I reviewed Twilio MessagingX capabilities along with several other alternative platforms. Here’s what I discovered.
Twilio MessagingX is a powerful omnichannel platform with publishing abilities for SMS, MMS, in-app chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Google’s Business Messages.
However, a significant downside Twilio’s customers report is customer service miscommunications and delays that cause a lot of frustration.
At SimpleTexting, we’ve seen a trend of past Twilio customers beginning discussions with our sales team largely due to these frustrations, among others.
That’s why we’re publishing some basic information with a shortlist of Twilio alternatives to help you in your transition for SMS text messaging.
Here’s a read-only spreadsheet with full profiles on each company. This is essentially a different view of the information here that you could copy/paste and modify for your procurement purposes.
This list is not written by AI. It’s not researched by AI. I personally reviewed the tools in this list to curate, review, and write this piece.
My intention here is to provide a “research report” of sorts all in one place so you don’t have to scour the internet for information to understand the differences of these platforms or build a business case of your own.
In addition, many of the resources I saw for Twilio alternatives focused on the largest view of the comprehensive Twilio platform. I was mainly curious about texting capabilities because that is what our sales team discovered as a need for past Twilio MessagingX customers who are researching their options.
SimpleTexting serves a wide variety of business sizes, use cases, and industries. Many of our customers fit into the categories of small business and small- and medium-size enterprises (or midmarket).
Therefore, this research and shortlist of Twilio alternatives is focused on this potentially underserved segment that is interested in simple solutions to send mass texts and communicate with customers (or other audiences) via back-and-forth text message threads.
While I wrote this content, all pros and cons are based on actual customer reviews from G2, Capterra, Trustpilot, and Software Advice (among other aggregate websites). Certain elements come directly from these brands’ websites, like the positioning statements, use cases, and feature sets.
My goal is to curate research from many different sources — to provide robust product profiles no other source can provide as holistically — and give you a different and unique perspective to vet your business texting platform options.
Twilio MessagingX bills itself as an omnichannel platform with publishing abilities for SMS, MMS, in-app chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Google’s Business Messages.
Curated review:
“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.”
Suzi L., Project Manager, via Capterra
Curated review:
“[R]recent regulation changes concerning SMS and phone numbers have brought some challenges to light. […] I was initially reassured by Chris from support that all was in order on my end. Unfortunately, a few days later, I experienced disruptions with the SMS alerts from my app. […] I engaged with their support […], I’m still awaiting a comprehensive solution. […] [A]s an infrastructure application, I believe it’s paramount for them to offer responsive and insightful support. Addressing issues promptly can significantly mitigate the downstream impact on customers like myself.”
John P., Marketing Assistant, via G2
| Rating | Reviews | |
| G2 | 4.3/5 | 440 |
| Capterra | 4.5/5 | 399 |
| Trustpilot | 1.3/5 | 384 |
| Software Advice | 4.5/5 | 400 |
Omni: Twilio MessagingX doesn’t focus on any one specific industry. Three core industries Twilio targets on their website include:
SimpleTexting is an intuitive SMS service that works well for mass texting, business texting, and automated texting use cases, among others.
Curated review:
“We had tried three options simultaneously and picked SimpleTexting because it has so many integrations that are easy to use. We are able to do giveaway contests, collect data, it integrates with our email software – really, they are the pros and have figured out what most clients need from the start.”
Shelby R., Marketing Manager, via Capterra
Curated review:
“The only thing I’d say I ‘dislike’ is that because it’s not our only means of communication with our audience, we have to set up automations or manually enter a contact’s info. The text to join is helpful, however we don’t rely on that since we’d rather use one sign up form where they can check off which options they’d like to ‘opt-in’ to.”
| Rating | Reviews | |
| G2 | 4.7/5 | 624 |
| Capterra | 4.7/5 | 237 |
| Trustpilot | 4.5/5 | 208 |
| Software Advice | 4.5/5 | 237 |
Omni: SimpleTexting doesn’t focus on any one specific industry. Three core industries SimpleTexting targets on their website include:
💡 Twilio vs. SimpleTexting: A Twilio alternative
Podium enables a multi-channel platform to take phone calls, chat on websites, send texts, take payments via text, and generate reviews from texts.
Curated review:
“One place, multiple platforms combine. Appointment Center Reps do not need to check multiple dashboards, log in to multiple sites. It is all very transparent who sent what, saw what, etc. There are sites that are cheaper but we like the simplicity of this one. We can text customers and employee, create templates for consistent messaging, request reviews, NPS, all in one place. We know there are additional products available such as payments on Podium that we choose not to use. There is more that can be done with it than we need.”
Brittney G., Marketing Manager, via Capterra
Curated review:
“My biggest disappointment was paying extra to send text promotions to all my contacts. They cap your promotional messages at a low number without paying extra. I don’t believe this was made clear in the sales presentation.”
Grant L., Small Business Owner, via G2
| Rating | Reviews | |
| G2 | 4.5/5 | 1,333 |
| Capterra | 4.3/5 | 472 |
| Trustpilot | 2.7/5 | 20 |
| Software Advice | 4.5/5 | 473 |
Omni: Podium doesn’t focus on any one specific industry. Three core industries Podium targets on their website include:
MessageMedia is a proven leader in mass texting, conversational SMS, triggered drips, and several unique use cases like texting links to customizable, branded salespages all created within its robust platform.
Curated review: “We love how easy the platform is to use. From creating a new message to reviewing reports, all areas are user friendly and easy to navigate. I love the helpful hints like the character count that helps us stay within a budget. Overall great platform to use and the support is amazing. I love the documentation that is available with easy to follow directions.”
Aysha A., Service Delivery Manager, via Capterra
Curated review: “I believe it could us more robust MMS capabilities from the web app inbox, such as being able to paste an image from the clipboard directly into the chat box. I also think the API documentation while generally good, lacks a few specifications. For instance, I can no longer find documentation for the “/v1/reporting/” end point in the developer portal. It was there at one point as we have this endpoint built into our system to calculate usage, but it appears to be removed. We are maintaining this a bit blind now.”
Justin G., Chief Operating Officer, via Capterra
| Rating | Reviews | |
| G2 | 3/5 | 2 |
| Capterra | 4.7/5 | 23 |
| Trustpilot | 3.7/5 | 1 |
| Software Advice | 4.5/5 | 23 |
Omni: MessageMedia doesn’t focus on any one specific industry. Three core industries MessageMedia targets on their website include:
MessageBird consolidates many channels with a single platform to send and receive messages. Channels include SMS, WhatsApp, email, mobile push, Messenger, Google Business Messages, and Instagram Direct.
Curated review:
“Message bird has an impressive yet simple user interface, which allows you to configure all the necessary aspects to integrate Whatsapp, social network messaging and text messages. It has a very useful administration panel that allows you to easily understand where to go to execute any action, from flow configuration to message automation.”
Jesus G., Growth Hacker, via G2
Curated review:
“The development of new features is slow compared to other market-established products. The product is so unstable that we could barely go a week without an outage on one of the channels. The introduced support plans were more costly than the one we subscribed to! That’s why we left.”
Baker A., Product Manager, via G2
| Rating | Reviews | |
| G2 | 4.2/5 | 66 |
| Capterra | 4.5/5 | 135 |
| Trustpilot | 1.2/5 | 97 |
| Software Advice | 4.5/5 | 135 |
Omni: MessageBird doesn’t focus on any one specific industry. Three core industries MessageBird targets on their website include:
Sinch covers all communications needs for text messaging, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and more. Voice, email, and verification offerings make it a complete customer communications cloud.
Curated review:
“It has provided us with the best functions so that all our clients can connect with us easily and simply, implementing through a mobile phone is very easy, it has allowed us to create completely personalized communications, and attract more people by doing our online marketing.”
Julio L., IT Project Manager, via G2
Curated review:
“The different services Sinch offers can often feel disjointed or completely siloed. Getting access to additional services can be a bit of a hassle with lots of meetings and paperwork to sign. Additionally, we’ve had our previous account reps really drop off the map with support after getting us to sign on for additional services, requiring several email follow ups to get access to their technical resources for help getting started.”
Verified User, Internet, via G2
| Rating | Reviews | |
| G2 | 4.0/5 | 28 |
| Capterra | N/A | N/A |
| Trustpilot | 2.2/5 | 9 |
| Software Advice | N/A | N/A |
Omni: Sinch doesn’t focus on any one specific industry. Three core industries Sinch targets on their website include:
Nathan is the head of content and SEO at SimpleTexting. With the help of an awesome team, he’s attracted more than 65 million website visitors, converted 10 million email subscribers, and supported 300,000 software users. He's written for the likes of Fast Company and his work has been referenced in publications like Forbes. Nathan has 15 years of proven corporate and startup marketing experience and continues to venture off the beaten path. When he’s not marketing, you’ll catch Nathan canoeing in the Boundary Waters or training for his next ultra marathon. Connect with Nathan on LinkedIn.
More Posts from Nathan ElleringFind out why I chose these fourteen apps to text customers from your computer and which are best for SMS marketing.
ReadTake a peek at Postino’s text-to-vote campaign to increase sales and customer loyalty, and learn how you can adapt it to your own business.
Read
Start a text marketing campaign or have a 1-on-1 conversation today. It's risk free. Sign up for a free 14-day trial today to see SimpleTexting in action.
No credit card required