A California tech entrepreneur bought a $10 domain name in 2001, built a conference calling empire, and now runs the world’s largest direct line to the North Pole.
The number is 605-313-4000. Since December 2010, millions of children have dialed it to leave voicemail messages for Santa Claus. No app required. No video call setup. Just a phone and a wish list.
David Erickson’s company, FreeConferenceCall.com, handles roughly 8 million calls to Santa annually. The service costs families nothing. No hidden fees, no premium charges, no subscriptions.
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From $10 Domain to Global Santa Network
Erickson registered FreeConferenceCall.com on GoDaddy for $10 on October 26, 2001. He started the business alone from Long Beach, California, coding the website himself and handling customer service calls.
The Santa Hotline came nine years later. Erickson’s brother suggested the idea in 2010, proposing a voicemail system where children could record their Christmas wishes. After testing several voice actors, they found the right Santa. The line went live on December 2, 2010.
For the first five years, the hotline operated quietly. Local families used it. Word spread through parenting blogs and social media posts. Then Fox Business mentioned the service during a 2015 broadcast.
“That year, the company said it received calls with nine million messages from children leaving their holiday gift wish lists,” according to Wikipedia’s entry on FreeConferenceCall.com.
The number stuck. Traffic has remained between 7 million and 10 million calls each holiday season since 2015.
How Santa’s Voicemail Actually Works
Children who call 605-313-4000 hear a recorded greeting. Santa’s voice comes through the line: “Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas! This is Santa Claus and you have reached my personal hotline.”
The message continues. Santa tells callers about the busy toy-making operation at the North Pole. He reminds them to listen to their parents and be good. Then comes the beep.
Kids leave their messages. Some rattle off entire toy catalogs. Others make specific requests. A few just giggle and hang up.
Parents who call from mobile phones get a text message after the call ends. The text includes a recording of what their child said. Families can save it, share it with relatives, or replay it on Christmas morning.
The technology runs on SimpleVoiceBox, a secure voicemail platform FreeConferenceCall.com developed for its business clients. No registration forms. No account creation. The phone number calling in is the only identifier the system tracks.
Why a Mall Visit Became Optional
Erickson explained the reasoning in a December 2022 company statement: “Visiting the local mall to visit Santa Claus can become costly and time-consuming. The rush of the experience can lead to parents missing out on their children’s interaction with Santa, if any.”
The hotline runs 24/7, year-round. Most calls flood in during November and December, but the line never closes. Some parents dial it in July as a behavior reminder.
International families can skip the 605 area code entirely. FreeConferenceCall.com maintains local phone numbers in 13 countries:
North America: Canada
Europe: United Kingdom, Germany, France, Ireland
Asia-Pacific: Australia, New Zealand
Plus six additional countries across different time zones
Spanish-speaking families call 605-313-4001 for a Spanish-language version of Santa’s greeting.
The Business Model Behind Free Santa Calls
FreeConferenceCall.com serves 30 million users monthly. The company operates in 160 countries and maintains customers at nearly every Fortune 500 company.
Revenue comes from telecom interconnection fees. When someone calls a conference number, their phone carrier pays a connection fee to the network hosting that number. FreeConferenceCall.com splits these fees with rural telephone carriers in states like Iowa and South Dakota.
The model survived regulatory challenges. In 2007, major carriers including AT&T and Verizon blocked access to free conference numbers, claiming the rural carriers violated FCC guidelines. The FCC intervened, barring the carriers from blocking the calls.
Later regulations in 2012 changed how rural carriers could charge for incoming calls, but the business model adapted.
Erickson told Inc.com in 2016 that the company generates “nine digits and profitable” in annual revenue. He has taken no venture capital funding and carries no debt.
Fifteen Years of Recorded Wishes
The Santa Hotline celebrated its 15th year of operation in December 2025. FreeConferenceCall.com has maintained the same core service throughout: a pre-recorded Santa greeting followed by voicemail recording capability.
The company added features over time. Mobile text messages with call recordings launched after the first few years. International numbers expanded as demand grew in other countries. The Spanish line came later to serve bilingual families.
But the main number stayed constant. Parents who called 605-313-4000 with their children in 2010 can still dial the same digits today.
Some of those children now have kids of their own.
What 8 Million Calls Sound Like
Erickson discussed the scale in a 2020 interview with PAC Talks: “Around 7 to 8 million kids call in every year to leave the message. It is a regular toll number. A text is sent to the number from which the call is made and the kids recorded message to Santa is sent back.”
The company doesn’t publish individual messages. The voicemail system operates as a secure, private channel between children and their families.
In the first year, FreeConferenceCall.com donated proceeds from the hotline to Children Today, a nonprofit providing childcare and education programs to homeless families. The company hasn’t specified if that donation program continued in subsequent years.
The Number That Doesn’t Change
Mall Santas retire. Video chat services launch and shut down. Holiday traditions shift with each generation.
But 605-313-4000 keeps ringing. The area code belongs to South Dakota, where FreeConferenceCall.com routes calls through partner rural carriers. The number hasn’t changed since 2010.
Families that started calling 16 years ago still use the same number. Parents save recordings from when their children were toddlers, replaying them years later when those same kids have stopped believing in Santa.
The technology is simple. Pick up any phone. Dial ten digits. Leave a message.
That simplicity, according to FreeConferenceCall.com’s traffic numbers, is exactly what 8 million families want each December.
