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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Twilio

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/ATwilio 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

    Zendesk Chat

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AZendesk Chat (formerly Zopim) is a live chat tool developed by the Singaporean company also called Zopim, acquired by Zendesk in April 2014.

    $11.20

    per month

    Pricing
    TwilioZendesk Chat
    Editions & Modules
    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)
    Lite
    $0
    per user
    Basic
    $14
    per user
    Advanced
    $25
    per user
    Premium
    $55
    per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    TwilioZendesk Chat
    Free Trial
    YesYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoYes
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
    Additional Details1. 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.The pricing above is price per user per month. You will get a discount when you opt for annual payment.
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    TwilioZendesk Chat
    Chat Analytics and Reports
    Comparison of Chat Analytics and Reports features of Twilio and Zendesk Chat
    Feature
    Twilio
    -
    Ratings
    Zendesk Chat
    8.4
    5 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Chat history and transcripts00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Chat reporting00 Ratings8.65 Ratings
    Chat and web analytics00 Ratings8.54 Ratings
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    TwilioZendesk Chat
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    Simplify360
    Score7.8 out of 10
    Olark
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Customer.io
    Score9.1 out of 10
    Zoho SalesIQ
    Score9.7 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP Service Cloud
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Genesys DX (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    TwilioZendesk Chat
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.1
    (94 ratings)
    8.6
    (23 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.5
    (5 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    9.5
    (10 ratings)
    7.0
    (5 ratings)
    Performance
    8.0
    (38 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    5.7
    (16 ratings)
    8.4
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    TwilioZendesk Chat
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Twilio
    I have tried other competitors. But I always end up going back to Twilio because I feel like it is dependable, easy to use, and, has competitive pricing. The only time I wouldn't recommend Twilio to someone as if they are completely inexperienced about using webhooks or APIs. Because you can't really just sign up and start using Twilio without connecting it to another platform first.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk Chat is suited for all the support teams that provide real-time assistance. Like if someone wants to block the debit/credit card, it is a high-priority case that needs real-time assistance. Whereas issues like close my account, and invoice request doesn't need real-time assistance, where Zendesk tickets support will be perfect.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Twilio
    • Easy to see my team in one place, when they log in and out and what call status they are in.
    • Twilio is a simple, user friendly way to log in and out of work activities.
    • Excellent services and support.
    • The omnichannel feature which allows agents to get request from all channels.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Extremely fluid chat interface allows for easy communication.
    • It can be used directly on a website page or as a widget.
    • Allows the end user to translate the chat into their own native language.
    • Notifies you with pending chats via on-screen notifications and sound effects.
    Read full review
    Cons
    Twilio
    • Control panel. Often, navigating through lists is challenging. I want endless scrolling, not pagination.
    • Conversational intelligence service require a Language. I would like it to detect it.
    • We would like to have some credit on clients that chose to use their own Twilio account.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Linking with a telephone, so the agent is only working on 1 channel at a time
    • More simplified way to create and use templates
    • Link users who may have provided us a new/different email from what we have on file for them
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Twilio
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Due to staffing issues, we have temporarily stopped offering chat as an available channel. We're also interested in the best ways to integrate chat with our FAQs and AI to provide quick responses, either during off-hours or prior to speaking with a live agent. I've also found that reporting is rather limited where some of the interesting and useful data made available and visible during the chat cannot be pulled post-chat; it would be great to pull a high-level report so we can analyze this data.
    Read full review
    Usability
    Twilio
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    As mentioned previously, it's a clunky product that lacks user-friendliness. It feels old and behind the times compared to other products we have used. The inability to have a wrap-up time before a new chat comes in is also a big issue for our team.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Performance
    Twilio
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Twilio
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Getting assistance and/or troubleshooting anything with Zendesk can be quite frustrating. In my years of experience with Zednesk, I have almost never found the answer to my question without going through multiple articles, ultimately getting frustrated and reaching out to our contact for more assistance. So for a consumer, the support is not as relieving as Zendesk Chat is to our customers in getting the questions answered by us.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Twilio
    The developer APIs and SDKs are super easy to follow.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Twilio
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    Zendesk Chat is far more user friendly than some of the other competitors on the market. It has a very all the features that you require to ensure your customers are contacted in 'real time'. Its main tools include a live chat interface for quick communication, customisable chat widgets to fit your brand, mobile responsiveness for all devices, and canned responses for common questions. The platform can also start chats based on visitor actions, like time on a page or exit intent. A real must for any leading company
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Twilio
    Being in South Africa, direct local currency support would be nice
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Twilio
    • We found that associates who had the opportunity to respond to a survey about their assigned job were 37% more likely to return to a job site
    • We were able to reduce the number of resources required to manually respond to associates using Twilio Studio, so those resources could have more time to complete other tasks
    • We were able to scale the number of associates who received survey messages at least by a factor of 8 without increasing our resource demand
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Zendesk
    • Positive impact - Compared to our old system, this newly updated system provides features and functionality that has increased our agent productivity and provided customer insight like we've never had before. This has resulted in fewer hold times and higher customer satisfaction.
    • Negative impact - Our reporting team still struggles with obtaining the right information from time to time with the chats. This leads to loss of productivity and more resources dedicated to reporting.
    • Positive impact - Due to Zopim's embed, we are able to more successfully place them on the appropriate self-service portals and pages, reaching a larger audience, and being more readily available to answer our client's questions. This has resulted in an increase in our self-service portal usage, driving down the phone and email support channels, which in turn reduces support costs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Twilio Screenshots

    Screenshot of the “Explore Products” section, which is where to build products.Screenshot of the optional drag-and-drop visual editor and code editor.Screenshot of Flex, which is a programmable Contact Center that puts you in control.

    Zendesk Chat Screenshots

    Screenshot of How Zopim Chat Widget looks on the website.Screenshot of This is how the chat window looks like to your visitorsScreenshot of This is a screenshot of the visitor list.Product screenshot