Grasshopper is an IP telephony business communication solution that provides companies with a toll-free or local phone number. It has both desktop and mobile applications and includes features such as custom greeting recording, call forwarding, call transfer, call reporting, and voicemail.
$18
per month for a single user
Twilio
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Twilio offers a CPaaS and CCaaS solution, with the combination of its programmable Voice, Video, and Messaging APIs, as well as the Twilio Flex cloud contact center. Additional capabilities include Twilio's Elastic SIP Trunking, as well as API for WhatsApp.
$0
per min per participant
WhatsApp Business
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
WhatsApp Business is a free to download app that was built FOR small business, allowing users to connect with customers easily by using tools to automate, sort and quickly respond to messages.
For medium and large businesses, the WhatsApp Business API powers communication with customers all over the world, allowing them to connect with them on WhatsApp in a simple, secure, and reliable way.
N/A
Pricing
Grasshopper
Twilio
WhatsApp Business
Editions & Modules
True Solo
$18
per month for a single user
Solo Plus
$32
per month
Small Business
$70
per month
Programmable Video
$0.0015
per min per participant
WhatsApp Business API
$0.0042
Per WhatsApp Template message sent
WhatsApp Business API
$0.005
Per WhatsApp session message
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.007
Per min for termination
Programmable Messaging
$0.0075
per message sent or received
Programmable Voice
$0.0085
per minute to receive a call
Programmable Voice
$0.013
per min to make a call
Elastic SIP Trunking
$0.045
Per min for origination
Twilio Conversations
$0.05
per active user per month
Twilio Authy
$0.09
per authentication
Programmable Wireless
$0.1
per MB
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$1
per active user hour (5000 hours free)
Programmable Wireless
$2.00
per SIM card
Twilio SendGrid Email API
$14.95
per month up to 100k emails. (Up to 40k emails free for 30 days)
Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns
$15
per month for 5,000 contacts and 15,000 emails. Your first 2,000 contacts are free
Twilio Flex (Contact Center)
$150
per named user per month (5000 hours free)
WhatsApp Business
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Grasshopper
Twilio
WhatsApp Business
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
Optional
No setup fee
Additional Details
20% discount available for annual pricing.
1. Pay-as-you-go pricing: Simple usage-based pricing without contracts.
2. Volume discounts: Discounts trigger as usage grows.
3. Free trial credit that includes full API access.
Those solutions are just not the same, Mailgun is a programmable SMS API with really low cost and is so far compared with Twilio SendGrid but since we are using more Twilio SMS or Whatsapp, [it's not used for] the same purpose. As OneSignal is an all in one solution for being …
Twilio is the idea solution for our needs, which involves sending targeted SMS messages to prospects who have opted into our ads. We do this to communicate offers/services and also to remind prospects in the lead-up to sales appointments (plus post-meeting communications). We …
Grasshopper is well suited for basic needs of texting in and out as well as calling out if you would like to avoid using your personal line. It also eliminates the need to have a dedicated land land in your office or business. You can obtain a vanity number and forward calls through grasshopper.
I found Twilio to be excellent and very easy to use for a programmer in all aspects related to voice, SMS, and other features utilizing their API. I found the node client to be excellent and helpful. We previously used the Apex client for Salesforce before it was discontinued. Although we try not to use Twilio from Apex anymore, using that client was easier than implementing our own.
By using WhatsApp Business, I can now respond to customers faster, keep them updated about new deals, and even send out surveys to understand their needs. The ability to send stickers and photos makes the app more interactive and engaging. It easily beats other social networks in terms of the quality and quantity of messages sent, which is a good thing for businesses.
Easy to use by registering a phone number as your personal WhatsApp number and attaching your company profile by opening and closing your image to your product.
Fast and accurate connection.
It allows you to split chat between business and personal as WhatsApp Business and Personal can be downloaded on the same smartphone by registering a different number.
It would be nice to have the ability to transfer some calls to another Grasshopper IVR, for those customers who mistakenly dial the wrong number (we have two incoming numbers, one for corporate and one for sales).
Likewise, it would be nice to have the ability to forward to a toll-free number, which would have allowed us to work around the inability to transfer between IVRs (see above).
Lastly, it would be great to have an 'emergency' switch setting (default off but could be toggled on) that would let us override all IVR settings and transfer all incoming calls elsewhere (either to a direct dial or toll free number) for those rare times when we cannot take any calls (such as a weather emergency OR the one time each year we take all of our staff on a retreat) - that would allow us to send all calls to a backup answering service rather than just voicemail.
Segment’s email identifier is case-sensitive, which is ridiculous because emails themselves are not case-sensitive. This means that if I send a capitalized email address in an identify call, it will create a duplicate user rather than matching it with the lowercase email. I think this is a technical oversight that should be corrected.
I’d like to see more information about the eventual transition of existing Frontline customers to Twilio Flex
I’d like to see some integrations between Twilio Studio and OpenAI or another open source LLM to provide automated responses, if this hasn’t been done already
I would like to be able to drag and move the actual lines connecting the steps in Twilio Studio, sometimes mine can get pretty messy
I think a Bug Report form would be beneficial for developers
UI/UX of WhatsApp has room for improvement. The goal should be to add more features for business interactions outside of the everyday messenger. (interface wise, not feature wise)
Multi-device use is added but it's still not as flexible and fast as other messengers like Telegram
File transfer is time consuming and troublesome. It also has limits.
Unless we can get this handled quickly -- less than 1 week -- we will likely switch to another provider who, in my opinion, we'll have to spend close to $3,000 in development time to build a new integration for texting. Our clients need texting and I feel Twilio has failed us miserably.
Twilio has well documented APIs and examples. There are several tutorials, videos and Q&As regarding their services. So, usability is very good. I must say that advanced knowledge of telephony, API/Programming and error-handling is essential to make good use of Twilio. It's not just plug-and-play unless you are integrated with a system that has all of the programming built for it.
Most reliable app for business and personal use. I rely on it with any hesitation. Its encrypted chatting system impresses me a lot. Easy file transfer is also appreciated. Maximum people use this app, so I can communicate with most people through this. It makes my life more comfortable.
Twilio executes what it is designed to do: send SMS messages at scale while providing very good deliverability. I believe that Twilio is very good at what we use for adding SMS messages to our comms strategy. We can see those messages get opened and replied to, which is exactly what we are looking to achieve.
When I was setting up my account I contacted support a couple of times. They were also very professional, personable, and helpful. Their response is prompt and thorough. I'm confident I can get any question answered as well as help with any issue I might have. That's pretty important to me.
I have not had to communicate with Twilio support in the last 3 years but my past experience with them has been very positive. They replied to my previous requests promptly and kept me well informed to resolve my inquiries. With their documentation that's available, I hardly imagine why anyone would need to contact support since it's all there in a concise and easy to understand format. It would probably take you longer to type out a support ticket than to just open their doc websites.
There were some issues in the beginning when the app used to get hanged. We had emailed customer support, and we received a response promptly. There was an issue with the phone where some updates had to be downloaded. You can also complete a form online to contact customer support. The staff can speak many languages
I have not used any other phone services like Grasshopper. I know that there is another option out there called Ruby, which is more like a virtual receptionist but since I did not try it out I cannot compare the two. When I started my company I found the services that Grasshopper offers to be perfect. It still works for us and we have no need to change to anything else right now.
We evaluated many fundraising-based text-to-give programs and found the subscriptions prohibitively expensive for our small scale and uncertain first few years of development. While we may be willing to invest that kind of money after discovering how things work, we're happy with Twilio now and have no desire to start over.
In a business organisation communication is the main factor for the development. And WhatsApp Business is the most perfect software for it. The software is designed with full of perfect features for the better communication. It performs very effectively than other software. I am fully satisfied with the features of the software. A superb software to me.
