
Twilio Slashes Prices As It Looks To Further Boost Growth - dmor
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/14/twilio-slashes-prices-as-it-looks-to-further-boost-growth/
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patio11
I wasn't worried about paying them too much for Appointment Reminder, but I
certainly won't refuse getting a few hundred bucks knocked off my expense
projections.

Now if I can only get to paying them $10k a month to get the bulk rate...
_crosses fingers_

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zackattack
why not just colocate your own asterisk box?

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patio11
For the same reason I don't write an optimized BingoMongrel in C to lower my
memory footprint and save $25 a month on my hosting bill: a) that introduces
technical risk into a project which doesn't need it at all and b) the cost
savings are swamped by the investment in engineering time.

Plus, four weeks spent teaching myself Asterix is four weeks I can't spend
doing things like coding the part of the app _people actually pay for_ or
doing consulting, which could buy me a X * 10^7 minutes of call time or Y
months of salary in the bank for employee #1.

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tptacek
You left out (c) Facilitating Mark Dowd's awesome Bingo code injection
exploits.

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patio11
Wasn't memory allocation errors, stack overflows, and code injection implied
sufficiently by the words "in C"?

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tdupree
This is nice to hear. I am currently putting something together using Twilio
to make it super simple to get local or tool free numbers to use as tracking
numbers for print, web and SEM. The numbers forward on to whatever normal
business number you would use, but the call information is all tracked and
logged. It can also ping Google Analytics for you or ping your own custom page
on your server. This way you can know exactly how many calls resulted from a
print campaign, or from your website, etc.

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neovive
I was interested in implementing something similar for a web directory that
would enable tracking offline phone conversions via Twilio. I was going to use
click-to-call, however, click-to-call requires paying for both the inbound and
outbound portion of the call. Is there a way to have one inbound number
forward to a different number dynamically (depending on a phone number
variable)?

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johns
Yes. Every request we make to you includes the 'From' number, which you can
check for in your code, and return a <Dial> with the number you want to
forward them to specified.
<http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/2010-04-01/twiml/dial>

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neovive
Sounds interesting. Are any outbound minutes used after the call is forwarded?
I am willing to budget for the inbound connection and tracking, but paying for
the entire outbound conversation would be a bit too variable.

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dmor
Twilio is not currently able to hand off a call to another carrier, so you
have to pay for the outbound minutes when you call out with <Dial> or the REST
API to connect another party

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storm
I've previously setup Elastix (Asterisk/FreePBX distro) on a VPS for another
business - price was right on the DIDs and minutes, but making it work nicely
on VPS, learning Asterisk+FreePBX quirks, and keeping everything up to date
quickly became a time-waster.

Twilio/OpenVBX looks like it might be a comparative breeze to setup and use -
and let us focus on our core competencies rather than burn time becoming
Asterisk/VOIP gurus - but the fact that they aren't built on open standards
like SIP makes me a bit nervous. Anyone have any experience with OpenVBX,
thoughts, alternatives I'm missing?

Edit: Twilio has somewhat confusing statements inre: Canadian toll-free
numbers at <http://www.twilio.com/faq/international>. Anyone know if they
provide US toll-free numbers that accept calls originating from both the US
and Canada?

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reneighbor
Hi, I work at Twilio and wrote that FAQ. Clarification; Canadian customers can
definitely get toll-free numbers that US and Canadian users can call. However,
Canadian callers often will get misreported in caller ID, which is a deal-
breaker for many use-cases. But these numbers are available and functioning
for Canadian customers.

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johns
Also, our US toll-free numbers accept calls from US and Canada.

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storm
Thanks to both of you. Munged caller ID is definitely not a deal-breaker for
me.

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daniel-cussen
I can really see Twilio becoming a blockbuster startup.

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patio11
I think we'll see several multi-million dollar companies built on Twilio. It
makes every phone into a smartphone (i.e. a first-class citizen of the
Internet which speaks HTTP). That is just gobsmackingly awesome if you have a
good way to exploit it.

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johns
We (I work at Twilio) also announced a new developer contest today. The winner
will be flown to NYC to meet with Fred Wilson, Albert Wenger and Brad Burnham
from USV: <http://contests.twilio.com/>

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timmaah
I emailed you guys about a terms of use question but never heard back. I'd
love to know if your "no unsolicited calls" line would apply to non-profits
and political organizations. Call through voter lists where it is legal under
current law. I got an app ready, but am hesitant to market it if it is going
against Twilio terms of service.

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johns
Can you email me directly jsheehan@twilio.com and I'll find your request and
follow up with it ASAP?

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timmaah
Sent.. thanks..

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tomstuart
Can someone explain what "inbound call" and "outbound call" mean in this
context? Do they mean the "up" and "down" duplex components of a single call,
i.e. it's now cheaper if you only listen when people call in and don't say
anything back?

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icey
An inbound call is when someone calls your application. An outbound call is
when your application calls someone.

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tomstuart
Thanks; that's what I originally thought, but something about the wording of
this article confused me. Outbound calls that result from inbound calls? I
guess this just reflects the way a lot of applications tend to use Twilio's
service.

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icey
Yeah, that's really one of the refreshing things about what Twilio has to
offer - they've gone through pains to simplify all parts of the process. The
pricing is straightforward, the API is easy to use, and they have gotten
really good at community response. It really sets them apart from most of the
other Asterix service providers around.

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dmor
Wow, thanks -- awesome quote, you can write our press release anytime ;)

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daryn
Cool, though I probably would have paid double :)

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dmor
aww thanks Daryn :) Instead, how about using 2x as much?

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jonknee
He's going to have to use it four times as much since it's now half the price
:).

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dmor
haha or maybe even more, some use cases are 66% cheaper. darn precision, i was
just trying to make it sound cheeky

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JonM
For any Twilio staff reading.... any plans to get UK SMS working at a
reasonable price point? I signed up a good while back but it wasn't working at
the time.

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reneighbor
We hear ya loud and clear! SMS outside the US is tough to get complete
coverage of, since carriers vary so widely, but it's definitely one of our top
requests.

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tomjen3
If they want more users, why not expand internationally, instead of (just)
slashing prices?

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detst
You can make outbound calls internationally but it's very expensive to call a
mobile outside of US/Canada.

How many of their customers could afford to run their service when it costs so
much to make a mobile phone call internationally (i.e. $0.32 - $0.493 for the
UK)? Compare that to $0.02 for US/Canada.

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detst
While really nice, this is more fine-grained pricing and not so much "slashing
prices". Anyone that takes incoming calls and then makes a subsequent outgoing
segment or anyone that sends/receives SMSs will pay the same as before.

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johns
That's true. But a significant portion of our customers will see savings of
33-67% for their use cases. Single-leg is more popular than I think people
realize.

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detst
Yeah, I should have mentioned that for many use cases, this would effectively
be a price decrease. I was just expecting a drop for SMS when I first read the
headline.

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swilliams
Nuts, doesn't look like that'll benefit me, I just use SMS sending.

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justinchen
Same here, I was hoping to see a cut in SMS pricing or at least the
opportunity for volume pricing.

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bconway
If you're just sending SMS, why not use one of the abundant tier 1 providers
(<http://www.usshortcodes.com/csc_aggregators.html>) and pay bulk rates? I
think we get something around 1c per outgoing, and 1/3c per incoming.

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jonpaul
Awesome. Does Twilio support MMS? If not, when will it?

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dmor
Nope, we don't support MMS but it is a popular feature request. No timeline on
if/when it will be offered though

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slig
Danielle,

Any plans for Twilio start accepting non-US costumers?

Thanks!

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BenS
Anyone up for sharing their Twilio projects? I've always been interested in
the platform, but I've seen relatively few applications built on it.

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bnmrrs
I built <http://phonetapapp.com> during DjangoDash a few weeks ago using the
Twilio API. The whole thing is available on GitHub as well.
<http://github.com/bnmrrs/PhoneTap>

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dmor
awesome, I'd love to feature this on our blog. Please email me at
danielle@twilio.com if you're interested, and we can brainstorm the story

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johns
Done! [http://blog.twilio.com/2010/08/ben-morris-wins-
twiliomongodb...](http://blog.twilio.com/2010/08/ben-morris-wins-
twiliomongodb-contest-with-phonetap.html)

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nico
Still pretty expensive for out-of-US destinations.

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buro9
Just checked, it's still 32c per minute to call the UK.

When will there be a UK operation?

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johns
That's only for some mobile numbers. Landlines in the UK are currently
$.03/minute. We're working on adding more international capabilities soon.
Stay tuned.

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buro9
Aside from businesses, I don't know anyone with a landline :)

