Account & Security
When you create a GovConHouse account, we ask you to verify a real phone number before your account is activated. This page explains why, what counts as a valid number, and what to do if verification isn't working for you.
GovConHouse's free tier gives every new account real, usable value: a working discovery, compliance, and proposal-drafting workflow, not a crippled trial. That's deliberate — we want a small contractor to be able to try the real product before paying anything. But real value is also something bad actors try to abuse, typically by creating many free accounts instead of paying for one. Phone verification is how we keep the free tier genuinely free and genuinely useful for real contractors, without that abuse degrading the product or the cost of running it for everyone else.
We accept real personal mobile numbers and landlines. We do not accept virtual/forwarding numbers from services like Google Voice, or other "second number" apps, or toll-free numbers. This isn't a judgment about those services generally — it's specific to this control: those number types are exactly the ones that make it easy to create many accounts quickly, which is the thing this control exists to prevent. If your verification is rejected and you believe your number is a real personal or business line, contact support — legitimate numbers occasionally get misclassified, and we'll review it by hand.
You'll receive a text message with a one-time code. Enter it during signup to confirm the number. We do not store the code itself — only whether your number was successfully verified, and when. Standard message and data rates from your carrier may apply.
Alongside phone verification, we ask every new account to accept our current Terms of Service. This isn't a formality — it's how we're transparent about what data we log (see our Compliance & Audit documentation for the full detail) and it gives you a clear, dated record of what you agreed to. If our Terms change in the future, we'll ask you to review and re-accept the updated version, not treat your original acceptance as covering changes you never saw.
If you're not receiving a code, or your number is being rejected and you believe that's wrong, contact support with the number you're trying to verify (we'll never ask you to share a verification code with support — if anyone does, it isn't really us).