Respond.io vs. Twilio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Respond.io
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Respond.io is a business messaging platform from the Hong Kong based company of the same name, that connects customers from any channel to every team. As consumers grow to demand personal communication on a wide variety of channels, businesses are looking to their software vendors and partners to innovate and deliver these customer experiences. Respond.io is designed to meet this challenge, simply.
$99
per month
Twilio
Score 7.0 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
Pricing
Respond.ioTwilio
Editions & Modules
Starter
$99
per month
Growth
$199
per month
Advanced
$349
per month
Enterprise
Custom
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)
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Respond.ioTwilio
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsUp to a 20% discount for annual pricing.1. Pay-as-you-go pricing: Simple usage-based pricing means you don’t get locked into big contracts. 2. Volume discounts: Discounts trigger as your usage grows, so you always get a fair price. 3. Start building today with free trial credit and full API access.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Respond.ioTwilio
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Respond.ioTwilio
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User Ratings
Respond.ioTwilio
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
6.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.5
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
7.4
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
5.7
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Respond.ioTwilio
Likelihood to Recommend
If you're looking to implement the WhatsApp business api for your official number in your product Respond.io is the solution to go because the truth is that there is no easy way and most of the providers will assume that you have developers in order to create your own implementation and many of the other solutions our there are not even close to Respond.io and they are usually expensive. Also, most of the Customer Service software out there will offer you the typical channel but will skip Whatsapp while Respond.io does the opposite (check it out for the free tier if you're not convinced).
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Twilio is well suited to sending SMS reminders to prospects on the lead-up to sales appointments. This has helped us improve attendance rates for these meetings. We also use Twilio to communicate with these prospects post-meeting to make offers on products and services and for feedback on their meeting.
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Pros
  • Easy integration with WhatsApp business api, you just need a verified number
  • The CRM for WhatsApp is easy to use very friendly and let you make follow-ups to your users
  • They finally implemented the broadcast option where you can schedule broadcast messages to a specific list of users.
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  • 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.
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Cons
  • You have to be patient with Respond.io since many features are still in development I wish they can make features faster
  • In order to use WhatsApp business api you need a number that is provided by Twilio they also have implemented other number providers but it will be nice that they add more WhatsApp business number providers (since we have a US number instead of a Mexican number)
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  • Authy does not support the "push button" multi-factor authentication from your application's native apps. This means if you want to use Authy, you still need to use TOTP based codes.
  • Not really a shortcoming of Authy, but it does nothing to help with multi-factor authentication using text messages - those are still sent to your platform's messaging app.
  • Authy doesn't always display how much time is left before your current token expires, making it difficult to know how much time you have left to enter the current code.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
We are happy with Twilio because the price per message is low. The API is not difficult to implement and the documentation is very complete. Twilio as a company keeps you well informed of issues that happen. They also offer free online workshops or conferences to make notices of new laws, etc.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
Overall the product API is extremely well documented so it is very easy to build a product with their technology. The website is a little bit cumbersome to use as they have greatly expanded the number of products that they have over the years, but the dashboard UI has not been improved much since.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
The problem tends to be us, the user, rather than Twilio. We don't reach out to support fast enough (spend time struggling), but when we have, they've solved our issue immediately. We are rural, so there are signal issues to accommodate, however, we find that a few staff on a few cellular networks can triangulate where we all have signal to put up a sign.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
Good interface to connect with different API systems for communication through different channel[s]. Twilio has good market coverage of the client across the globe for generating revenue through multi-channel approach. It works with [a] programmable feature that makes life easy for every user. Automated call is one of the advance[d] feature[s] of this tool.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
The developer APIs and SDKs are super easy to follow.
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Alternatives Considered
When we were implementing WhatsApp business api number in Bussi. We had 2 options the first Zendesk smooch.io and the second one a Twilio WhatsApp number. In the beginning, it seemed that Zendesk smooch.io was the option to go but the conversation was quite slow also the integration was easy but you needed to manage this conversation from zendesk which we were not completely sure about since it's more like a ticketing platform. Fortunately, we were looking and testing solutions until we found Respond.io, and even if they didn't have at the time the broadcast feature they let us know that feature was already in development so we felt that they were building a solution we were looking for so we decided to give them a few months and in those few months they built this feature and is a more dynamic way to answer customers than tickets so we decided to go with them.
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We have looked at some of Twilio competitors, like Infobip, Sich and Bandwith. Prices on all of them for voice minutes and SMS are way cheaper than Twilio. But none of them seem to offer as many features and ease of use as Twilio. Specially from an API point of view
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Return on Investment
  • Most options we saw before Respond.io needed a minimum number of messages, contracts, or costly integrations from the side of the vendor while Respond.io is actually helping you to integrate the product with no extra cost.
  • Our users choose the communication channel they want so before we were losing leads and money because we were not able to attend this channel.
  • It requires a $0 investment to implement or maintain from the side of the developer area so we use our technical resources to develop our main core product not a WhatsApp chat integration feature.
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  • 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
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ScreenShots

Respond.io Screenshots

Screenshot of Unified Contact Management. This is the location to manage all customer profiles on a single page and track their details across all connected messaging channels. Merge, filter, or edit contacts from one centralized location.Screenshot of Omnichannel Messaging Inbox: A single customer story containing every message, call, email, web chat and internal discussion.Screenshot of Comprehensive Supervisor Dashboard: A daily dashboard for managers to pick up on conversation or agent anomalies at a glance. Identify conversations that have been on hold or unresolved for too long and monitor agents’ performance and workload in real time.Screenshot of Mobile Messaging: The AI-powered native mobile app can be used to sell and chat with customers on the go. Stay connected and manage interactions directly from a mobile device.Screenshot of Efficiency Through Workflows: Automate tasks and streamline processes with customizable workflows, boosting efficiency and ensuring smooth operations by handling repetitive tasks.Screenshot of Data-Driven Insights: Insights with comprehensive reports that track key metrics, monitor trends and visualize performance data. Analyze conversations and team productivity to make informed, data-driven decisions.

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.