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Paying isn't necessarily the issue. WhatsApp needs to make money, and this is a fairly clear way. The issue is the 3rd party. I don't understand why it needs t
by pmlnr 7y ago
Paying isn't necessarily the issue. WhatsApp needs to make money, and this is a fairly clear way.
The issue is the 3rd party. I don't understand why it needs to go through another service.
- m4tthumphrey 7y agoTwilio's bread and butter is telephony developer relations. Why would WhatsApp get into this market when they can outsource it for free to Twilio who has the product and documentation nailed. The support however is a different story. Once the demand is high enough, WhatsApp are free to revisit. It also keeps WhatsApp low (relatively speaking) cost to run.
- mehhh 7y agoThe type of messages that can be sent over WhatsApp via Twilio are so restricted and expensive that it was not worth integrating when we looked at this at my work. Even with Verizon's proposed A2P charge per SMS, it is half the cost to use SMS for conversing with customers compared to WhatsApp. Said surcharge has been postponed repeatedly, meaning SMS is an order of magnitude cheaper to use than WhatsApp
- daveFNbuck 7y agoI use Twilio to automate SMS messaging with users. Some of Twilio's sales people told me about this a few weeks ago, saying I'd be able to seamlessly connect with people through SMS, Whatsapp, or however they like to communicate. I think the idea here is that if you're building a Whatsapp bot, you probably want the other types of bots that Twilio offers anyway and it's easier if the services are bundled together under a single vendor.