Twilio Review: The Best Development Platform
Twilio is a developer platform that provides programmable APIs that developers can use to create the customer communication experience they want. Twilio is used to build communication channels between businesses and their customers. Continue reading our full review to know about everything it offers!
Pros
Cons
Quick Stats
About Twilio
Twilio offers code samples for application programming interfaces (APIs) in several coding languages such as C#, Java, Node, Python. The coding samples are for SMS functions like notifications, service alerts, and reminders. You can also build APIs for video applications, chatbots, and email services. It is used by several industries, mostly for marketing and customer service. Its tools are scalable to medium and large organizations; some industries that use Twilio are healthcare organizations, hotels, retails, NGOs, and financial services and consultants.
Twilio is not your traditional text message marketing provider that offers an easy-to-use experience; rather, it is for back-end developers to scale up its services by building communication services.
Twilio Plans and Prices
Twilio uses a pay-as-you-go structure which means every service’s prices depend on your usage. For example, SMS pricing is based on the type of message you are sending and to which carrier the SMS is being sent.
Its SMS pricing starts at $0.0075 to send a message and the same amount to receive messages. The same price goes for local and toll-free numbers. It costs $0.02 to send picture messages and $0.01 to receive (MMS).
For phone numbers, it costs $1/month to use a clean local number and $2/month for a toll-free number. You can use your number as well, for $0.50 per month.
High-volume shortcodes are also available for $1,000 per month for 100+ messages. Moreover, you can also get a custom plan that lets you manage your own lease.
Volume pricing is also available for conversations. Conversations are free of charge for up to 200 active users, $0.05 for 201-500 active monthly users, $0.0475 for 5,001-10,000 active monthly users, and $0.0450 for 10,001-20,000 monthly active users. Users are only counted once across different channels.
Twilio Products and Solutions
|
Channels |
Applications |
Connectivity |
|---|---|---|
|
Messaging |
Twilio Flex |
Internet of Things |
|
Programmable Voice |
Marketing Campaigns |
Elastic SIP Trunking |
|
Video |
Twilio Frontline |
Phone Numbers |
|
Twilio Live |
Account Security |
Short Codes |
|
Emails |
Twilio Segment |
|
There is a bunch of resources for developers, such as documentation for every offered API, a community with forums and blogs, and a variety of helpful coding tools. Twilio also offers training courses; they can be either self-paced online courses or private onsite. Online courses are 1-2 hours long and can be accessed on-demand; they include guides to get started with ideation and prototyping.
You can find Twilio’s solutions on their website divided by department, industry, and business. Department solutions offered are marketing, operations, and customer service. Industry solutions offered are financial services, retail, hospitality, real estate, and healthcare. Lastly, business solutions offered are for enterprise, startup, and non-profit.
Customer Support
You can reach customer support through live chat on their website or by phone at (844) 814-4627. You can also fill a quick form on their website, and an expert will get in touch with you as soon as possible.
Conclusion
Twilio is one of the most famous developer platforms for building APIs for communication solutions building. It offers flexible and fair prices, and you only ‘pay-as-you-go,’ as each service offers separate prices.
Their customer support is very responsive and helpful, and they provide you with a bunch of resources, training, and documentation to get you started with development.