11 ms·
Ask HN: How to send SMS cheaper than Twilio?
Not spam, all double opt-in. Even with 10DLC it's too much $, even on cheap providers like SignalWire. Email to text is unreliable and can't do above certain volumes (unless there's some way to get whitelisted I don't know?)
How can I do this for cheaper?
Here are some numbers:
Pricing varies by carrier but with my carrier mix it is between $0.0065 - $0.007 for 1 message on average. I need to send ~250k each month for now and also need lots of room to send more. These prices are SignalWire which is the cheapest I found so far. Bandwidth looks like the same. I think maybe Teli and Telnyx are a small amount cheaper but not so much.
- jqpabc123 5y agoTo do high volume SMS, I think you need a dedicated, business toll free number so they can easily track and block your account if you start spamming. This is the "white listing" process.
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoNo carriers all want 10DLC now not toll-free.
- jqpabc123 5y agoOk, thanks for the feedback. But from what I read, toll free still allows for higher volume.
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoCarriers are now actively penalizing toll free A2P with higher fees and some are straight up filtering them. They all want 10DLC where volume is dependent on trust score.
- smoyer 5y agoYou might want to fix your title if you can still edit (sp).
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoThanks, I did.
- 8bitben 5y agoHave you tried talking to a sales rep from Twilio or one of the other providers? Sometimes they can figure out a discount or credit to keep you. Usually they will at least try.
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoI will give it a try, hopefully there is something there.
- djyaz1200 5y agoIf you're willing to commit to a significant monthly spend the providers will offer lower rates. Contact several of them and collect competing bids.
- brimble 5y ago... and this is true for basically every vendor, once you have any amount of scale. Including credit card processors. Yes, even that one with the really nice API. CDNs. Supposedly big cloud providers, but I've not used them at a scale where it was really worth negotiating (for either party). Quick way to see if you can probably get one: email one of their competitors (a sales email address) and tell them what your average monthly spending with [current vendor] looks like, what your rates with them are, and emphasize that you're otherwise happy with them but feel like it might be worth moving if you can do significantly better on price. If you get back an offer lower than their sticker prices, ask your current vendor to match (assuming you're otherwise happy with them). Even someone who doesn't like and is kinda bad at negotiating can do that. If they come back with no or trivial movement on price (a 5% discount or something can often be had if you just ask) and trying to sell you on features instead, you're probably too small still. Otherwise, enjoy the savings.
- kevmo314 5y agoHave you thought about buying a cheap cell phone with a plan? You can turn an Android phone into an SMS gateway.
- kevincox 5y agoAlthough finding a carrier that is ok with this type of use is more difficult. Most have fairly low rate limits and will consider kicking you off the network.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoWon't work in practice. We tried that, and (scum)phone companies apply arbitrary filters to SMS sent with 'unlimited plans', not delivering messages which they don't like. Experiments have shown that SMSs with random text arrive in 80-90% of cases, but if they contain words like 'verification', 'code', 'код', еtc, only about 10% do reach the recipients. Of course, these same operators offer commercial rates for delivering 'branded' messages at a far higher rates.
- sofixa 5y agoHave you tried cheating their regexes with mixing Cyrillic and Latin script? E.g. кoд ( the o is Latin, the rest Cyrillic). It's the same letter visually but a different character. Even Google Translate used to trip up with this. PS: funny, HN bolds Cyrillic characters
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoMixing helps bypass the screen, and simply sending the numbers helped. But still, we decided to ditch this number verification thing via SMS altogether and start torturing users by missed calls.
- twunde 5y agoThe reason this doesn't work is because of the pressure phone carriers have gotten about reducing the amount of spam phone calls and SMS (from Congress, state governments and regulatory bodies like the FCC). These arbitrary filters on consumer level plans are typically about blocking spam from spoofed numbers and non-compliant businesses. If you think about it, its EXACTLY how email works today. You _can_ try to send millions of emails per a second from your gmail account, but a) your emails will likely be caught by spam filters due to the high volume and b)gmail will notice suspicious activity and shut your account down.
- kull 5y agoI have this bookmarked from a few weeks ago found on HN [1]. [1] How to send text messages for free using Python | Use Python to send text messages via email https://www.alfredosequeida.com/blog/how-to-send-text-messages-for-free-using-python-use-python-to-send-text-messages-via-email/ https://www.alfredosequeida.com/blog/how-to-send-text-messag...
- mdrzn 5y agoNot usable for these high volumes tho.
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoI have tried email to sms, it doesn't work at my scale.
- futhey 5y agoIf you have rough estimates for what the upper limits of this approach are (based on your tests), I'd love to get a datapoint to keep in mind. I use this at low-moderate volumes.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- kk6mrp 5y agoYou could set up a dedicated Android phone with SMSSync [0]. It isn't maintained but I use it for my own personal use and would think it could scale up to meet this kind of demand. I don't know the legality of using a cell phone service for this kind of service though, might violate their terms of service. [0] https://github.com/ushahidi/SMSSync https://github.com/ushahidi/SMSSync
- electroly 5y agoThis obviously violates every carrier's terms of service, at least in the United States. There are industry-wide accepted rules about this; regular local long codes are not allowed for A2P messaging. Your A2P texts will be blocked long before you get to 250,000 texts in a month. I would bet that you don't even survive the first day. You're just flying under the radar right now because your volume is low.
- kk6mrp 5y agoThank you, that's good to know! My messages currently sync to a database which has a frontend that I can view and respond to messages from. I haven't ever set up any automated messages though.
- monocasa 5y agoYou get rate limited pretty quickly from what I've heard. Normal carriers don't want you doing this.
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoThat will get blocked past a few 100s messages each day.
- Blackstone4 5y agoThat is a huge number of SMS messages...what on earth would you need that many for with out the revenue to back it?
- bgroat 5y agoThis. If you're sending 250,000 double opt-in SMS messages and can't cover $0.007/message you've got a serious pricing problem
- Handytinge 5y agoTotally. Here was me thinking my 2c per SMS was cheap!
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoRevenue can cover it but I prefer to increase margin with some cheaper solution if possible.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- twunde 5y agoFrom someone who's done a fair amount of SMS sending here are some things to think about. - You'll need TCPA compliant opt-ins for US sending. There's a cottage industry of people who look for vendors that aren't compliant and sue them. The fines range from $500-1500 a SMS or call. Sounds like you've already gotten that covered, but definitely go over the requirements with a lawyer that specializes in it. - SMS is throttled per a phone number. This is throttled at both the provider and the carrier. That means that even if Twilio sends something at 10am it might not be sent by Verizon until 11am. This absolutely impacts off-hour SMS sending. - SMS is pricier than email and even at the highest volumes has a relatively high floor per a text. I think the floor might be $0.004X-$0.005. This is offset by having better response rates that email. And as others have mentioned the providers will give you better pricing as your volumes go up, but you'll need to talk to account reps about that. - At a certain size (1M+/month?), you can also consider integrating directly with the carriers, although that's a longer process to get set up. - You'll need to manage SMS bounce/spam rates like you would for email bounce spam rates. You'll end up maintaining a block list of known bad phone numbers Edited for formatting
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoThanks. I understand limits these days are based on 10DLC trust? Do those throttling still apply even with staying under those limits? I think the floor is 0.0025 to 0.003 based on network access fees and depending on carrier. With margin I suppose yes I won't get much cheaper. If I scale to that level I will look at direct integration, thanks. Do I still need blacklist if I have double opt in and users can opt out? Requiring confirmation would remove the need for that?
- twunde 5y agoYes, you'll still encounter throttling even with 10DLC trust, it will just be less. If I remember correctly 10DLC is supposed to have a send rate of 15 text message segments per a second, although you can get that bumped up after vetting. But for example if you try to send 250K SMS at 10:05 am EST, those messages will be queued up and will be received by clients at varying times. This is something you'll want to monitor. If I remember correctly Twilio (and presumably other vendors) will show the actual sent time, so you'll be able to compare when you triggered a send with the actual send date. Unfortunately I don't think you'll see when clients actually receive the SMS unless you've got a personal phone number on your send list that you use to monitor. There are also daily send limits, which again can be increased after vetting. From a software engineering perspective SMS sending is really a series of queues. Twilio has its own queue per a number and a queue per a carrier. Each carrier maintains their own sending queues. As such, you'll want to monitor SMS sending the same way you'd monitor a queue ie by measuring throughput, and number of items in the queue. Oh and I forgot to mention that if your SMS includes emojis, they get converted to MMS, which typically are more expensive. The companies I worked at, did tests and found that emojis didn't really impact response rates, although its worth testing your specific use-case. With the double opt in, you probably don't need a blacklist, although you may want one for customers that reply with expletives, etc (assuming you're supporting 2-way).
- mindslight 5y agoTangential, but have you thought about offering customers the option for emails instead? I'd much rather give you my email address, I'd much rather receive email, and it will cost you less as well!
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoCustomers want SMS notifications or similar, I have email also. Long term maybe i switch to a mobile app.
- rabidonrails 5y agoYou should speak to Twilio and Sinch since they're now the two main players after their acquisitions of Syniverse and SAP respectively. They definitely have pricing power and should be able to help out. Disclosure: My company was acquired by Sinch. (I can try to intro you to someone on the inside if you'd like.)
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoThanks, I will reach out about Sinch. I looked at them but didn't see pricing and wanted to avoid sales run-around, but it's probably worth while. Update: I created an account and managed to find pricing, it's almost 2x what I pay other providers.
- austhrow743 5y agoIf you don’t contact sales then you can’t get discounts for things that might not be a big deal to you but are to them. Committing to staying with them for a period, minimum spends for that period, paying up front. These things can generally get you discounts.
- rabidonrails 5y agoSend me a note and I'll intro you to the right people.
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoDone, thanks!
- TheCycoONE 5y agoYou can find a list of US aggregators at https://www.usshortcodes.com/partners/find-partner https://www.usshortcodes.com/partners/find-partner; though it doesn't appear to be up to date with the latest acquisitions. On top of the ones the parent mentioned, mGage was acquired by Kaleyra that I know of.
- iKnowKungFoo 5y agoDealing with this now, agree that if you're not generating revenue to cover the costs, you're barking up the wrong tree. Yes, SMS is easier for the users, but it's also not very secure. And that impacts the use cases of your platform. At a previous employer, the solution was to move off SMS and onto internal messaging via native mobile apps. This will shift your cost focus, but that levels out as the volume of SMS transactions decrease.
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoYes I am generating enough revenue but I prefer to increase margins with some cheaper provider if I can. Long term you are probably right, a mobile app is much cheaper, just takes time.
- daveidol 5y agoDoes a mobile app alone solve this problem though? My understanding is that fake users can still download an app (or call the API the app would have called), but a phone number is harder to continually spoof/generate.
- vertis 5y agoI've been working on http://parrot.dev http://parrot.dev, it uses an Android phone to enable sending messages from an API, while it's still new it's currently in use with a collection of customers. At 250k it might not meet your needs because whatever phone provider you're using might have a problem. It is possible to pair it to multiple phones as well. My existing customers are using it to send ~200 messages a day to their subscribers. It supports SMS replies, so you can implement stop codes, depending on your needs. If you want to discuss it more, feel free to reach out (contact on profile).
- countvonbalzac 5y agoThis is brilliant. Do you know what sort of limits mobile service providers impose on phones?
- vertis 5y agoI think it varies heavily, most of my customers are in Australia (where Twilio is even more expensive) and it seems to be working fine for them currently. But they're not sending huge volumes, they're also not sending anything mission critical (there is a sweet spot).
- jqpabc123 5y agoCarriers won't give you an exact limit, most just specify "personal use". And they may not catch on right away but once they do, they will likely ban your number. Personal opinion, you're going to have all kinds of issues with this in the USA.
- vertis 5y agoIt's an important consideration, and one that I've thought about but really lack any ability to gather data on. I built this originally to meet the needs of my brother's business and his customers. It has proved useful for him and his customers, and has expanded beyond that, but I don't really know how much to pursue building it further based off risks like this.
- czhu12 5y agoWe purchased a shortcode with Twilio for 3k a quarter, then with their bulk pricing discounts, we are able to send text messages with a 70% discount off the ticket price. Source: We send many millions of messages a month via Twilio.
- willcipriano 5y agoI'm not sure but I've always suspected you could get cheaper if you went with a modem like this[0] and prepaid sims. You'd have to test for shadowbans and swap out bad cards, but I bet you could get it to work. However how much cheaper this is once you factor in time running around buying prepaid sims? it's probably not worth it. [0] <"38400 MMS one hour"> https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/4G-Voip-Gateway-LTE-Anti-Sim_1600316387100.html?spm=a2700.wholesale.0.0.6e1538f5z0jEu4 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/4G-Voip-Gateway-LTE-A...
- TheCycoONE 5y agoThat could easily run afoul of 10DLC unless you go through the process of registering your number with the carriers for A2P traffic (something Twilio or the another aggregator normally does for you.)
- daveidol 5y agoYou could integrate "Verify With Snapchat" and push users towards that instead (requires users to have a Snapchat account) https://snapkit.com/login-kit https://snapkit.com/login-kit (scroll down to "Never Pay for SMS Verifications Again")
- ShrigmaMale 5y agoThat definitely looks like a good idea, that saves at least some on cost. Largest SMS cost is still sending notification messages though, so bringing that down is the hope.
- tedmiston 5y agoAre you paying listed pricing or do you have a discounted enterprise contract? That might be a starting place.
- mraza007 5y agoYou can try to send sms using sms gateways https://muhammadraza.me/2018/Sending-SMS-using-Python/ https://muhammadraza.me/2018/Sending-SMS-using-Python/
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]