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Twilio

Twilio

Overview

What is Twilio?

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.

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Recent Reviews

Beware TWILIO!

1 out of 10
October 19, 2023
Incentivized
We have been using Twilio's texting feature for our clients for over 1 year. Due to new regulations, we had to provide additional …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Verified User
Contributor in Information Technology
Health, Wellness and Fitness Company, 11-50 employees
Verified User
Engineer in Engineering
Computer Software Company, 1001-5000 employees
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Pricing

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Programmable Video

$0.0015

Cloud
per min per participant

WhatsApp Business API

$0.0042

Cloud
Per WhatsApp Template message sent

WhatsApp Business API

$0.005

Cloud
Per WhatsApp session message

Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee optional
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.twilio.com/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Details

What is Twilio?

Twilio is a Customer Engagement Platform that offers a suite of channel APIs, serverless tools, and fully-programmable solutions that can be rapidly deployed.

The vendor states the Twilio Customer Engagement Platform is used by over 10 million developers and 220,000 businesses worldwide to build customer engagement applications that grow engagement with their customers.

Common use cases include text marketing, Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRs), alerts and notifications, and contact centers.

With Twilio’s Customer Engagement Platform, users can:

  • Power data-driven communications across all digital channels such as messaging, email, voice, video, and WhatsApp.

  • Develop one cohesive experience across all teams so that customers can experience a seamless conversation from the business.

  • Access tools to build, deploy, iterate, and scale customer engagement applications.

  • Build secure, and compliant customer engagement applications for customers in over 180 countries.

Twilio Features

  • Supported: Twilio Flex (Call/Contact Center)
  • Supported: Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns
  • Supported: Twilio SendGrid Email API
  • Supported: Programmable Messaging
  • Supported: Programmable Voice
  • Supported: Programmable Video
  • Supported: WhatsApp Business API
  • Supported: Twilio Conversations
  • Supported: Programmable Wireless (IoT)
  • Supported: Super SIM
  • Supported: Phone Numbers
  • Supported: Short Codes
  • Supported: Twilio Authy
  • Supported: Developer Tools

Twilio Screenshots

Screenshot of To access any of the products in Console, head over to the “Explore Products” section and start building.Screenshot of Whether you prefer to build with a drag-and-drop visual editor or with code, Twilio SendGrid Marketing Campaigns helps you engage your customers through email.Screenshot of Flex is a programmable Contact Center that puts you in control.

Twilio Videos

What is Twilio?
It’s time to build: Contactless Deliveries
Twilio Flex
Twilio Super SIM

Twilio Integrations

Twilio Competitors

Twilio Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
Supported CountriesWe support 180 countries world-wide.
Supported LanguagesEnglish

Twilio Downloadables

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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(205)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-2 of 2)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
October 19, 2023

Beware TWILIO!

Verified User
C-Level Executive in Corporate
Information Technology & Services Company, 11-50 employees
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
We have been using Twilio's texting feature for our clients for over 1 year. Due to new regulations, we had to provide additional information about our use. As a result, the feature on our software was "halted." We completed the documentation and have reached out to Twilio dozens of times over the past month, and cannot get the feature back up and running with any success.

In my experience, Twilio keeps putting our "campaign" off for days at a time. In my experience, we contacted with no response multiple times and at this point, we will likely leave Twilio for another provider unless something changes this weekend.

I would not recommend Twillio at all for setting up for a client. In my opinion, it has been a "MONTH" long nightmare to get this feature back up and running.
Pros and Cons
  • Allows to send one way messages
  • Can be attached to third party software
  • In my opinion, online support is extremely subpar for clients.
  • In my experience, no way to talk with anyone without a $1,500 investment monthly in their service.
  • In my experience, be prepared to wait at least 2-4 days to receive even one response from their support.
Likelihood to Recommend
If you are a software development firm, do not use this service unless you plan to purchase their $1,500 / month support contract. I feel it's not worth the investment in time and money to deal with this organization.
Return on Investment
  • Can't support our clients with their solution
  • Lost over $3,000 in development time trying to manage their support system.
  • Training for new features was halted, in my opinion, because of their lack of support.
Channels
We had planned to use Twilio SMS messaging in at least 30-50 solutions. In my experience, it was working a month ago and now we can't even get a call back from their organization -- everything is through an online ticketing program that I feel is ineffective, lack luster, and doesn't provide timely follow-up.
Scalability
At this point, not at all.
Performance
1
We used it for over a year with no problem and now we can't use it all and haven't been able to for over a month. I don't know what they are doing, but this has been a literal "nightmare" for our team.

Our clients depended on the SMS functionality, and now they can't use it at all.
Other Software Used
Users and Roles
20
Our clients use Twilio to text witnesses and police officers for trials from our software.
Support Headcount Required
3
Full Stack Developer
Business Processes Supported
  • Texting witnesses for trials
  • Texting clients for updates
  • Allowing our clients to text others in their contact list within our software
Likelihood to Renew
3
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.
Products Replaced
No
Key Differentiators
  • Scalability
  • Integration with Other Systems
  • Ease of Use
Integration with other systems
Evaluation Lessons Learned
Make sure we know that we have a "person" who is helping us manage our integration.
Implementation Rating
9
Implementation Details / Implementation Partner
  • Implemented in-house
Implementation Phases
No
Change Management Lessons
Change management was a minor issue with the implementation
Support Rating
1
We've been trying for a month to get this software working.
Premium Support
We didn't because right now, we have about 10 small clients using it for short text messages. NONE of them can use it currently from within our software.
Bug Resolution
Yes
No... That's why I'm writing here. This is just awful for our clients.
Exceptional Examples of Twilio Support
Over a year ago... We were able to establish this addition with minimal difficulty.
Usability
9
Clients love being able to push a button in our software to send a text. Love it!
Easy Tasks
  • Ease of use in integration
Difficult Tasks
  • Lack of support when regulations started
August 09, 2019

Communications Platform in the Cloud, the next level

Verified User
Manager in Information Technology
Computer Software Company, 51-200 employees
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Our main telephone platform is currently being handled by Twilio across the entire organization. After previously using another communications platform, we switched to Twilio to take advantage of its automation features--especially the IVR development (in PHP, Python, Ruby and other languages,) and the ability to allow our resources to employ their own SIP softphones, both in desktop and mobile versions. Also, Twilio allows us to record our outgoing calls and attach them to sales leads, opportunities and other related elements.
Pros and Cons
  • Flexibility: Twilio uses a pseudolanguage known as TwiML, in XML format, with which we can develop anything from simple IVRs to complex skill-routing call engines on a variety of common languages, such as Ruby, Javascript, PHP and Python.
  • Modularity: You can build up with Twilio, from phone numbers up to entire logic handling solutions, and even interconnect with your existing infrastructure.
  • Portability: Twilio is entirely in the Cloud; it's an SaaS communications platform. You don't need to deploy anything onsite to make it work, besides accessories such as softphones (although you can develop your own if you wish), so you have immediate access to Twilio's entire infrastructure from anywhere in the world.
  • The Twilio Studio. It's perhaps the most powerful feature on Twilio, with the ability to build full-fledged IVRs with little to no development on our side, and other advanced functions such as auto-SMS and chat bots. However, it's somewhat expensive at the moment. Though there is a free tier, it comes with several restrictions.
  • The handling of stale SIP sessions. When a user connects via softphone to his/her Twilio SIP account, it sometimes loses connectivity and resets it by opening the softphone again; sometimes this causes a second (current) session to be opened. Twilio gets confused with this, since it sees two sessions (it lacks the logic to take the most recent one), and generates an error.
Likelihood to Recommend
Twilio is well-rounded for almost any company that doesn't require much in terms of voice automation (smart IVR, call center forwarding, etc). It can hold its own on as many phone numbers as you like, and the voice quality is very clear most of the time (some countries' destinations might experience issues such as light noise, just as with a normal landline). You can even develop a reasonably complex IVR platform with TwiML and PHP, but the maintenance on this case is your own, so you'll need to evaluate this option if you're running heavily automated interactions with your customers.
Twilio Feature Ratings
Return on Investment
  • Our ROI was improved compared to our previous providers. Twilio Voice fees are very reasonable comparing with similar alternatives.
  • We can add easily new phone numbers for as little as US$1 for newcomers and offices, just with the click of a button inside Twilio admin console.
Alternatives Considered
We previously used Skype for communications, however the price per minute or second per call was more expensive, and it didn't give us the flexibility of integrating calls with our CRM (Vtiger), allowing our sales force to initiate a call with a prospect just by clicking on its opportunity's phone number.
Other Software Used
Products Replaced
Yes
Skype. We previously handled our calls via Skype, and it worked flawlessly (in some aspects even more stable than a SIP solution), however it impaired our sales force into registering and associating calls with specific leads and opportunities, it didn't have the ability of recording the incoming and outgoing calls, and the outbound call price was in general sensibly lower in Twilio.
Key Differentiators
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Third-party Reviews
Integration. Twilio integrates with Vtiger (our corporate's CRM solution, also in the Cloud), so allowing the vendors to initiate a call and attach it automatically all from inside Vtiger is a definitely must have for a communications solution. Also, the call not only gets registered and associated with the contact, but also attaches the link to the recording, adding further details to the interaction.
Evaluation Lessons Learned
Not at all. We reviewed the products on three main factors: usability, integration and price. On Usability we evaluated solutions that were portable and available in a big range of products, as well as offering all the comm interactions we use (phone calls, call forwarding and conference, IVR capabilities, etc). On integration, the ability to seamlessly pair with our CRM was a must, and Twilio provided. And finally, the price factor (in terms of price per outbound traffic).
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