PingMe review: a second number in five countries, from $1.79 a code
★★★☆☆ 2.5 / 5Updated By the SMS ActiveR team
Verdict at a glance
PingMe is best when you want a second phone number kept for months inside an app, with calls and texts on it, across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Hong Kong. For grabbing a single SMS code cheaply it is narrow and pricey, and the public reputation on Trustpilot sits at 2.1 out of 5. Our rating: 2.5 out of 5.
TypePaid
Country coverage5
Popular servicesApple ID, WeChat, Discord, TikTok +8
For Tinder specifically, PingMe is a poor fit. Tinder is not among the popular services it lists, and its lines are VoIP-type, a category Tinder often refuses at sign-up. A single Tinder code costs around $0.03 across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom elsewhere, so even if the code went through, the $1.79 floor here would cost roughly 60 times more per attempt.
PingMe strengths: 5 countries
Failed verifications aren't charged; the rule is stated on the front page.
Credits can be earned rather than bought: daily check-ins, video adverts and invites, with 0.2 coins paid to each side of a referral.
A single rental doubles as a second line: SMS in, calls out, kept for months across many online services.
A published API and mobile apps mean you can automate the flow or run it on the phone.
The free numbers board is open without registration, clear the captcha and read what has arrived.
Does PingMe have a mobile app?
PingMe publishes its mobile app on both stores: the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android. The app carries the same paid service and the free numbers board that the site does: buy a second phone line, receive SMS on it, or read the shared inbox. Search terms like pingme apk, pingme apk download and pingme app download all lead to the same install.
PingMe's free side is a public board of 51 phone numbers, weighted to North America with one each for Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden. The site's own note says anyone can read the messages, and the page is throttled by an Aliyun captcha with a 30-second refresh lock and only the last 50 messages returned. Need free numbers that actually receive codes? Try free SVN numbers.
PingMe pricing: codes run ~$0.50–$1.99, low-demand from ~$0.50
A one-time verification on PingMe starts at $1.79 and the line expires the moment it is used. Keeping a line for a month starts at $1.99 for the first SMS plus $0.10 for each extra message, and holding on to that virtual line afterwards is $0.50 a month on renewal. A regular second line with calls and texts renews at $1.99 a month. For a single verification code across the same five countries, prices elsewhere on the popular online services run from $0.03 to $4.28: Google is $0.05 in the United States and Canada, $0.13 in the United Kingdom and $0.30 in Australia; Tinder is $0.03 almost everywhere. On two Australian pairs, WhatsApp at $4.28 and Telegram at $3.75, the $1.79 floor is the cheaper option.
Plan / use
Typical price
Notes
One-time verification number
$1.79
their own floor, and the number expires once it has been used
Verification number kept for a month
$1.99
covers the first SMS, then $0.10 for each extra one
Keeping that number alive afterwards
$0.50
a month, on renewal
Standard phone number with calls and texts
$1.99
a month, renewed monthly
Prices on every activation service shift with real-time number availability. Always check the live price for your exact service and country before topping up.
PingMe review: inside the dashboard
The site puts the picker and the message list on a single screen. The free numbers page loads behind an Aliyun captcha, then holds refreshes for 30 seconds and returns the last 50 messages at a time. Paid rentals live in an account area behind registration.
How to receive a code on PingMe
Sign up on pingme.tel; registration is required before you can buy or rent a line.
Pick a country: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Hong Kong.
Choose a plan: a one-time verification at $1.79, or a monthly rental from $1.99 with $0.10 per extra SMS.
Pay and wait for the code.
Renew for $0.50 a month if you want to keep the same line.
Screenshot: PingMe, number selection and inbox
Coverage is five countries for a paid number and six on the free board
PingMe sells local phone numbers for five countries only: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong. That is a narrow map next to aggregators that cover 100+ countries. The free board leans further to North America: 23 phone numbers for the United States, 14 for Canada, 11 for the United Kingdom, and one each for Australia, the Netherlands and Sweden.
Payment options
PingMe is a paid service and requires registration on pingme.tel before you can buy a phone line. Payment methods are not published on the public pages; checkout sits inside the account. The stated front-page rule is that failed verifications aren't charged.
How PingMe performed in our tests
On 2026-08-11 we opened PingMe's live catalogue and read its published pricing, walked the free numbers page and its Aliyun-captcha throttle, cross-checked the shared free SMS widget against the Textr apps, reviewed the mobile app listings on both stores, and pulled the public reputation from Trustpilot. No activations were run for this write-up. It sticks to what the live site, the apps and third-party signals show on the day.
What we checked
Read the published price list on 2026-08-11 for the one-time number, the monthly verification number and the standard line.
Counted the free board number by number and country by country.
Priced the same job on our own live retail catalogue the same day, in the same five countries.
Read the page source of the free-SMS widget and compared it against the identical widget on the Textr brand.
Read the FAQ on how credits are earned and what happens to a free number, and checked both app store listings.
Did not buy a number and ran no activations, so no delivery rate, success rate or code-arrival time of our own is claimed for PingMe anywhere on this page.
Metric
SMS Verification Number
PingMe
How you are charged
Per delivered code
Per code from $1.79, or a monthly line from $1.99
Cheapest single code, in their own five countries
$0.03 to $0.05 on the popular platforms
$1.79, their published floor
Countries you can get a number in
211
5
No charge for a failed verification
Yes
Yes, stated on their front page
Public reputation
Not applicable
2.1 on Trustpilot, 17 of the first 20 reviews at one star
SMS Verification Number is our top-rated pick, so we use it as the reference column. The numbers come from our own hands-on testing above; a competitor's availability changes over time, so your results may vary.
Best PingMe alternatives
Comparable providers from our independent index. We list our top-rated pick first, then close alternatives. Compare and choose what fits your task.
Recommended
SMS Verification Number★★★★★ 4.9
Private, exclusive numbers across 200+ countries for WhatsApp, Telegram and 1,000+ apps. Low per-code pricing, repeated SMS, API, and the widest payment list. Our top-rated provider overall.
Local phone numbers in five popular English-language markets.
You are only charged when a code actually goes through.
The same rental works for many online services in the app's directory.
One line covers both incoming SMS and voice calls, not just codes.
On the two most expensive Australian pairs, WhatsApp at $4.28 and Telegram at $3.75, the $1.79 floor undercuts.
Cons
Only five countries are covered: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong.
The lines are VoIP-type phone numbers, and plenty of services that block VoIP will refuse them at the door.
The $1.79 floor for a one-off verification is high next to $0.03 to $0.30 elsewhere for the same countries on popular online services.
On Trustpilot the TrustScore is 2.1 out of 5 across 23 reviews, with 17 of the top 20 sitting at one star.
The free board is a shared inbox; PingMe's own note says everyone can read the messages that arrive.
That board is throttled by design: Aliyun captcha, a 30-second refresh lock, and only the last 50 messages returned.
The same free SMS widget is used by the Textr apps behind the same captcha; textrapp.com still ships a commented-out development endpoint pointing at dev-app.pingme.tel.
When PingMe is not the right choice
Anyone who wants a cheap single Google or Tinder verification: $0.03 to $0.30 elsewhere on the same countries beats the $1.79 floor by a wide margin.
Anyone who needs a country outside the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or Hong Kong.
Services that block VoIP phone numbers; Tinder-style apps in particular tend to reject the whole VoIP category.
Anyone who wants a private free inbox: the free board is public and shared, and everyone can read the codes that land on it.
What our test team observed
We opened PingMe's free numbers page and it made us clear an Aliyun captcha before it would show anything, then held the refresh for 30 seconds and returned the last 50 messages at a time. The site's own note on the board is blunt: everyone can read the messages.
— SMS ActiveR test team · Free numbers page on pingme.tel, 2026-08-11
PingMe and the Textr apps run the same free SMS widget, the same Vue component calling the same /web/smslist endpoint behind the same Aliyun captcha. The textrapp.com page still ships a commented-out development endpoint pointing at dev-app.pingme.tel.
— SMS ActiveR test team · Shared widget check across PingMe and Textr
PingMe verdict: a pricey second line with the weakest reputation in this set
PingMe works best as a second-line app: a virtual line you keep for months, take calls on and receive texts on across five countries. For one-off verification codes it is expensive. The floor is $1.79 and that line expires the moment it is used, against $0.03 to $0.30 elsewhere for popular online services in the same countries. The Trustpilot score is the weakest in this paid set: 2.1 out of 5 across 23 reviews, with 17 of the top 20 at one star. Our rating: 2.5 out of 5. As a rentable number service it earns its keep, but as a code-fetching service it loses to any disposable number provider that charges cents per number. If you already have a long-term number tied to a real account, this service fits; if you just need one code, pick a cheaper service and a throwaway number instead.
What is PingMe?
PingMe is a virtual number app that sells a second phone line rather than one-off SMS activations. Local phone numbers are on offer for five countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong. Beyond paid rentals it runs a public free numbers board and lets users earn credits (daily check-ins, video adverts and invites), with 0.2 coins paid to each side when an invited friend registers.
PingMe FAQ
PingMe is an app for a second phone line in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Hong Kong. It also runs a public free numbers board and lets users earn credits through daily check-ins, video adverts and invites.
There is a free side: a public board of 51 lines, mostly for North America. The site's own note says everyone can read the messages that arrive. Paid rentals start at $1.79 for a one-time verification that expires the moment it is used.
It runs a working paid service, publishes an API and ships apps on both mobile stores. Its public reputation is thin: on Trustpilot the TrustScore is 2.1 out of 5 across 23 reviews, and 17 of the 20 reviews on the first page sit at one star.
The paid side is a normal virtual-line rental with a stated no-charge-on-failure rule. The free side is public; anyone reading the board can see the codes coming into shared lines, so don't use it for anything you care about.
Tinder is not among the popular services it lists, and its lines are VoIP-type, a category Tinder often refuses. A single Tinder code costs around $0.03 elsewhere on the same countries; the $1.79 floor here is roughly 60 times more expensive, even before the pass-rate risk.
We found no active promo code on pingme.tel at the check on 2026-08-11. PingMe does run a referral flow (0.2 coins are credited to each side when an invited friend registers, per its FAQ), but no percentage-off or free-credit coupon is advertised on the site.
The app is published on both mobile stores, the App Store for iOS and Google Play for Android, under the same brand. It mirrors the site: buy a second phone line, receive SMS on it, or read the free board. There is no separate paid apk to sideload.