Signal tests phone-free sign-ups for a one-off $3 fee

Signal is testing a way to sign up without handing over a phone number. The option has appeared in the Android 8.28 beta, and Greyson Parrelli, Signal's lead Android developer, set it out in the app's beta feedback forum: instead of a number, a new account gets an Account ID and an Account Key, and the user pays a one-time fee that the current explanation puts at US$3, with the caveat that prices can differ by country.

The payment is not a subscription and Signal has not turned itself into a paid service. The stated purpose is anti-spam. Charging a small one-off sum makes bulk account creation less attractive to the people who have always been the reason phone verification existed in the first place. Signal says the fee is processed with the same zero-knowledge proofs it uses for donations, so the payment is not tied directly to the account it unlocks.

There is no way back in if you lose the key

The trade-off is the recovery path. A phone number doubles as an identity you can usually get back. An Account Key cannot be reset, and Signal's own explanation warns that losing the Account ID or the Account Key permanently locks the user out. Anyone who takes the option is being pointed firmly at a password manager, because there is no support desk to ring and no reset flow to fall back on. Two-factor authentication through a time-based code is available for the new account type, and a username can be added after registration in the usual way.

Why the phone number was always the weak point

Signal has spent a decade building a messenger that learns as little about its users as possible, and the phone number was the one piece of real-world identity it always asked for. That number is not just a login: it is a handle your contacts can find, a thing tied to a contract with a carrier, and in many countries something you must prove an identity document to obtain. Removing it from registration, even for a fee, closes the largest gap between what Signal promises and what it asks of a new user.

Our opinion

This is the right direction and the wrong kind of tidy. Killing the phone number is the most meaningful privacy change Signal could make, because the number was always the part that leaked into the real world, and a one-off payment is a defensible way to keep the spammers out of a free tier that has no other gate. The irritation is everything wrapped around it. A $3 charge for privacy invites a fight about the principle before anyone has read the detail, prices that vary by country make the feature awkward to explain, and an unrecoverable account key is a hostage situation for anyone who does not already use a password manager properly. Signal has chosen to solve one problem by creating a smaller, sharper one, and it should expect users to notice.