you to be a paying customer.
I love this app!!!

Hi Matthew, Thanks for your positive review. If there's anything we can do to provide you with an even better experience please let us know!

This app is great. Especially for me because I have an iPad, which means I cannot text phones from Samsung etc. This app is good because I could text my friends with phones from other providers. But, I faced many issues such as sometimes I would click on the app and it would shut me out and I would be back on the home screen after being in the app for about 3 seconds. I do get a lot of spam calls and a lot of people I don’t know txt me. It is really glitchy and sometimes I send messages and the person I am texting did not receive it. Another thing I didn’t like was I didn’t receive notifications most of the time when people texted me. One day I went on the app and all but the contact names went black. It shut me out of the app and I was back at the home screen. I tried many times getting back on the app, but it never worked. Then I got back on about a couple months later and I was logged out of my account! I can’t get back on and I don’t know what to do!! All of my text messages with my friends and family are gone. I would not recommend this app... it has just brought me so much anger and unless they fixed something with a magical update I don’t know if it’s going to be any good because I WAS LOGGED OUT OF MY ACCOUNT AND CAN’T CHECK FOR YOU. Hope this helped.

Hi there, We’re sorry you are having trouble, thanks for letting us know. Can you please provide all of these details to us at community@textnow.com along with the email address on your account? We like to find out how we can help improve your experience.

I have used this app for several years. First stated having issues 1 year ago where my number was almost lost even though I had paid the subscription to keep my number. Now this week when I try to use the service I receive a message that my account has been terminated for violation of terms. However I have barely used the app in the last few months except for every once in a while and I am definitely sure I violated no terms as I have been using the app for several years. When I contacted customer service they informed me the account was closed for violation but are not able to tell me what the violation was and there is not appeal process to get reactivated. It is my feeling that they just wanted the subscription fee and then wanted to recycle my number to someone else. I do not recommend this app to anyone due to sketchy business practices and no business integrity.

Update: They contacted me to try and resolve issue supposedly but would only say sorry we can't help your account terminated even though I had paid the yearly subscription fee to keep my number. This app use to be good, however as many of the other reviews have stated it is now a total scam to get money then free up cell number to other to try and scam over and over.

Hi Alex, In order to help improve your experience with TextNow we'll need to get some clarification to determine how we can help with any issues you're experiencing. Please email community@textnow.com with more details for additional assistance.