Private company

Pinger

Logo: Pinger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons³

American telecom provider

Pinger, Inc. is a US telecom provider for free texts, pictures, calls, and voicemails. Pinger was founded in 2005 by former Palm, Inc. managers Greg Woock (CEO of Pinger, Inc) and Joe Sipher. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California.² Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

2005Founded¹

IndustryVoIP, Voice over IP¹
HeadquartersSan Jose¹
Websitewww.pinger.com

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The story

Pinger was founded in 2005 by Greg Woock and Joe Sipher. At first, the company created the Pinger Phone in 2008, which consolidated phone, email, and messaging contacts and communications. The free texting features were converted into a separate iPhone app called Textfree. Pinger was initially focused exclusively on mobile messaging, but started developing other smartphone apps after Apple released the iPhone software development kit (SDK).

From Wikipedia’s article on Pinger, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Products and brands

Textfree

Listed on Wikidata.¹

Products

The company has released several apps, mostly being available on iOS, Android, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh.

Textfree

Textfree is an app that allows users to call and text using a real phone number for free. The app has a free ad-supported version and a paid version. The app allows you to text anyone in the world.

Sideline

Sideline is an app that adds a second phone number to your phone using technology similar to Textfree. It's available for iOS, Android, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh. Their official website is sideline.com.

Index

Index is an app that provides a designated business phone number with voice and text capabilities. Index also provides automated text messaging for businesses.

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Company products

Sideline - second phone number

Textfree - free texting and calling