We have all received phone calls from unknown numbers. These days, it’s a regular part of life in the modern world. It is natural to be skeptical about such calls, as they are sometimes from less-than-honest individuals seeking to swindle you. That’s where reverse phone lookup services come in. A reverse phone lookup service gives you a vast amount of information about an incoming (or missed) call’s phone number, all based on simply inputting the phone number that called you.

There are a wide variety of times when you need to learn something about another person that you cannot simply find out from speaking with them, and a mysterious call from a phone number you don’t recognize is a prime example of this. But how can you know if the number calling you isn’t simply a person you actually wish to speak with, but whose number you don’t have in your phone? The following list of the best reverse phone lookup services can help. We’ve done the research and whittled down the long list of copycat services to bring you only the very best reverse phone lookup companies that are worth your time and money.

Top 3 Reverse Phone Lookup Services

1. Intelius - Best All-Around Reverse Phone Lookup Service
2. PeopleFinders - Most Adaptable
3. Spokeo - Best User Experience

Reviews: Best Reverse Phone Lookup Services

1. Intelius - Best All-Around Reverse Phone Lookup Service

Pros 

• Unlimited report generation
• Searches millions of records
• Deep results with limited input

Cons

• Payment options are limited to credit cards, debit cards, or PayPal

How it helps you 

Intelius is one of the best services to help you find out everything you could want to know about a phone number that is calling you. The process is as simple as entering the mystery phone number into the Intelius website and giving the site a few moments to parse through the large number of public information databases it searches. 

Once the Intelius system completes the phone number search on the landline or cell phone number, it will display a report in a big, clear dashboard format. The results of a reverse phone number search on Intelius may include any of the following: 

• Name of the potential owner of the phone number you searched
• Phone service carrier associated with the number
• Potential additional phone numbers associated with the owner
• Alternate names the owner goes by
• Email address/possibly multiple email addresses
• Photos of the potential owner
• Social media profiles for the potential phone number owner
• Address locations the owner may have lived at or been associated with

Why you should consider it

Intelius tops our list of the best reverse phone lookup sites because it provides deeply powerful search tools and insightful reporting results for an incredibly reasonable fee and within an impressively fast result, given the thousands of databases involved. If you truly want to know who is calling, or the source of a missed call’s number, this is one of the best services for you.

Normal pricing for this service may seem a bit steep to some, at $24.86 USD per month, even though this includes unlimited reports on as many people as you care to research. Our review team saw this as a very reasonable price for such a wealth of information, however. There is also a “power user” pricing option that saves more than $7 over two months. 

Our review team also uncovered an option for pricing that reduced the $24.86 per month price to a $1.99 5-day trial, though you should be aware that if you take this option and do not cancel the trial, you will end up paying more for the service when it kicks in at a full $29.63 monthly rate. 

Why it made this list of the best reverse phone lookup sites

To anyone seeking a one-time phone lookup, the pricing structures for this service can certainly seem daunting, but our review team could not recommend Intelius more highly. If all you need is a single check one time on one landline or cell phone number, we still highly recommend the 5-day trial, as seeing the true power and comprehensive research outcomes of Intelius is very likely to change your mind and want to learn a lot more about the phone numbers that call you, not to mention the other people in your life who you may wish to know more about. 

Learn more at Intelius.com

2. PeopleFinders - Most Adaptable Reverse Phone Lookup Site

Pros 

• Proficient identification of unknown phone numbers
• Phone lookup function works on any device, including its own mobile app
• Easily finds info on random callers

Cons

• Trial membership is an amazing value at only $0.95 but becomes a $24.95 monthly charge for unlimited reports, which some folks may not want

How it helps you 

Most of the time, modern technology solves questions for us before we ask them. Even in the case of unknown numbers, the tech has come a long way and you can sometimes even see a company name or organization attached to an incoming call from a number you don’t know. But we all know this isn’t always the case. 

When the call coming in is not recognized and you’re not sure if it’s worth picking up, PeopleFinders comes to the rescue. A simple search of the ten-digit phone number itself is all you need to get started on the PeopleFinders.com website. From there, a wealth of information becomes available at your fingertips.

PeopleFinders also has its own mobile app called IdentityWatch which offers live caller ID. In essence, a reverse cell phone lookup is something you tend to do after the fact: a call comes in, you don’t recognize it, and you have to search for it afterward. This is limiting because it may be too late to catch a call from someone you wanted to speak with. The PeopleFinders IdentityWatch app’s live caller ID feature solves this issue by giving you information about the calling party in real time, right when you need it.

Why you should consider it

PeopleFinders can help you find a wide variety of information about a caller you do not recognize. While each case is different, you can generally find the name of the person who owns the phone number that called you. Basics like the name of the phone owner are a part of the public record–meaning this information is available somewhere in the public sphere. Professional services like PeopleFinders are the ones who know how to access this information quickly and display it in a convenient way for those of use needing the mystery solved immediately.

Another reason you might run a reverse cell phone lookup would be to see the calling party’s location and phone service carrier. The carrier gives you regional information and may also tell you if the owner owns other numbers as well. The location is obviously helpful since it may help you narrow down people you know when paired with the name or part of a name. After all, remembering who “Pauly D” is may be a lot easier if you see that his location is listed as the “Jersey Shore”.

Why it made this list of the best reverse phone lookup sites

PeopleFinders is near the top of our list of the best reverse phone lookup services because it provides quality information about unknown callers in an easy format, with plenty of options to improve the process for the user even further. 

Learn more at PeopleFinders.com

3. Spokeo - Best User Experience Reverse Phone Lookup Site

Pros 

• Intuitive website experience for reverse phone lookups
• Clean, professional, trustworthy look and feel
• Quick lookup experience 

Cons

• Includes deep web results, which is a topic on which some may have an opinion 

How it helps you 

A reverse phone lookup search tends to begin with the same process, no matter which service it is. Someone calls from a number you don’t know and you want some insight into why they may be reaching out. 

Is it a spam caller looking to separate you from your cash? Is it a creditor seeking repayment of some sort? Is it a long-lost brother reaching out for the first time in decades? Or is it simply Joe from down the street and you just don’t have that darned HOA-hawking lawncare jockey in your phone yet? 

Whatever the need, Spokeo has you covered with the best user experience on our list. Given that this is the third in the list of the best reverse phone lookup sites you can find on the web today, that’s really saying something!

“User experience” is fancy-talk for “looks good and works well”, but it’s an important feature in its own right, as clunky experiences are the source of much frustration and more than a few unhappy customers across any type of business. In fact, user experience is one of those things that, if done well, is often very much ignored. 

If a website, app or service is working right and you get the info you need in a fast, easily understood way, you don’t often stop to think, “huh. Would you look at that? No bad buttons that don’t work or need to be pressed more than once. No links that go nowhere or to the wrong feature. No functions that don’t work. What a great user experience!” 

Instead, the best user experiences work as intended with little fanfare and, perhaps unfortunately, that’s one of the reasons such a great experience often goes without notice. 

In this case, you’d be hard-pressed to find a reverse phone lookup service that is cleaner, quicker, or more professional than Spokeo. This user experience is everything you need it to be: fast, easy, and seamless.

Why you should consider it

For any of the wide variety of reasons for such things, you’re seeking services to do a phone number search because you want to know who’s calling. Spokeo solves this problem by revealing any number of data points for a landline or cell phone number, from caller name to known locations to social media accounts or even family members and known associates. And it does so with some of the fastest results on our list. 

Why it made this list of the best reverse phone lookup sites

Spokeo goes the extra mile and makes a good, solid, information-based service into one that provides a quality experience. That says a lot about the company behind it and it’s the chief reason Spokeo made our list.

Learn more at Spokeo.com

Why Did We Pick These 3 Phone Lookup Sites?

This best reverse phone lookup services list comes from the results of a weeks-long study conducted by a panel of experts. Our review panel studied a wide variety of reverse phone lookup sites available across the web and across the world. Each potential service was tested and compared on a number of parameters including: available features, pricing models, data and research capabilities, speed of results, and overall ease of use and user experience. As a result, here you will find only the top three best-of-the-best choices for reverse phone number lookup sites available today.

Things to Consider in a Reverse Phone Lookup Site

There are a variety of considerations when deciding which reverse phone lookup service to use. Trustworthiness is high on the list, as you certainly want to work with a service that provides information you feel you can rely on. No one values a service that spits out random or useless info when you’re seeking something specific. When it comes to determining trust, there are a few great ways to go about it: 

• Technical specifications
• Historical data
• Third-party “Trust Seals”
• Customer reviews

Any reverse phone lookup site worth its salt will proudly display information related to each of these areas. 

In terms of technical specifications, you want to look for anything from the setup of the service’s website to the outline of tech and database access it uses. Check out the service’s FAQs and customer service information areas to learn more on this part, but an easy first thing to check is the website address (or “website URL”). 

Look for the “s” within the website address at the very beginning: “https”, as the presence of that letter (and often a little lock icon in your browser next to it) is indicative that the website adheres to at least the basics of secure data transfer. In essence, this means the reverse phone lookup service website is set up correctly and indicates at least a modicum of legitimacy. Even outside of the context of phone lookups, you should think twice about interacting with any websites that are missing the “s” in “https” as that letter literally stands for “secure” which is something that every website should be!`

In terms of history, any service should be one that has been around for a while. Reverse phone number lookup services are not a new idea, so be wary of any websites that offer the service but are very new (as in, less than a year old). Some ways to check the “age” of a website include using domain age checker services, which check when a domain (or website) was registered, or use the Wayback Machine, which is a nonprofit organization that archives the internet as thoroughly as possible for posterity. 

There are also third parties that provide some trustworthiness by way of “trust seals”. These third-party organizations arose in the 1990s and early 2000s as the Internet became a burgeoning source of commerce and needed a way to ensure that information traveling to and from a site met secure enough criteria that you could trust it with your credit card number. 

A variety of these trust seals exist, focusing on different areas of security, encryption, or as indicators of other levels of adherence to standards that matter to various industries. At their core, however, the main trust seals on most websites (including reverse phone number lookup services) simply indicate that the sites are legitimate and that this legitimacy has been reviewed by an outside entity.

According to 2016 and 2022 research studies by the Baymard Institute, a website user’s perception of security, including the use of trust seals, plays a role in whether or not the user believes their information to be safe enough to conduct transactions on a given website. 

Examples include: 

• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate - this represents encryption of data that travels to and from a website and is an indicator of basic coverage to ensure data isn’t freely available to anyone who wants to intercept it or seek it out.
• Credit Card Logos - websites that engage in e-commerce (the selling of goods or services online) and wish to make payments available via the major credit card companies often obtain specific logos from Visa, MasterCard, American Express, etc. that are indicative that the website maintains a level of security that is acceptable to these payment processing giants. 
• TRUSTe - TrustArc is a third-party company focused on privacy compliance that has been in the trust seals game long enough to be considered one of the top entities in this space.
• BBB Online - the Better Business Bureau is a long-standing third-party business entity known for helping establish trust with companies. Its online presence was established early and is one of the most trusted versions of trust seals.

Any legitimate phone lookup service should display a variety of these trust seals on its website. Most should be clickable images that lead to the third party entity’s overview of the site’s security level.

One final way to determine the trustworthiness of a phone lookup service is to simply read through the site’s customer reviews. Your fellow customers have a lot of good reasons to tell it like it is about a company and their experiences working with or purchasing from that company. Some write reviews to complain. Others write reviews to highlight features or sing the praises of a job done well. 

Either way, reading through a variety of customer reviews on both ends of the spectrum will give you a good idea of the kind of company you’re considering. Too many negative reviews (overall or especially recently) can potentially be indicative of poor customer service or bad quality, or perhaps that a site doesn’t do what it says it does.

At the end of the day, an establishment of trust in a reverse phone number lookup service is the most important element to consider working with them. That’s why each of the phone lookup sites on this list has been thoroughly vetted for safety, security, and longevity. 

How Does a Reverse Phone Lookup Work?

A phone lookup is a simple process on the surface. An unfamiliar cell phone number rings your phone, piquing your curiosity. Who could it be? Oftentimes, a simple search engine search or a free reverse phone lookup site reveals little, so it’s time to bring in the big guns. This is where true reverse phone number lookup services come in to save the day. 

A reverse lookup allows you to find out who owns a phone number. It can be used for many purposes, such as for finding out who called you or for finding out a bit more about people whose phone numbers you know. 

The process of a reverse lookup begins with the input of a ten digit phone number. You are then taken to a results page where the owner of the number is displayed. The results will provide you with varying amounts of information, depending upon the type of search you are working with. 

You may also find other relevant information about the person who owns that number as well, as each case is different. 

There are two types of reverse phone lookups: free searches and paid services. 

The free reverse phone lookup is less thorough than the paid service in that it basically only searches for names and limited info like maybe carrier or type (mobile or landline). Free reverse phone lookup searches don’t include much detail. But since each case is different (often depending upon how much information the phone number owner has released into the public sphere) you may find anything from simply the initials of a name to a partial phone number that may or may not be the one you’re searching for, or possibly a few more points such as the phone number owner’s name or general location (such as the name of the city associated with the phone’s area code). 

If you want to find out more information, you'll need to use a paid service. The good news is, much like the options here on our list of the best reverse phone lookup services, these paid services are very affordable these days. 

A paid service is the only one that searches for more than just the name and address of someone. They will also potentially provide everything from contact information such as additional phone numbers and associated email addresses to more specific location information to known associates or family members. Paid services are also very likely to lead you to your target’s social media profiles as well. 

When it comes to phone lookup sites, the phrase “you get what you pay for” is very relevant. Thankfully, even the paid services don’t cost much!

What are the Benefits of Reverse Phone Lookup Sites?

The benefits of reverse phone lookup services are many and varied. Everything from simply finding out who is calling to checking on the status of a previously held number, to verifying the legitimacy of someone else or a business are all great reasons to engage reverse phone searches.

Receiving anonymous phone calls is usually the first reason someone considers a reverse phone lookup. In this case, a reverse phone search provides the benefit of revealing information about the person or company that called. 

You may also have the phone number of an old friend and wish to reconnect with them. Reverse phone lookup searches are of great benefit in this scenario because they can often reveal information about a person’s location as well as other potentially related phone numbers, email addresses, or social media accounts that may help you find your old friend.

There are also sometimes reasons to look into the possibility of criminal activity of an acquaintance. Using only cell phone numbers, reverse phone lookups can often garner everything from basic contact info to general criminal background or other activities that may be available in the public record. 

There are also many reasons to run a background check on yourself (usually to know what others might find), and conducting a free reverse phone lookup or through one of our phone number lookup sites can be revealing. Who doesn’t love to find out what’s available about themselves, after all!

Dating is also a really solid reason to use a reverse phone number lookup. A person’s phone number is generally one of the first pieces of information you obtain from them, so engaging a reverse phone lookup search of that number is an easy place to start. You can use such a search to do everything from the basics like ensuring that the person is who they say they are, or to verify or confirm some background details they may have shared, such as previous locations they’ve lived in.

There are indeed a wide variety of benefits associated with reverse phone lookup services and each of the brands on our list is an excellent place to start.

FAQ

What is the Fair Credit Reporting Act? 

Much discussion around reverse phone lookup services and related services like background checks involve the Fair Credit Reporting Act, or FCRA, as the use of information from such checks is limited to personal use in order to protect consumers. 

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is a law that offers protection to you as the consumer. Under this law, the information that is gathered, reported, and retained on your credit by credit reporting agencies has to be fair and accurately reported. It also ensures that your information as a consumer is protected and kept private. 

Credit reporting agencies are required by law to follow the guidelines within the laws of the FCRA, to ensure that the information is gathered legally and accurately. The laws put forth from the FCRA not only allow you as a consumer to have access to your report free once a year but also set forth guidelines like removing information from your report that negatively impact you as a consumer. 

The FCRA also ensures that all consumers are entitled to know what their consumer credit score is and in the event that you apply for credit-based programs offered by retailers and you are not approved, you are entitled as a consumer to always request for the reason your credit was denied. This ensures transparency and fairness in the process, such that legitimate and specific reasons must be provided, not simply subjective decisions. 

Will the phone number owner know I searched for them?

Possibly the best part about using any of the services in our best reverse phone lookup services list is that none of them will tell the phone owner that they have been searched. There is no record or alert given to the source phone number, nor are you identified or spotlighted in any way. 

Each of the services on this go so far as to use 256-bit encryption (or better) to ensure your searches are anonymous and that the results are seen only by you. This is important because, in most cases, you would not want the phone number you are searching to know that you are looking to learn more about them. 

Using a spam caller as an example makes the importance of this encryption clear. If a spammer tries to call your phone and you don’t pick up, you will notice a missed call from a number you do not know. Use a reverse phone lookup, you may find the name of the company the spammer called from and therefore be able to identify them as such. 

If your search was not secure, the process would simply tell the spammer that you are searching for them and, in turn, defeat the entire purpose. No one wants to be reached by spammers or scammers. That’s why we use such terms for them and why they are all universally disliked. Those who would call you for such purposes are obviously calling with ill-intent. 

That’s why your privacy and an encrypted search connection are key features, ensuring that when you get the info you want about a caller, they have no idea they’ve been revealed.

Can I get free reverse phone lookup services?

The answer to this is technically “yes”, though that is a very misleading affirmative. Here’s why: you “can” get info about a phone number for free, but that basically amounts to using a search engine like Google, Bing, or Yahoo to search for the phone number yourself. So yes, you “can” run a reverse phone number lookup yourself, just as you can Google any other topic. You are simply just not likely to find too much information on your own, is all.

That said, our review team does indeed recommend running a quick search for the phone number you’re seeking, as it doesn’t hurt to see if perhaps a minor question may be answered by doing so. 

It is important to note, however, that any information you find in a search engine search is information you will need to vet, verify, and confirm yourself. Another reason paid reverse phone number lookups are so valuable is that they provide some semblance of confidence in the information provided, as it is pulled from official databases. 

Other reasons reverse phone lookups are not free include: 

• Some of the databases from which the services pull information incur a cost to access and pull data
• Each reverse phone lookup company provides the service of not only obtaining data, but deploying and displaying it neatly for the customer to review, consume, and/or download. This requires processes and technology that must be maintained in order to provide the service and there are costs associated with this
• Each service creates, maintains, and updates their own user interfaces and dashboard displays of reports and information for their customers. Creation, maintenance, and innovation on web-based businesses requires coverage of overhead costs, with which these fees assist

Conclusion 

There are many great reasons to engage a reverse phone number lookup service and the top three listed here on the best reverse phone lookup list are your best bet. Get the info you need about missed calls or cell phone numbers quickly, efficiently, and with the highest quality and best pricing around by starting with one of these reverse phone lookup brands.