1300 Number Names: Getting Yours

Every industry has one: 1300 FLOWERS, 1300 PLUMBER, 1300 LAWYER. A 1300 number that spells a business name is a phoneword — the branded end of the 1300 numbers family — and it is the most contested real estate in the Australian number pool, because a name a customer can spell from memory is a name they can dial from memory. This page covers how the mapping works, what a name number costs, and how to find out whether yours is still available.

How a name becomes a number

The mapping is the one printed on every phone keypad: 2 carries ABC, 3 carries DEF, 4 carries GHI, 5 carries JKL, 6 carries MNO, 7 carries PQRS, 8 carries TUV and 9 carries WXYZ. To turn a name into a 1300 number, spell the word, convert each letter to its digit, and the result is the six digits that follow 1300.

Three practical wrinkles sit inside that rule:

• Six letters is the limit. A 1300 number holds six digits after the prefix, so FLOWERS (seven letters) does not fit whole — the pattern works only in truncated or variant forms.
• Q and Z barely exist. They are the keypad's orphans, which is why some words have awkward gaps and why the industry tolerates approximate spellings.
• One word, many spellings. PLUMBER and PLUMBERS, Kwik and Quick, digit substitutions for letters — every variant is a different pattern with its own availability and price.

What a name number costs

The 1300 pool divides into standard numbers, which connect at ordinary plan rates, and phonewords, which carry a premium lease because the pattern itself is the asset. In the current pool, leases for live examples run from around $40 a month (1800 LOCKSMITH) to several hundred for the most commercial words. The strongest patterns — the ones an industry would all want — are typically acquired through an auction process rather than a lease menu.

The plan underneath the lease is ordinary: your monthly plan fee and per-second call charges apply exactly as they would for a standard number. What the lease buys is the pattern, not the plumbing.

Finding out whether your name is free

This is the part you can do in the next two minutes. Search the pattern — as a word or as digits — in the available numbers tool, and you will see immediately whether it can be connected, and at what lease. If your first choice is taken, the variations usually rescue the project: add a word (1300 JOEPLUMB), swap a letter for its digit twin, or search the word in the 1800 range instead, where the same name maps to a different, less crowded pool.

The deeper mechanics of the word-number tier — the auction system, the smartnumber heritage — are covered in phonewords and smart numbers, and the sibling treatment of digits-as-words is in 1300 numbers in words.

One caution before you brand around it

A name number is a brand asset with a lease attached. Before you print it on vehicles and ads, confirm three things: the lease price and term, what happens to the pattern if you ever change providers, and that the word reads correctly in digits — a truncated word that half-spells your name is worse for recall than a clean variant. The choice between a free standard number and a leased name number is, in the end, a marketing decision about what recall is worth to you — the trade is laid out in how to choose the right 1300 number.