Calling one number
in another country
should be simple.

Where this came from

There is a particular kind of afternoon that produces a company like this one. Something needs sorting out in a country you are not in. A card is blocked, a document has to be confirmed, a result is waiting, an account is still in your name on a house you left. There is exactly one way in, and it is a telephone number that answers between nine and eleven in a time zone that is not yours.

So you look at the phone in your hand and discover that dialling that one number costs a small fortune — and that nothing is going to tell you how much until a bill turns up about five weeks later.

And so the call gets postponed. That is the actual damage, and it is not really about money: a blocked card becomes a month without access to your own account, an appointment gets missed by a single day, a form expires. All of it because dialling a normal telephone number from abroad is somehow still awkward in a way that nothing else is.

What we built

A browser tab that dials telephone numbers. You open a page, you type a number in full, and it rings — a mobile or a landline, in any of the countries we carry. There is nothing to install, no SIM, no contract, and no phone number of your own required to place a call.

The second half is the part we spent the most time on, and it is about money rather than about audio. The rate for the number you are dialling appears before the call connects. The meter runs where you can see it while you talk. And when you hang up, the receipt is already there: seconds used, rate applied, exact amount charged, balance before, balance after. Nobody has to go looking for any of it.

That ordering is the whole product. Placing a call over the internet has been technically unremarkable for twenty years — what the industry never fixed is that you find out the price afterwards. We put it first, bill by the second rather than by the rounded-up minute, and let the balance sit there indefinitely instead of expiring it.

What we deliberately are not

• Not an emergency line. Kliwe cannot reach 911, 112, 999 or any national emergency number, and it never will be able to — we cannot know where you physically are, and that is the first thing an emergency service needs. This is on the home page in plain type rather than buried in a clause, and it is the limitation we most want people to remember.
• Not a replacement for your mobile line. We are not a carrier and we do not want to be. Keep your SIM. Kliwe is for the calls it makes expensive or impossible.
• Not a messaging service. Voice only, including on rented numbers. If you need a number to receive verification codes, this is not it, and we would rather lose the sign-up than issue the refund.
• Not free calling. Calls cost money — a little of it, printed on the screen before you commit to it. Everything in this category advertising free international calls is either selling your data or about to disappoint you.

How we think about the money

• The price goes first. Any design where the cost is discovered afterwards is one we have already rejected internally, however much easier it would be to build.
• Seconds, not minutes. Rounding a twenty-second call up to sixty seconds is a threefold price increase disguised as an accounting convention.
• Unused money stays yours. Expiring credit is standard practice here and it is the practice we like least. Your balance does not expire, and if you want it back we refund what you have not spent.
• Nothing recurring without saying so. There is no subscription in this product. The one monthly charge that exists — a rented inbound number — comes out of your balance rather than a card, so an empty balance releases the number instead of creating a debt.
• Limits printed on the home page. Everything Kliwe cannot do is on the front page at the same size as everything it can. A limit found at the wrong moment is far worse than a limit read at the start.

Where this goes next

More destinations, better routes on the ones we already carry, and lower rates where we can genuinely pass a reduction on rather than announce one. Beyond that, the things people keep asking for: better call quality on weak connections, and inbound numbers in more countries.

If there is a country you need and cannot reach, or a rate that looks wrong to you, tell us. Both of those get read by somebody who can do something about it.