Better accuracy, faster response times, and increased convenience are just some of the reasons why platforms and their users prefer phone verification over email. And, when it comes to implementing it on your site, you have many options. Twilio is one you're likely to come across in your search, but how does it stack up to the alternatives? Here's a closer look.
What Is Twilio?
Twilio is a platform that enables developers to add voice, video, and messaging communication to their custom applications alongside authentication methods.
The use of a platform like Twilio helps to cut down production time as adding these features to an app using traditional methods is both time-consuming and infrastructure intensive. These platforms allow developers to build apps in the language they prefer and then easily add in things like SMS capabilities.
Platforms like Twilio allow you to utilize a global network of carriers. Theoretically, that enables your business to reach anyone, anywhere in the world through voice or SMS.
Phone Number Verification
In the United States, less than 5% of people dispose of their phone number. It's something most people try to keep for their entire life, bringing it with them as they switch carriers and even move states. Compare this to emails, which people regularly churn through as inboxes fill up with junk messages and low-quality mailing list subscriptions.
For these reasons, a phone number is by far one of the best ways you can identify a person online. It increases accountability amongst community users and helps to cultivate a sense of trust. More than that, with phone numbers being more difficult to produce than email and other verification methods, using phone numbers help to further prevent fraud.
One-Time Password Requests
Another use case for services like Twilio is to respond to one-time password (OTP) requests. When users forget how to log into your website or service, an OTP will allow them to get back in quickly and give you the chance re-engage them using a method that's as simple, quick, and painless as possible.
This is especially important for services that are seasonal, like for travel websites. One-time passwords work through SMS or voice, allowing users to easily get back to using your service before a competitor has the chance to grab their attention. One-time passwords are already in use by countless of businesses and websites around the world thanks to their results.
Direct SMS
With SMS having the highest open rate of any communication or marketing method, direct SMS definitely stands to benefit your business. Sending occasionally, well-timed, and well-thought-out messages to your users will surely get you a response. Be it a sales notification or handy tip, over 90% of SMS get opened.
If marketing through SMS, you'll also benefit from the high contractibility mentioned earlier. While email subscribers are likely to become inactive overtime as they abandon and switch accounts, your phone number subscribers are likely to stay very engaged and active throughout the lifetime of their interaction with you.
Do I Need These Capabilities?
A big question that many businesses find themselves asking these days is a simple one: do you really need the ability to send SMS and voice to your users? Ultimately, that's a decision your business has to make. However, if you go by user trends and studies, the numbers will certainly point you in the direction of a service like Twilio.
With the statistics widely supporting the growing and continue use of SMS in people's everyday lives, having the ability to connect with users through SMS is a must for many companies. After all, more than 4.2 billion people around the world text regularly.
Not only that, you will benefit from the increased open rates of SMS, which are a direct result of the fact that people respond to texts. As soon as it pings their device, users get a push notification and a distinguishable message sound that they habitually check as soon as possible.
So, everything considered, it's definitely worth having the ability to send SMS and voice messages to your customers. If you have a need for such capabilities, there is no doubt that Twilio will stand out to you when searching for a provider. However, Twilio is far from the only option on the market offering such a service.
Twilio vs. RingCaptcha
To help you make an informed decision, here's a look at Twilio's features and pricing and a comparison of how it stacks up against RingCaptcha, its biggest competitor.
Comparing Features
Twilio is a standalone platform that enables your business to deploy communication and authentication capabilities almost instantly, with a high uptime guarantee. RingCaptcha does the same thing, except it does not offer the service directly. Rather, RingCaptcha contracts with multiple providers--including Twilio--in order to offer the highest uptime and reliability to businesses like yours.
This is the primary benefit of RingCaptcha as it enables you to leverage the extensive networks of multiple providers without having to lock into a contract with any of them. With a single integration, RingCaptcha allows you to achieve the highest and most reliable deliverability rates by leveraging multiple providers. This diversity allows clients to benefit endlessly from increased availability.
Setup is easy, allowing you to add these functions to your site or app in under 90 seconds. RingCaptcha also integrates with WooCommerce, Wordpress, and osclass with ease.
Countless companies around the world trust RingCaptcha, including Investing.com in Europe, Woolworths in Australia, Careem in the Middle East, and 99Taxis in Brazil. Customers love it for its quickness, simplicity, and--above all--dependability.
The flexibility that RingCaptcha provides by enabling you to leverage multiple providers at once, including Twilio, without a contract, definitely makes for a clear winner.
Comparing Pricing
When it comes to pricing, you will certainly find the differences surprising. Both Twilio and RingCaptcha offer a free option to get you started.
The rates you pay will vary depending on the service. Twilio's pricing is as follows.
- Programmable voice starts at $0.0085 per minute to receive calls and $0.013 per minute to make calls
- Programmable SMS starts at $0.0075 per message to receive and send
- Programmable chat starts at $0.0008 per message and $0.020 per user
- Programmable video starts at $$0.001per min, per participant and costs $0.300 per subscribed GB
Twilio plans range from $99/month for the Studio Pro Plan to $999/month for the Studio Business Plan. They also offer a free trial that allows for restricted usage.
RingCaptcha offers a free Starter plan that businesses can use indefinitely. It includes 100 one-time password responses (OTPs). These are not customizable and they contain RingCaptcha branding.
You'll also find two paid subscription plans with no branding and a lot more features. Premium starts at $9 per month with a 14-day free trial while Enterprise (for those with over 1M transactions per month) varies in cost to fit the needs of your business.
The Premium plan from RingCaptcha includes fully customizable SMS, conversion rate optimization, fraud analytics, custom sender ID, voice calls, API access, whitelists, blacklists, normalization API, direct SMS, and premium support.
Choosing The Right Provider
The key to your success when adding SMS and voice functionalities is having the right provider on your side. You need a service that is able to guarantee extremely high uptime and deliverability. You must ensure OTPs are reliably delivered during phone verification, logins, and 2FA authentication to avoid leaving a user stranded.
While considered dependable, locking yourself into a single provider like Twilio will automatically limit reliability. No single provider can offer complete deliverability all around the world. Each one has gaps in coverage, and that's why RingCaptcha stands out as the perfect solution.
Plus, in addition to enjoying better coverage and dependability, RingCaptcha lets you do it without locking into a contract and without having to go through multiple integration processes. RingCaptcha simplifies everything for you, making for a straightforward setup process and a subscription that you can have confidence in as your business' needs change and grow.
Visit RingCaptcha's website to learn more about how your business could benefit from utilizing a range of providers. Click here to start onboarding users the easy way.
Or schedule a demo with us.
