Twilio Reviews

Pros

Twilio allows programmers to effortlessly create and release new forms of communication. Twilio provides a number of application programming interfaces (APIs), software development kits (SDKs), and libraries for adding telephony functionality to software. It also offers a variety of ways to get in touch, including phone, text, video, and electronic mail, so that each user's experience can be tailored to their own needs.

Cons

Until now, I haven't been able to find a single drawback to using Twilio. My interactions with Twilio have always been positive.

Pros

Twilio has every option under the sun, there's nothing call center related that they can't do for you. You could set up automated systems to perform mundane tasks for you, record and inscribe all your calls and even have a call center set up to help troubleshoot issues and direct calls. You can get add-ons from GitHub, integrate into your website especially Shopify and answer calls with a number that you can bring with you or they provide straight to your cell phone. We're talking local numbers and 800 numbers even though you may have to pay extra.

Cons

Very steep learning curve. There are so many options and so many ways to use this service including third party apps that you could get confused quite easily. Also their 2FA process is tedious which if you're not careful could result in you losing your number.

Alternatives Considered

Google Voice, Grasshopper, RingEX and Nextiva

Reasons for Choosing Twilio

As a student I received a free trial from GitHub and I really liked how many options and integrations Twilio has.

Switched From

Grasshopper

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

They bill by usage so in many ways they are a cheaper option. Plus if your needing to use Twilio on a computer they are the absolute best. And they have a whole marketplace of third party apps that can compliment this service immensely.

Pros

We were migrating our email marketing from MailChimp to Twillo's SendGrid. Relative to MailChimp we found SendGrid's email design tool to be more flexible and easier to use

Cons

Customer support: Two issues1 -Customer support is difficult to access. The support phone number listed on Google is disconnected, there is no chat, "Contact support" on the website requires the user to fill in a text box labeled "Tell us your issue." We've tried this multiple times only to get an error message: "There was an error retrieving results for your query. Please try again." We've managed to get multiple messages to SendGrid Support by responding to previous support ticket emails. I see some one at SendGrid has deleted all but one of these. Obviously someone knows we have an urgent issue but no response and it has been over 18 hours since our first request for support. 2. When we informed Customer support that we were migrating our marketing champagne from Mail Chimp to SendGrid they failed to inform us about the possibility of the automated account suspension we have encountered, and how to avoid it .

Alternatives Considered

Constant Contact and Mailchimp

Reasons for Choosing Twilio

Fee structure and reputation for deliver-ability

Switched From

Mailchimp

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

We were already using it for our transactional emails, fee structure and reputation for deliver-ability

Pros

We used Twillio as our primary phone tool to manage and distribute contacts between a large group of sales managers.

Each sales managers operates in their own market and language, due to this setup many other tools were skipped and Twilio actually solved this issue for us.

Cons

It is really techy and not everyone from every team can be involved in setting it up.
Sometimes reliability issues arise, the pricing felt jumpy too.

Pros

I found many advantages of making voice calls and sending text messages through the application and using them in the performance of the company's work, so that the application has become an indispensable main reference in life Daily and practical, I found integration in job performance in a very large way and it provided me with many things and benefits in performing work and controlling it, communicating with customers, suppliers and employees, monitoring them and their performance, knowing the desires and needs of customers, voice mail service, call recording, and many, many features in this application .

Cons

It has an easy, simple, practical interface that all groups can use and benefit from in a smooth and uncomplicated manner. It has advantages when the internet is cut off or the network is weak. I found integration in the performance of the current practical work and doing it to the fullest by means of this application, but it contains something that I think it lacks, which is the support of the Arabic language Some customers face a problem because of the availability of the language only, and we hope that the application will pay attention to this point and focus on it.

Alternatives Considered

CloudTalk

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

Because of its speed and provision of integration in functionality and ease of use and benefit from all its services.

Pros

Twilio easily integrates with multiple 3rd party services out there. With a simple Zap in Zapier, you can build multiple workflows that trigger operations on your Twilio accounts such as sending out mass SMS or transactional SMS to customers.
Twilio has exceptional deliverability in so many countries around the world. So no matter where your recipient is, Twilio can pretty much reach them.

Cons

Twilio has a steep learning curve if you do intend to get the most out of the products. You can cover a lot with simple API and Zapier, but to get the most from it using "Programmable Communications" needs some level of expertise. And this is where Twilio really showcases its powers. Unfortunately without a certain level of expertise, you will not get to that. Personally, as a NoCode builder, to overcome this I had to hire an expert to help me get the most out of Twilio.

Alternatives Considered

Bird

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

Twilio was much easier to integrate with my existing stack of Bubble, Zapier, and Airtable.

Pros

Extremely affordable option to send 1:1 SMS meeting reminders in conjunction with Chili Piper and increase show rates to hard earned appointments set by our sales reps as well as send 1:1 SMS marketing messages via Marketo Engage

Cons

Doesn't have 2-way, bi-directional texting capabilities when a prospects responds via text to either our meeting reminders or marketing messages

Alternatives Considered

Jive

Reasons for Choosing Twilio

Skipio is a subscription-based Texting-CRM platform with a substantial monthly commitment

Switched From

Skipio

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

Pricing commitment

Pros

Twilio is so dependable and versatile and I am extremely happy with it! It has become a main structure of my work flows from marketing text messages, call forwarding and everything communication. Twilio basically does everything. You can build anything you can think of inside the Twilio platform. It blows my mind what it is capable of. I feel like the only limit to what I can create with Twilio is my intelligence.

Cons

I like everything about Twilio. I have been using it forever and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon

Alternatives Considered

Zadarma

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

So many reasons. I actually still use zadarma but that’s only because I haven’t taken the time to port out my phone number.

Pros

Twilio can do absolutely everything you need to do with a phone number. Automate, Record, SMS, Call, Chatbot, Integrations, Number verification.

Cons

Very complex to setup. You absolutely NEED to know how to code. No easy user software available to simply use your number from day 1.

Alternatives Considered

Dialpad and CallHippo

Reasons for Choosing Twilio

For all the added functionalities offered on Twilio (automation + integrations) and the much lower cost.

Switched From

Dialpad

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

For all the added functionalities offered on Twilio (automation + integrations) and the much lower cost.

Pros

The API was easy to use, well documented, and accurate (to the documentation provided). I was up and running with a programmatic call to Twilio to send text messages from my application within 15 minutes. Twilio Studio and flows provide a great user experience that puts a lot of power into a non-developers hands for managing communication and escalation. Example flows give you just about everything you would need to get started building your own flow.

Cons

Certain aspects, like accounts, sub-accounts, and management can only be done using the API. These are minor and usually one and done (so they could be done with tool like Postman or SOAPUI).

Alternatives Considered

msg91

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

Studio and Flows of Twilio, prior experience using Twilio for phone number verification.

Pros

Twilio is a powerful and effective communications platform that allows businesses and organizations to easily integrate voice, video, messaging, and other forms of communication into their systems and applications. Some of the key benefits of using Twilio include:Flexibility: Twilio provides a range of different APIs and tools that can be easily integrated into a variety of different platforms and applications. This allows organizations to use Twilio in a way that best fits their needs and requirements.Scalability: Twilio is designed to handle high volumes of traffic, making it a good choice for organizations that need to send or receive large numbers of communications on a regular basis. The service can easily be scaled up or down to meet changing needs.Features: Twilio offers a range of advanced features, including tracking and analytics, voice recognition, and integration with other tools and services. These features can help organizations optimize their communications and improve their overall effectiveness.

Cons

Despite its many benefits, there are some potential drawbacks to consider when using Twilio. For example, the cost of the service can be a barrier for some organizations, and the advanced features may not be necessary for all users. Additionally, the service may require some technical expertise to set up and use effectively.

Pros

We used Twilio to be the backbone of custom cross-platform messaging software we built that connects people in different countries around the globe. We used it to send automated messages alerting the users that someone in their area wants to talk to them and then to continue to facilitate the conversations through our software and the WhatsApp API protecting the user's identities.

The API was very easy to use. The hardest and most challenging part was getting set up and approved by Facebook to get our WhatsApp numbers. The system tracks if messages were delivered which is great and we can see responses come back in as well, not the message content itself mind you, but that a response was sent. We also leverage their email platform which added another communication platform to our system.

All in all, we are excited about our partnership with Twilio and look forward to continuing to work with them.

Cons

The only challenging issues we had really involved WhatsApp and getting them to verify our Facebook Business listing, then approve us for a WhatsApp number and finally approve our message templates so we could use Twilio to send messages through their platform. I wouldn't say any of that was Twilio's fault and their staff was excellent at doing everything they could to help us.

The only thing I would like to see is a better more laid out navigation on their admin dashboards. You have to click into menus to get to a sub menu to then scroll around and try to find what you are looking for. It would be nice if they had a master link tree like Amazon does on their AWS dashboard.

Pros

* super easy to configure multiple accounts for billing purposes

* * Twimlets are a great way to experiment with product &/or prototype quickly - https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets

* Twilio functions is amazingly easy way to either extend power of tools such as Zapier &/or avoid having to use AWS Lambda, etc. -- it's a super cool hidden feature - https://www.twilio.com/docs/runtime/functions

* They have an auto-stop feature if you accidentally send too fast -- e.g., we accidentally created an infinite loop of texts between two phone numbers -- which they auto-stopped at about $20 (in three minutes).

There are likely other Twilio features hiding in plain sight -- poke around -- one of those rare cases where reading all the documentation is likely worth it

Cons

* the login process can be annoying
* help sometime takes longer than 24 hours
* configuring multiple sub-accounts is confusing at first
* not all functions can be done via UX -- some require API calls -- curl scripts were our goto

Pros

It had a high number of emails you could send for free every day

Cons

They had a sprawling system that required like four api keys just to set up and integration between multiple products with little to no to innacurate documentation. First you have to have a SendGrid account and set up an API Key (first key in .env) , then you have to make an email template which is very hard to do because they have a lot of bugs with that whole system and its rather confusing as well, especially in regards to trying to actually write your own code for how it looks . Then you go to Twilio and get your Auth Token (second .env) and create a Service that has its own token (third .env) , then you integrate that with your sendGrid Template and I forgot where exatly but there some fourth token you need. It's ridiculously complicated and poorly set up, and the documentation doesn't really tell you how to code it, the page that tells you how to send emails has code examples for sending text messages so that's unhelpful. It took me several hours to figure out how it all works and get it set up for automatic emailing. When I switched to Courier it took my literally 15 minutes to do the exact same thing. They had great documentation, a wonderful easy to use website, and just one API key. Don't use Twilio, it's trash, try Courier.

Pros

Twilio is superior when it comes to SMS delivery so I will share my experience with that since I use only SMS services but bear in mind that Twilio is much more than just SMS.
Twilio delivers messages fast and reliable all around the globe for a very competitive price. It usually takes just a few seconds to deliver the message. With Twilio, you don't even need to buy a phone number since you can send messages from an alphanumeric ID. You just need to make sure that this is legal in your country and take an additional registration step if required by law. Choosing the phone number from which you will send a message is sometimes a better solution since you can then also receive messages and for example, receive messages for unsubscribing the customer from your SMS marketing platform.
What I particularly like about Twilio is their offer for Non Profit organizations. They are willing to credit your account with 500$ if you are a registered Non-Profit and that is amazing! I don't know of any other company that gives such big credits for free and that speaks that company is led by managers who certainly have a great vision which is not only to make a profit but help people by providing easy use service. Their API is amazing! Documentation is full of examples and a lot of programming languages are supported out of the box. Their API services are not just developer focussed and overall complete service is so easy to use that I don't know why I haven't been using it much before.

Cons

Twilio dashboard is not the best experience and I don't like it even though it received a redesign recently. It feels kinda outdated and it isn't optimized for mobile devices what I found kinda alerting for 2022. Although you won't be using it on your mobile phone primarily, it is nice if you could check the error log fast on the go if a lot of them start popping out and alerting you on channels you set.

Pros

I'm delighted to use Twilio because it increases customers engagement and interaction in real-time.It is simple to send and receive text or SMS messages with Twilio.It is simple and fast to make and receive phone voice calls with Twilio.

Cons

When having unstable internet connectivity,I find it difficult to make or receive phone calls with Twilio.

Pros

Love their COSTS... Some of the lowest in the industry, gives better control of budget. Utilizing Twilio we were able to navigate away from other tools that were costing us hundreds of dollars a month in per minute or per text overage fees. Provides more numbers at a cheaper cost per month by far, the whole system is powerful, inclusive, integrative of all tools and solutions through zapier and webhooks, and just a powerful system.

Cons

The UXI is a little heavy, when creating sub accounts and viewing the analytics, it is so powerful you can get lost, but that is a very minimal issue for I am sure someone with more knowledge can fly through the site and know what they are looking for much faster.

Pros

Great value for the pricing and options provided.

Cons

Some options are not easy to integrate or use, especially the call flows.

Alternatives Considered

CallRail and Ringba

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

Better pricing and options.

Pros

Simple to use product (as an end user) that seems to usually work and has the options we need.

Cons

It's still a VOIP phone service so every so often the sound quality is perfect and it's gone down like any phone service can.

Pros

A powerful telephony software that only charges you for resources you use. This works great for us, as we don't currently need a massive amount of resources.

It powers all our text message needs on our internal software platforms.

Cons

The only problem we've faced is several carriers have started blocking non-standard TLD links. No failure, not message, the text messages disappear into the ether.

Twillio has been less than useless in helping solve this (I suspect because our usage is so low they don't really care)

I feel like this is a really niche problem that won't affect a lot of potential users, so I've still rated them fairly high and would probably recommend them too.

Pros

Twilio helps to get virtual numbers within minutes especially United States numbers which helps us with our business needs.

Cons

Restrictions and extra process involving more days for some country numbers like India, and Hong Kong affects our timeline

Pros

We use Twilio as a cloud communication platform and we found here all the options required for our business. API Integration with other software is well done also.

Cons

Pricing for phone numbers is some regions are high. Interface is not intuitive in the beginning.

Alternatives Considered

ClickSend

Reasons for Switching to Twilio

Features and possibilities for integraion.

Pros

Competitive rates in the market is being offered. We use this in the company as the main tool for SMS messaging platform tool for our devices so it's cheaper compared to the rates we would be paying if we are to use the services offered by regular major carriers. It also allows use via API so very convenient and easy to set up in the backend for operational use with different platforms.

Cons

Lately, there's an issue when viewing/searching for SMS transaction logs. When you search for the logs using phone number as a search tool, sometimes the results will not show up. I think it's a bug. Also when the sub menus were changed from the previous version, it got confusing. Navigating the menus on the site got more complicated compared to before.

Pros

Wide range of options - API hooks, config options etc

Cons

Can be complex to set up, but Twilio Studio does the trick now I guess. We were originally using XML / TwiML

Pros

Twilio enables the users on any platform to send sms and make voice calls internationally via its well documented APIs which can be integrated very quickly on the platform by the developers. The SMS can be sent reliably on any international or local phone number once the phone numbers are bought with the required services enabled on it. Twilio also provides phone number masking for making voice calls. All in all its really an awesome module to use in your product for availing all of the Twilio services.

Cons

Twilio should provide sms and voice calling as a testing feature on the trial account which can really help people to be more convinced about its awesome services.