Twilio Lookup API: phone validation, line data vs Bewary scam verdicts

At a glance

Twilio Lookup is a phone number lookup API

Twilio's Lookup v2 documentation describes a phone-number endpoint with free basic formatting and validation and paid packages added to the same call. Its input is a phone number in E.164 or national format. A national number needs CountryCode, which otherwise defaults to US.

Basic Lookup returns E.164 and national formatting with basic validation. Twilio Line Type Intelligence adds a carrier and line type. Other documented packages address phone ownership, caller identification, SMS pumping risk, SIM changes and network status.

Twilio documents HTTP Basic authentication using an API key SID as the username and the key secret as the password.

Bewary returns scam verdicts and typed evidence

Bewary is a scam detection API and MCP server for apps and AI agents. Its lookups accept links, domains, IP addresses, phone numbers, SMS short codes, email addresses, crypto wallets, IBANs, mobile apps and payment handles.

Each lookup returns a typed JSON envelope with verdict, p_scam, reason_codes, classification, entities and signals. The verdict is scam, suspicious, safe or unknown. Entities contain typed facts and the datasets checked, while signals identify their source class, weight, dataset and coverage.

Unknown means evidence was insufficient or a source failed. Your app must never treat unknown as safe. The overall p_scam is a probability from 0 to 1 that is not yet calibrated against labelled data.

The domain field site.p_scam_site has a separate calibration against labelled hosts. It represents Bewary's verdict on a page its worker read in the last 90 days. GET /v1/calibration/site publishes that calibration, which is refitted as the nightly audit labels more hosts.

The remote MCP server at https://api.bewary.app/mcp runs the same code as REST. Its tools return outputSchema and structuredContent for clients including Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and VS Code.

Twilio Lookup is stronger for carrier and ownership checks

Twilio's Line Type Intelligence provides more detailed VoIP classifications than Bewary's numbering-plan response. Line Type Intelligence separates fixed VoIP from non-fixed VoIP and identifies online-only virtual numbers. Twilio documents worldwide coverage for Line Type Intelligence, with special approval required for Canadian numbers.

Identity Match compares a user's name, address and date of birth with carrier or other authoritative records. Twilio states that its US and Brazil checks draw on postal, utility and credit-bureau records through third-party providers. Its SIM Swap documentation describes live SIM-change checks using mobile network operator data.

Twilio documents SIM Swap as a private beta requiring carrier approvals and a sales contact before use. Caller Name uses CNAM and covers only numbers on US carriers. Line Status is documented as a public beta reporting whether a mobile number is active, reachable, unreachable, inactive or unknown on the network.

SMS Pumping Risk Score uses Twilio's own network data, including Verify Fraud Guard blocks, risky carriers and unusual SMS traffic. Twilio also documents selectable processing Regions for data residency and official server-side SDKs.

Bewary differs in scam evidence and non-phone inputs

Bewary checks identifiers beyond the phone-number input documented for Twilio Lookup. A product can check a sender's phone number, a link in the message and a payout wallet through separate lookup endpoints. Each lookup uses the same envelope, so your app can store the verdict and the evidence that decided it.

Bewary's reason_codes lists the stable codes that decided the verdict, strongest first.

Responses follow contract version 1.16.0. Within v1, changes only add fields, enum values and reason codes. Nothing is renamed or removed. The OpenAPI spec types every response, and TypeScript types and Python models are published at bewary.app/types.

Bewary reads FTC Do Not Call complaints and FCC complaints every hour. A number named only as the caller ID of unwanted calls receives PHONE_REPORTED_CALLER_ID as a caution. It stays unknown unless other evidence names it, because callers can fake caller ID.

On November 6, 2026, Bewary's scam list held 14,767 active phone numbers. GET /v1/datasets publishes dataset geography, entity coverage and active counts. Bewary produces its own lookup verdict without a language model.

Dataset geography distinguishes worldwide coverage from coverage for a named country. Listed entries also carry their origin and the countries they target, as identified by the national lists that name them. Bewary does not guess target countries from the phone number or domain itself.

Bewary's MCP tools execute lookups and return the same envelope as the REST API. Twilio's official MCP server searches API specifications and documentation and cannot run a Lookup, according to its MCP documentation.

Free use and commercial billing follow different models

Twilio's pricing page lists Basic Lookup at no charge per query. It describes pay-as-you-go billing with no monthly commitment and says a free Twilio account provides access to all features. Paid package prices still apply to those packages.

Bewary provides 1,000 credits a month with a free API key and no card. A standard phone lookup costs 1 credit, while a phone lookup with live line type costs 10 credits. The browser checkers allow 10 checks a day per visitor without a key.

Bewary's API lookups, MCP tools and CLI require a key, while free endpoints including GET /v1/datasets and the OpenAPI spec need none. The keyed rate limit is 600 requests a minute. Batch requests accept up to 1,000 values and charge per item.

A Bewary lookup keeps no record of who asked. The queried value can enter Bewary's datasets, including a domain queued for web-archive history or an app recorded as seen on its store. API keys are stored as SHA-256 hashes.

Published prices separate phone packages from credits

Twilio dates its published Lookup prices to October 2026. Its pricing page, read November 12, 2026, lists Line Type Intelligence at $0.008 per request, Identity Match at $0.10 per request with country-dependent pricing, and US-only Caller Name at $0.01 per request.

The same page lists SMS Pumping Risk Score at $0.025 per request outside North America and free for North American numbers. Automatic volume discounts bring Line Status to $0.00385 and Reassigned Number to $0.0015 per request at their top tiers.

SIM Swap and Call Forwarding have no list price. Twilio bills them at carrier access rates under enterprise contracts.

At Bewary's pack rates, a phone lookup with live line type costs $0.02 to $0.01, compared with $0.008 per request for Twilio's Line Type Intelligence. The Bewary cost is calculated from 10 credits per lookup at prepaid pack rates of $2.00 to $1.00 per 1,000 credits.

Moving a line type check requires the live option

For the live line type question, the Twilio Lookup v2 call takes your phone number with the Line Type Intelligence package requested. Its documented authentication is HTTP Basic with the API key SID and secret. The package returns the carrier and its documented line type categories.

The corresponding Bewary call is GET https://api.bewary.app/v1/phone/{number}, with line_type set to true and your API key. It adds live carrier-network line type to the country, numbering-plan number type and scam list check. Without line_type=true, the type comes from the numbering plan.

For the scam decision, branch on Bewary's verdict and store reason_codes with the entity facts behind them.

An app can use both APIs for separate decisions

An app can use Twilio's documented formatting, ownership or network checks for a phone-specific decision, then request Bewary's phone lookup for scam evidence. A messaging product can also send a link to Bewary's URL endpoint while keeping its phone intelligence checks in Twilio Lookup.

A marketplace can use POST /v1/assess to check a new seller's website, email, phone, other links and payout wallet together. Its decision is deny when a field is scam, review when a field is suspicious, and otherwise pass.

Assess accepts up to 10 other links and charges 1 credit per valid field. Each reason of severity medium or above includes the JSON pointer of the field that produced it. Free text such as a seller's bio is outside the endpoint's inputs.

An assess pass means nothing Bewary holds names the contact points. It does not establish that the account is safe.

Keep ownership, reachability and scam evidence as separate decisions in your app. A Bewary unknown verdict remains unknown even when your workflow also requests a phone validation or ownership check.

Questions

Sources

1. www.twilio.com: V2 apiwww.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api
2. www.twilio.com: Lookupwww.twilio.com/en-us/user-authentication-identity/pricing/lookup
3. www.twilio.com: Line type intelligencewww.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/line-type-intelligence
4. www.twilio.com: Sim swapwww.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/sim-swap
5. www.twilio.com: Identity matchwww.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/identity-match
6. www.twilio.com: Caller namewww.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/caller-name
7. www.twilio.com: Sms pumping riskwww.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/sms-pumping-risk
8. www.twilio.com: Line statuswww.twilio.com/docs/lookup/v2-api/line-status
9. www.twilio.com: Librarieswww.twilio.com/docs/libraries
10. www.twilio.com: Mcpwww.twilio.com/docs/ai/mcp