According to research, 70% of customers spend more with companies offering seamless conversational experiences. A VoIP messaging and phone system can help you provide great CX, as it can help personalize customer interaction, solve consumer problems immediately and reduce churn rate.
If you are considering Twilio vs. RingCentral, two popular customer support tools, this guide should be handy. We compare the features, integrations and pricing of those top business phone number apps to help you choose the best tool for your business.
What is Twilio?
Image source: Software Advice
Twilio is a cloud communication platform allowing businesses to build and operate their communication solutions. The platform enables you to add new communication channels, create custom workflows or integrate Twilio with third-party tools to easily tailor it to your needs.
What is RingCentral?
Image source: Software Advice
RingCentral offers a communications platform with messaging, video and call routing in one app. It allows you to streamline processes by providing advanced call management features and offers centralized, portal-based access to your system.
With RingCentral, you can create rich, secure processes for staff, patients and clients from one collaborative platform.
Twilio vs. RingCentral: how they compare
Though both Twilio and RingCentral are tools for managing business communications, they approach the development of their software in different ways.
With Twilio, you get all the tools to build your own communication systems. One of its strong characteristics is a robust API that enables developers to integrate various communication methods, programs and tools into their software.
RingCentral is a ready-to-use, flexible solution. Its cloud phone system allows you to manage multiple locations, workers or devices; you only need a high-speed internet connection. You can customize call handling rules, users and departments.
Features
Twilio offers the following features:
- Programmable voice: Make, receive and modify calls from any device and embed PSTN, VoIP or SIP calling into any site, app or service.
- Programmable video: Build real-time video and HD audio applications.
- Global carrier infrastructure: Achieve the lowest latency possible by routing data through one of nine Twilio global edge locations.
- Interconnect: Provide more communication channels to your customers by adding browser-based VoIP calling to your applications.
On the other hand, RingCentral provides the following functionalities:
- Softphone: The tool lets you make and receive calls with your computer using the Softphone.
- Advanced contact center features: RingCentral provides inbound voice functionalities, call recordings and screen recordings. It also offers different forms for agent reviewing and grading, challenges, badges and prizes for agents.
- CloudPBX: A system built on cloud technology eliminates the need for on-site PBX hardware.
- Video and audio conferencing: The platform offers HD video and audio conferencing tools, video meetings and a virtual receptionist.
Both tools offer everything a good VoIP provider should have to manage phone communications. The main difference is that Twilio focuses more on allowing developers to create their communication experience, whereas RingCentral provides a ready-to-use solution.
Integrations
Twilio offers integrations with different CRMs like Zendesk and Salesforce. You can also connect it with SendGrid Email API, WhatsApp email API and Zapier to integrate with many other apps.
RingCentral also integrates with multiple CRMs like Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow and Microsoft Dynamics. Other popular integrations include Google, Office 365, Slack and more.
Twilio offers more integrations and various APIs that allow developers to create custom applications, whereas RingCentral provides an open API platform.
Pricing
One of the crucial aspects to discuss when evaluating any software is the pricing structure. Let’s take a look at how both platforms quote their services.
RingCentral provides three pricing plans for phone solutions:
- Core: $20 per user monthly with unlimited domestic calling, SMS and MMS, IVR, integration with Google and Microsoft apps and access to APIs.
- Advanced: $25 per user monthly with auto call recording, advanced call monitoring and handling and access to Salesforce, Zendesk and over 300 other apps.
- Ultra: $35 per user monthly with customizable business insights, unlimited enterprise-grade HD video, messaging, whiteboards and unlimited file sharing.
Twilio offers a variety of pricing plans for its products and services. Here are some of them:
- Twilio Segment: Starts at $120 monthly for up to 10k monthly visitors. It offers a reliable, performant tech stack and unified, real-time customer profiles.
- Twilio Flex: The first 5000 hours are free. Then you pay $1 for an active user hour or $150 monthly for a named user. With this plan, you can launch a contact center out of the box, instantly deploy channels and customize your UI and intelligent routing.
- SMS: Starts at $0.0079 to send or receive a message, includes Real-time reporting and insights and automatic content coding.
- WhatsApp Business API: Starts at $0,0042 to send a WhatsApp template message and $0.005 for WhatsApp session messages. The plan includes a developer sandbox for application testing and API-powered text and template messaging.
As you can see, the pricing models are very different.
RingCentral offers a standard tiered pricing structure, where you pay for users per month.
Twilio follows a usage-based pricing model. You need to define your specific needs to calculate how much you will pay. This pricing structure reflects their service model, where you can mix and match various features and tools to create a personalized solution.
Customer support
RingCentral offers various methods of customer support, such as:
- Social media channels
- Live chat support
- Email support
- Phone support
- A community support network
- A comprehensive knowledge base
The support structure of Twilio is tiered, and the price of each tier depends on your monthly spending.
- Email support: Accessible at every tier
- Live chat support: Accessible in the Production tier for a greater than 4% of monthly spend
- Phone support: Accessible in the Business tier for a greater than 6% of monthly spend
- A technical account manager: Accessible in the Personalized tier for a greater than 8% of monthly spend
- Knowledge base: Free, well-organized and accurate
User rating
Image source: Freepik
Another factor that can help you evaluate Twilio vs. RingCentral are ratings from third-party review sites. They can serve as social proof of the quality of the software and provide authentic feedback from customers who have used the software. Here’s a comparison of the user ratings of both tools from popular review sites:
| RingCentral | Twilio | |
| Score on Capterra | 4.2 (1135 reviews) | 4.5 (406 reviews) |
| Score on G2 | 3.9 (697 reviews) | 4.3 (446 reviews) |
| Score on Trustpilot | 1.3 (537 reviews) | 1.2 (405 reviews) |
Ringblaze: Twilio and RingCentral alternative
If you have a hard time deciding between Twilio vs. RingCentral, why not consider their alternatives? It’s possible to find a tool with all the core features at a more affordable price.
Take Ringblaze, for example. For just $15 per user monthly, it offers excellent features like a shared dashboard for interactive and dynamic conversations. Even if your team is spread across different countries, Ringblaze brings everyone along, ensuring everyone’s on the same page.
The system allows you to define responsibilities and avoid confusion. With each call having a leader or “owner,” you can stay assured that the message is shared clearly and effectively.
Knowing that the average website has a bounce rate of 37%, you should do everything to allow customers to communicate with you in real time as they browse your site to sort out any confusion. Ringblaze enables you to create a website call widget and set separate phone numbers for different departments so that customers can immediately speak to the most knowledgeable agent.
Why choose Ringblaze over Twilio and RingCentral?
Ringblaze provides many benefits that could make it the right business phone system for you, for example:
- Easy setup: Even if you aren’t technical, you can create and optimize your own VoIP call center in less than 15 minutes.
- Website call widget: The app allows you to set up a widget on your website to help you convert visitors into customers and enhance customer satisfaction.
- Account manager: You get a dedicated account manager to ensure Ringblaze enables you to solve problems faster and meets all your business needs.
- Straightforward and affordable pricing: You get all our advanced features for only $15 per user monthly (billed annually), including a free local number and unlimited calls to the US and Canada. The plan is very transparent; there are no hidden costs.
- Free trial: You can explore all the features for free before you commit.
Twilio vs RingCentral vs Ringblaze: Comparison table
| Platform | Features | Pricing |
| Twilio | Programmable voice Interactive live streaming Transactional emails Programmable messaging API Real-time route optimization Message scheduling | Usage-based pricing model depending on the features you use |
| RingCentral | Phone system features Advanced contact center features Unlimited calls Interactive voice response Analytics for IT administrators Carrier-compliant SMS and MMS | Starting at $20 per user per month for core features |
| Ringblaze | Centralized dashboard Custom phone numbers Website widget Team collaboration International calls Business texting Call recording Desktop and mobile apps Auto attendant | $15 per user per month |
Conclusion
Though Twilio and RingCentral offer similar features, they have different target audiences. RingCentral enables business users to get their system running in minutes, whereas Twilio is for those who want to engineer a customized phone system and communication solutions. While RingCentral offers a tiered pricing model, the price of Twilio depends on which of the tool’s features you decide to use.
If you want a tool with all essential VoIP features at an affordable price, try Ringblaze. In our single plan, for $15 per user monthly, you get top features that most other apps providing phone services offer in their Premium plans.
Ready to take your customer support to the next level? Sign up for Ringblaze. Explore all its features for free and then enjoy its affordable, feature-rich plan.
Twilio vs RingCentral: FAQs
Yes, Twilio competes with RingCentral as both companies offer cloud-based communication and collaboration products and services for businesses.
However, they have different approaches and features, i.e., Twilio’s tools are primarily aimed at developers, while RingCentral is designed for business users.
Many customers consider Twilio a good service for communication APIs. It has a 4.5/5 Capterra rating (based on 411 reviews) and a 4.3 G2 rating (based on 449 reviews). Its pros include the ability to receive phone calls and deliver messages fast and reliably all around the globe. What’s more, Twilio offers developers fully programmable solutions. However, some users find the learning curve for using the more advanced features challenging. If you are afraid of that, check out Twilio alternatives.
RingCentral is easy to set up. It allows you to easily customize users and call handling rules and enables seamless switching between platforms. The tool also has some cons, like issues with call quality and occasional technical problems. If it bothers you, consider RingCentral alternatives.
