How does this compare with Twilio on cost and deliverability?
It seems like they are cheaper at least for Europe (before volume discounts), with 0.042€/SMS in France (Twilio would be 0.076€). Still 10x as much as the US pricing...
MessageBird raises $60M Series A
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Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#12Cool stuff, and as a Dutch chauvinist I like that a fellow Dutch startup does well. That said, I've looked at MessageBird a bunch of times but I still don't get it. What makes them different from all the other SMS gateways out there? It's the same product everywhere: you invoke some REST API, an SMS is sent to a number and you get billed.
Good question. However, I'm rooting for them "We founded MessageBird in 2011 after experiencing firsthand how poor the quality of service of most communication providers was at the time". It's 2017 and the incumbent (Twilio) can't explain why I get delays in inbound SMSs. They blame it all the time on carriers, but if they can work directly with carriers to improve QOS while having Twilio-like ease of use they might…
The problem is that to get an SMSC that is respected by all of the operators requires a negotiation with an aggregator who has done contracts with all of the operators. The 2nd order problem is that you don't know the quality of the relationship an aggregator has with operators until you're a customer. All carriers have a prioritization in their SMSC's and, necessarily, no aggregator is in position 1 on all carriers.
The result is fairly untraceable failures.
Source: former telecom PM.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#13For those asking what makes them different, this blog post by their European investor Atomico may shed some light? Starts at paragraph 4 http://news.atomico.com/our-investment-in-messagebird-a-euro...
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#14Hi,
where (in the world) is your data stored physically? The FAQ only says that
> The MessageBird platform is build to be secure from the ground up, through all application layers. We have put in place best practices from several industry standards to help reduce and mitigate risks. MessageBird’s communication platform is hosted at secure data centers that comply with leading security policies and frameworks, including ISO 27001 and NEN 7510.
Similar question/issue has prevented us from using Twilio in the past.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good question. However, I'm rooting for them "We founded MessageBird in 2011 after experiencing firsthand how poor the quality of service of most communication providers was at the time". It's 2017 and the incumbent (Twilio) can't explain why I get delays in inbound SMSs. They blame it all the time on carriers, but if they can work directly with carriers to improve QOS while having Twilio-like ease of use they might…
The problem is that to get an SMSC that is respected by all of the operators requires a negotiation with an aggregator who has done contracts with all of the operators. The 2nd order problem is that you don't know the quality of the relationship an aggregator has with operators until you're a customer. All carriers have a prioritization in their SMSC's and, necessarily, no aggregator is in position 1 on all carriers.…
See my comment above - on of their VCs has posted some stuff
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#16How does this compare with Twilio on cost and deliverability?
It seems like they are cheaper at least for Europe (before volume discounts), with 0.042€/SMS in France (Twilio would be 0.076€). Still 10x as much as the US pricing...
MessageBird's SMS pricing in the US is $0.005/SMS, while Twilio's is $0.0075/SMS. So not sure where you get the 10x from.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#17How does this compare with Twilio on cost and deliverability?
Used these guys before for a project and they were great. They were also one of the first that "just did" inbound SMS with webhooks in a convenient way. Sometimes a complete call stack is overkill. Also, their UI is good for marketing, no need to write code.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beating Twilio on either point is setting a rather low bar for comparison. Neither are Twilio’s strong suit, imho. Not saying Twilio is bad, but they are certainly not cheap or rock solid reliable.
Who would you recommend over them?
Depends on needs. If great documentation and easy to use APIs are important, then I’d recommend a different provider over one for price / reliability. Also depends what world markets you are focused on too. One other major variance is if you need MMS or short code support.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
It seems like they are cheaper at least for Europe (before volume discounts), with 0.042€/SMS in France (Twilio would be 0.076€). Still 10x as much as the US pricing...
MessageBird's SMS pricing in the US is $0.005/SMS, while Twilio's is $0.0075/SMS. So not sure where you get the 10x from.
I meant EU pricing is 10x US pricing, but it's the same for all providers I've seen so far.
Re: MessageBird raises $60M Series A
#20Actual title is: "MessageBird raises $60m Series A funding" I've never heard of this company but looks like the same space as Twilio. Given how entrenched something like this could be in the API stack of an application, I can see the value in having a large war chest to drive development and adoption. Kudos!
Be interesting to see where the tipping point for adoption would be for companies (guessing if you're using plain SMS, the switching cost from Twilio or Textburst etc... wouldn't be great). At what point does the cost become painful for a small biz doing SMS, and if you can create a plan to grab those before the next growth phase, could be a good strategy.
Definitely an interesting question, here are a couple of ways to look at it:
- For companies doing a lot of messages or calls, pricing becomes a big issue in terms of scaling. Better pricing means they can do more to achieve even greater results, without too big of a restraint of financial overhead compared to competitors.
- For smaller companies doing smaller amounts of traffic, pricing isn't the biggest issue, all though it does become one when scaling.
An alternative benefit, which is applied to all types of companies, is the fact that MessageBird is better for security and quality: having more direct connections and working closely with telco's makes it possible to have complete end-to-end control over the traffic. This is crucial when choosing a partner to do 2FA with or other types of sensitive, security related messaging and calling, but also guarantees an overal better quality of service.