Most purchased lead lists are sold by row count, and row count is the one metric that says nothing about whether you can reach anyone. A file of 5,000 numbers routinely contains landlines that cannot receive texts, VoIP lines created to farm signup incentives, numbers disconnected years ago, and a small number of people who file lawsuits for a living.
Scrubbing is the step that turns the row count into a dialable count.
What gets removed, and why
| Removed | Why it costs you |
|---|---|
| Landlines | Cannot receive SMS. Text campaigns fail silently against them — no bounce, no error, no delivery. |
| VoIP | Cheap to create and discard, so over-represented in low-quality and fraudulent lists. Poor connect rates. |
| Disconnected | Pure waste. Every dial burns agent time and depresses your connect-rate metrics. |
| Toll-free | A company switchboard, not a consumer lead. |
| TCPA litigators | Statutory damages of $500 to $1,500 per call or text. One missed number can exceed the cost of scrubbing the entire list many times over. |
The last row is the one that changes the arithmetic. Scrubbing 5,000 numbers at $0.044 costs $220. A single willful violation reaches $1,500 — nearly seven times the cost of screening the whole file. See TCPA litigators for why they pass every technical check.
Why "cell phone only" is the useful filter
For most outbound teams the goal is not a valid list, it is a mobile list. Mobiles are where people actually answer, and they are the only line type that supports SMS follow-up.
You cannot get there from the number itself. North American prefixes are not split by line type — the same area code carries both mobiles and landlines — and local number portability means a number issued as a landline years ago may be a mobile now, or the reverse. Any tool that infers line type from the area code is guessing. See line type.
A realistic 5,000-row result
Roughly 3,200 mobile kept · 890 landline removed · 500 VoIP removed · 220 invalid removed · a handful of litigators flagged. Proportions vary a lot by source — a list where 60% is landline is telling you something about the vendor you bought it from.
The scrub is also a vendor audit
Treat the output as data about your supplier, not just about the file. A list heavy with non-fixed VoIP usually means the source accepted throwaway numbers on its forms, or the leads have been resold repeatedly, or the row count was padded to hit a contract minimum.
That is worth knowing before you renew. The scrub gives you a per-vendor quality score for a fraction of what you are paying for the leads, and it is one of the few signals available before you spend anything dialling.
Running one
Upload a CSV or XLSX of up to 5,000 rows. The phone column is detected automatically, every number is normalised to E.164, and the carrier lookup and litigator check run in parallel. You see the row count and exact cost before paying, then download a dialler-ready file.
No subscription, no minimum, no integration work. Check a single number free first if you want to see the output format, or see pricing.
Frequently asked questions
How much does cell phone list scrubbing cost?
NumberBroom charges $0.044 per row with no monthly fee — a 5,000-row list costs $220, and you see the exact figure before paying. Full Hygiene at $0.079 per row adds a contact grade and activity score.
The pricing model matters more than the rate. Most competitors sell subscriptions starting around $130 to $300 a month, charged whether you upload anything or not. If you scrub in bursts rather than continuously, per-job pricing is usually cheaper by a wide margin.
How long does it take to scrub a list?
Minutes for a typical file. Checks run in parallel rather than sequentially, so a 5,000-row list is not five times slower than a 1,000-row one. You upload, pay, and download — there is no sales call, no onboarding and no API integration.
What does the output file look like?
Your original CSV with columns appended: E.164-normalised number, line type, carrier name, and litigator flag. Rows that fail the filters are removed from the deliverable file, and every extra column you uploaded is preserved in place, so the file drops straight back into your dialler or CRM.
Can you scrub a list against the Do Not Call Registry?
No, and it is worth being clear about that. National Do Not Call Registry access runs through your own Subscription Account Number and stays your obligation as the seller — see the registry entry.
What we cover is the half a DNC scrub cannot: whether the line is live, what type it is, and whether it belongs to a serial filer. The two are complements. A team doing only one of them has a visible hole.
How often should I re-scrub a list?
Before every campaign, if the list is more than a few weeks old. Phone data decays continuously — numbers get disconnected, ported between carriers, and reassigned to new people. A file scrubbed six months ago is not a clean file today, and reassignment in particular is the failure mode that survives having perfect consent records.