I'm working on a user onboarding process that requires phone number verification and I'm looking for a reliable service. Ideally, I want something with a decent API that won't break the bank. Twilio seems like overkill for just receiving verification codes. What SMS services do you all use?
3 Answers
It really depends on where you're located. I'm in Uganda and use Africa's Talking. It works great for me!
We built a service called Prelude specifically for what you're looking for! It has global coverage with no need for country configuration, and you only pay for what you use — no markup on SMS. The pricing is transparent; we give you real costs and monitor message performance. Plus, our smart routing picks the best carrier automatically to avoid fake users, and the support team is pretty responsive. Check it out at prelude.so!
What volume of messages are you expecting? For lower traffic, any pay-as-you-go service should do just fine. But if you plan to scale, make sure to choose something with solid uptime guarantees.
I haven’t heard of Africa's Talking before, but that makes a lot of sense for your area. I’m here in the US, and I find Twilio's prices to be outrageous for just verification codes. I've been checking out AWS SNS lately since it's a lot cheaper if you're already using AWS.