ClickSend vs Twilio – A Detailed Comparison for 2024

Digital communication is quickly becoming the ideal way for companies to reach their customers and clients, with text messaging being the clear forefront of this market shift. Being able to text your customers or internal staff to let them know about specific events or remind them of important information has proven to be extremely useful.

Companies are constantly seeking tools to build strong SMS marketing programs. Among American users, there are perhaps no other platforms that offer more comprehensive SMS marketing services than ClickSend and Twilio.

But it’s worth noting that these two platforms share quite a few similarities, and it can be difficult to determine which one is the better option. In this article, we’ll be looking at both ClickSend and Twilio and how they differ in terms of features, pricing, and other categories.

ClickSend and Twilio Overview

Before we begin comparing the two platforms, it’s important to answer the question – just what are ClickSend and Twilio?

Both are platforms for developing digital communication channels. Each is capable of providing the building blocks for businesses and other organizations to communicate with their clients or consumers through various telecommunication channels.

ClickSend focuses on SMS or text messaging as their primary service. Whether it be marketing campaigns, special offers, reminders, or other pertinent information, ClickSend is known for building these SMS tools to allow greater communication between users and their clients.

Twilio is known to cast a wider net in terms of digital communication tools, providing programmable application program interfaces (APIs) to users as building blocks for crafting their unique customer experiences. That’s not to say Twilio is lacking in the SMS department, as their platform is regularly used by users for developing an effective text messaging tools for communicating with customers.

Want to dig deeper into each provider? Check out our detailed reviews below:

• Read our ClickSend Review
• Read our Twilio Review
• Read about alternatives to Twilio

Why Compare ClickSend and Twilio?

It’s safe to say that ClickSend and Twilio are both highly regarded platforms for providing digital communication tools to their users. However, what exactly warrants comparing the two side by side?

While these two SMS gateway service providers are undoubtedly at the forefront of text message marketing, it’s important to highlight their differences so that potential users can know exactly what each has to offer. While they’re both exceptional services, one might be more tailored to a specific set of users depending on their feature list, solutions, and pricing.

ClickSend vs Twilio Comparison

To investigate the similarities and differences between these two platforms, we’ll be looking at them based on five different categories – products, solutions, platforms, training and support, and pricing.

Products

ClickSend

The most prominent feature of ClickSend’s products is arguably their Business SMS gateway, which allows organizations to send thousands of text messages from anywhere in the world without having to download any proprietary software.

Through a few simple steps, users can send bulk text messages through their SMS service provider. For those using email as their communication channel, they can send SMS messages through most email providers as well.

ClickSend also provides various APIs allowing seamless integration with other business applications, making their SMS services compatible with other programs that your organization might be using.

Furthermore, ClickSend offers similar bulk messaging capabilities for non-SMS messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. Email and fax gateways are also available to provide a comprehensive set of marketing tools.

Twilio

Similarly, Twilio provides tools to deliver SMS alerts, notifications, and reminders through their Programmable Messaging API, or even two-way conversations through their Conversations API.

Developers can use a few lines of code to start sending SMS messages, with open-source code samples being provided. Twilio’s SMS programs are highly scalable, so you can tailor your SMS programs based on your rate of growth.

If users want to move to other messaging platforms, Twilio can offer APIs for other multimedia messaging services such as WhatsApp. Users can also send emails and faxes through Twilio as well to accompany other digital marketing campaigns.

All of your developed code and SMS programs are archived securely in the cloud, making sure that you’ll never lose track of all of your pertinent information.

Solutions

ClickSend

While ClickSend clearly hangs its hat on SMS marketing and its ability to send thousands of messages in an instant, its diverse set of solutions is what makes it such an attractive option for many marketers.

Businesses can benefit from ClickSend’s ability to remind their clients of billing and invoice dates while being able to leverage customer information to send promotional messages on their respective birthdays. In addition, ClickSend uses two-factor authentication to make sure all of their user information is secure.

Users can more easily track their marketing leads while managing their internal staff using automated text messages as well. Other tasks such as event management, customer support, and general reminders are made simpler using ClickSend’s features, making life a lot easier for many marketing agencies and businesses.

Twilio

The solutions that Twilio provides through their services are divided up into three categories – marketing, operations, and customer service.

They allow users to leverage the inherent benefit of SMS marketing by directly engaging their customers through text. Its analytical tools allow users to track their ad campaigns using the frequency of phone calls. Sales reps can also be immediately notified about new leads through text message notifications as well.

Companies can run smoother operations by automatically texting or calling their workers whenever they need to be deployed. Customers can be notified of any account changes or appointment reminders through text messaging systems, and anonymous Twilio numbers ensure clients’ privacy and safety.

Twilio also provides chatbot building services to provide excellent automated customer service. A comprehensive account security is available for users with intuitive APIs that ensure their clients’ information is secure.

Platforms

ClickSend

As noted earlier, ClickSend’s features can be unlocked without having to download any software, meaning its data is cloud-stored and their tools can be used through a web browser.

ClickSend also features mobile apps that allow users to generate SMS functions through their Apple or Android devices.

Twilio

Twilio prides itself on its cloud capabilities, as their information and tools are all set within their cloud system. This means users can use all of their features and access their information from their own web browser.

However, Twilio currently doesn’t offer mobile applications meaning on-the-go digital marketing is not available.

Training and Support

ClickSend

In terms of training, ClickSend does provide a link to various resources that provide information on their API documentation, libraries and integrations, and their security measures. However, there are no other training programs or services available on their site.

They also offer 24/7 customer support that users can access either through sending in a question through their site or by calling an expert.

Twilio

Twilio offers a relatively comprehensive training program for users, including programmable quickstart for its various features, including SMS and chat functions, to immediately start sending and receiving messages.

Tutorials are also available for how to set up specific features such as chatbots and appointment reminders, while API references allow users to read up on any integration that they might want to use.

They also offer a 24/7 helpline, as well as a long list of FAQs and guides for its long list of features.

Pricing

ClickSend

ClickSend offers a standard fee for each text, fax, email, or phone call sent. It does have a tier system for its SMS features, as the cost per text message starts at $0.0093 for under 2,000 messages sent. The cost gets cheaper for higher volumes, capping at over 200,000 messages in which you’ll need to contact ClickSend for a custom fee. A highlight for ClickSend is that their inbound text messages are always free.

Twilio

Twilio on the other hand offers a pay-as-you-go pricing structure for their SMS services starting from $0.0075 per text message sent. It does, however, cost the same amount per text to receive a message as well.

The more text messages you send or receive, the cheaper the rate gets. The amount of messages allowed goes to over 1 billion per user, meaning Twilio is aimed at relatively larger companies with a wider client base.

Which one should you use?

Based on the features advertised on their specific websites, it’s clear that ClickSend and Twilio are relatively distinct in terms of who is going to benefit from using each one.

ClickSend offers relatively accessible SMS marketing tools for just about any business, with a heavy focus on its marketing functions. As such, marketing agencies and businesses looking for an effective digital communications tool will surely benefit from ClickSend. 

On the other hand, Twilio is geared more towards developers or organizations with a team more experienced in developing applications or with coding. It's more robust customization and list of tutorials and other resources suggest that larger companies with dedicated developers and coders are going to benefit from Twilio. It’s also built to be scalable for larger companies.

While there are clear distinctions between these two platforms, they are both sufficient in offering users useful tools to achieve their marketing goals. Use this article to find out whether ClickSend’s more marketer-friendly features or Twilio’s developer-minded tools are the right tools for you.