Changing your practice number without losing anyone
The worry is never the setup. It is that a client will try to reach you, fail, and quietly not try again. Here is how to do it so that cannot happen.
The short answer
You do not switch numbers. You add one, and let the old one go quiet on its own.
Get the new number, change your listings, then keep the old line running for as long as you like while clients drift across. Nobody is cut off at any point, there is no date anything has to happen by, and if you decide it is not working you have lost nothing.
The whole thing is reversible until the day you choose to give the old number up — which most people never quite get around to, and that is fine.
The order to do it in
Get the new number and start using it yourself
Before anyone else knows it exists, put it on your own devices and make a few calls with it. You want to be completely comfortable with how it behaves before a client is on the other end.
Change it everywhere you are listed, before you tell anyone
Your Psychology Today profile, your website, your College register entry, your email signature, your voicemail greeting on the old line. New enquiries start arriving on the new number immediately, and nobody has been asked to do anything yet.
Keep the old number running
This is the part that removes the risk. You are not switching off anything — you are adding. Anyone who has the old number keeps reaching you exactly as before.
Most people run both for several months. There is no deadline and nothing forces you to pick a date.
Tell current clients once, in a normal way
A short message at the end of a session, or a text. There is example wording below. The thing to avoid is making it sound like an administrative demand — it is a small update, and treating it as one is what stops it becoming a topic.
Add the new number to their phone for them, if they will let you
The single highest-leverage thirty seconds in the whole process. A number saved under your name in their contacts is a number they will use. One left in a text message is one they will scroll for and eventually give up on.
Let the old number go quiet on its own
Watch what still arrives on it. As episodes of care close, the traffic falls away by itself. When a month goes by with nothing but spam, you can decide what to do with it — and by then it is a decision with no consequences.
What to say to clients
Short is better. A long explanation invites a conversation about why, and this does not need to be one. Adapt to your own voice:
Quick admin note — I have a dedicated number for the practice now: [number].
Nothing changes about our sessions, and the old number still works, but this is the best one to use from here. Happy to help you save it before you go.
You do not have to port your number
Porting — moving an existing number to a new provider — is possible for most Canadian numbers, and it is the right answer if the number is already a business line printed on materials you cannot easily change.
But it is also the version of this that people find frightening, because it feels irreversible and there is a moment where the number is in transit. If your practice number is currently your personal mobile, you almost certainly do not want to port it anyway — you want to stop using it for work, which is a completely different and much safer operation.
Ask any provider directly whether you can bring a number in, and whether you can take it out again later. The second question matters more than the first and fewer people think to ask it.
In short — porting is one option, not the process. Running two numbers in parallel avoids the risk entirely.
What clients actually experience
Very little, which is the point. A client who has your old number keeps using it and notices nothing. A client who saves the new one starts using that instead.
The one thing they do notice is an unfamiliar number calling them, so the first outbound call from the new line is worth a heads-up in the message you send. After that it is in their phone under your name and the question does not arise again.
In short — for the client this is a contact-card update, not a change to anything about your work together.
What tends to go wrong
The most common problem is not technical. It is announcing the change before the new number is on your listings, so people who heard the announcement go looking and find the old number still published.
The second is switching the old line off too early because the migration felt finished. Traffic on an old number tails off over months, not weeks, and there is no cost to patience.
The third is telling clients by text only. A text gets read once, in a corridor, and is gone. The clients who move over are the ones who saved the number while you were sitting in front of them.
In short — sequence it listings-first, keep the old line longer than feels necessary, and get the number saved in person.
Questions therapists ask about this
Will I lose clients by changing my practice number?
Not if you keep the old number running while the change settles. Nobody has to do anything on a deadline — the old number keeps working, and people move across as they save the new one. The practitioners who have trouble are almost always the ones who switched the old line off early.
Can I keep my existing number and move it to a new provider?
Canadian numbers can generally be ported, but confirm it with the provider before committing rather than assuming. Ask both directions — whether they can bring your number in, and whether you could take it out again later.
How long does the change take?
The new number is usually available immediately. The migration of your clients is the slow part and it is not a technical process — it takes as long as it takes for people to update their contacts, typically over months. There is no reason to rush it.
What do I tell clients?
Keep it short and unremarkable — there is wording above you can use. A long explanation invites questions about why, when the honest answer — that you are separating work from your personal phone — is one most clients find entirely reasonable if it comes up at all.
Should I tell clients why I am changing it?
You do not need a reason, and most therapists find it does not come up. If it does, saying that you now have a dedicated practice line is both true and complete. It is not a boundary conversation unless you make it one.
What happens to the old number in the end?
Most people simply keep it — it is their personal number, and they carry on using it for everything that is not work. If it is a separate paid line, you can cancel it once nothing is arriving but spam, which usually takes a few months.
If you have not chosen a number yet
If you have not settled on what you are moving to, every way to get a practice number in Canada is compared on a separate page — a second phone, a carrier line, a second SIM, the US apps, an answering service and Rivet — including where the cheapest option is the right one.
Compare the options
