A Comprehensive Guide to Choose Best Voice and SMS APIs For On-Demand Mobile App

When it comes to developing an application, you might have come to the term APIs. What exactly is it and why it is so important to integrate into the application?

If it is interpreted in a simple language. In that case, API is an “Application Program Interface which is the hidden backbone of the modern world application and allows software programs to communicate with one another.

For example, when you check any app on your mobile, it seems like it has Facebook’s API altogether. In the case of ecommerce or online shopping applications, developers are widely using PayPal API to ensure seamless payment experience.

To wrap up, it is safe enough to say that API for the mobile app allows users to easily interact with other applications and software that ensure superior mobile app experience. So instead of reinventing the cycle, incorporating the right choice of API is the key.

Now the question is how you can integrate APIs in your on-demand mobile application?

Generally, there are two routes to get started with the API integration: you can either build it by hiring a team of mobile app developers or you can buy it by integrating with an already existing API.

Integration of API is typically a quickest and easiest way to get started instead of building an API right from scratch. Building your API not just requires experienced app developers but also brings a great level of complexity. However, the positive potential of building your API comes with much more freedom. It allows you to customize an API as per the project requirement while also ensuring it’s complete security.

But on the other side, why invest a considerable time and resources in developing a custom-built API, when you can easily integrate the right API by merely searching and buying the API from various resources.

Let’s take an example of Uber that has been integrated with multiple APIs which all works together to strengthen the apps’ essential features including messaging, GPS data, database drivers and more. Moreover, Uber has integrated third-party APIs in its mobile app to provide an excellent user experience.

Why Choosing VOIP and Text SMS APIs Has Become So Important?

With the changing psychology of customers and to deliver best user experiences, developing a mobile app with the right APIs has become a primary need of the market. Since businesses have experienced rapid technological changes over the years, therefore, to serve customers in today’s mobile and digitized world – it is essential to have the best Voice and text SMS APIs in your mobile app.

Developing an app without voice and SMS APIs is more like using a mobile phone without a SIM card. Therefore, companies across industries (especially ecommerce) are increasingly leveraging the SMS and voice capabilities within their mobile application for authenticating users, sending account alerts or offering product delivery notifications to customers.

With the integration of the right SMS and voice APIs, businesses can easily optimise customer engagement and user experience. And at the same also improve operational efficiency and security.

Hopefully, you are convinced with the fact that the integration of Voice and SMS APIs are essential for your mobile application. So for better understanding, this blog has boiled down into a few significant points:

Key Highlights of the Content:

• Use Cased of Voice and SMS APIs in On-demand Mobile Applications
• Factors to Consider While Choosing the Voice and SMS APIs for Mobile App
• Best Choice of Voice and SMS API Providers for Android and iOS Platforms
• List of Our Top Picks For Best Voice and SMS Messaging APIs in 2021

Let’s understand each point in detail with elaboration:

1. Use Cases of Voice and SMS APIs in On-demand Mobile Applications

With the increasing demand for SMS and VOIP services for on-demand mobile applications, service providers like CPaaS have launched serverless, low-code, visual builders that offer out-of-the-box use case templates. Moreover, these visuals can easily create the flow of communications workflows and significantly reduce the development efforts and save up to 80%.

In fact, with just drag and drop moves, you can create and deploy new SMS or Voice integration services in 80% less time than you could spend on developing an API from scratch.

With such integrations in-app, users would be well informed, and your service quality will accelerate drastically.

So here are the few critical uses of SMS and Voice API integration:

Alerts and Notifications

The most common usage and widely applicable use case of SMS and Voice integration are for sending alerts and notifications. No matter whether you are planning to develop an on-demand food delivery app or ecommerce app, sending in-time order placement notification or alerts to users is important. By sending real-time information, you can improve the quality of customer service and the entire process can be automated when you make use of APIs.

It offers:

• Automated account alerts – notifying customers about account activities regarding logins, usage, orders and more.
• Dispatch or Order Delivery Notifications- offering real-time information when a shipment is in route or delivered. 
• Reminders- Alerting customers about the upcoming event, whether it be sale, appointment or orders. 

In-App Calling and Texting

The success of the on-demand mobile application depends upon the seamless communication process of the app. And to streamline the process, it is essential to integrate SMS and Voice APIs in your Android/iOS apps to ensure hassle-free communication with the customers.

Number Masking

There are several times when a service provider has to get in touch with the customers. But to maintain a high level of privacy and hide the number of communication, it is essential to make use of APIs.

Message Broadcasting for Brand Promotions

What if you want to notify all your customers about the upcoming offers, discounts or regarding anything? You simply would have to send out broadcast messages that reach all your customers or a particular group of customers. And all this can be done by merely using the Text SMS API.

User Verification Via Call or Text SMS

To verify the authenticity of the users, you need to send an OTP via call or SMS. And with the integration of API, you can carry on these verifications tasks efficiently.

2. Factors to Consider While Choosing the Voice and SMS APIs for Mobile App

Integrating Voice and SMS API is not about hiring the best mobile app development company. In fact, with the availability of hundreds of players in the market, offering the multiple solutions in the same category, choosing the best service providers has become one of the confusing tasks for the app owners. So we have made the list of potential checklist that you must run through while considering to pick an API for your on-demand business app:

Pricing: No matter whether you are a startup or a leading brand, integrating the cost of API is always a significant concern of the app owners. If you are a startup, then it is worth looking for the scalable solution with a free plan and upgrade it later.

Stability: Check whether API is working all the time smoothly without any interruption. It is worth choosing the API that has no background history of operational issues.

Verification: Before integration Voice and SMS API, make sure to verify the method of validation, which can be either voice call or by sending text SMS.

Delivery Reports: How will you make sure that your broadcast or intended messages have reached the final recipients or not? So it will be an excellent option to choose APIs that enables you to access the delivery reports.

Local Availability: Before the integration of the API, make sure to check that API will work without any issues in your region/country of operation.
Complexity: Try to choose the service provider that enables you to integrate the API with ease in your app.

3. Best Choice of Voice and SMS API Providers for Android and iOS Platforms

While every company requires the customized instant messaging channel to broadcast the message efficiently and securely. Not only it helps in bridging the communication gap between customers and service providers, but also offers a fluid communication experience to the users. So embedding real-time messaging and VOIP in your on-demand mobile application is essential to improve the engagement of the users.

But with so many Text SMS and Voice API providers for Android, iOS and web apps are available in the market, choosing the best one is quite a daunting task. So we have made a list of a few leading API providers along with the standard pricing, to help you make the best decision.

The prices mentioned in the table may vary as per the availability in your country and feature section of each SMS and Voice API provider.

So based on pricing, availability and features, we have listed some of the top choice of APIs that you can choose to integrate into your on-demand mobile app.

4. List of Our Top Picks For Best Voice and SMS Messaging APIs in 2021

If you are still wondering which is the best choice of API you need to integrate into your application to meet your marketing strategies, then here’s a list for you.

Our experts have illustrated the top choice of APIs that you can integrate into an app in 2021:

1. Twilio SMS Messaging, Verification and Number Lookup API

The Twilio SMS API is a great messaging API that offers three different APIs for different functionalities, including:

• SMS API: That enables you to add robust messaging capabilities to your application.
• Verifying Phone Number API: As a part of Twilio’s account security offerings, it provides the Verify API, that makes it simple to add phone verification to your app and enables you to send OTPs via SMS or voice. 
• Lookup API: With Twilio Lookup, the number of undeliverable messages can be reduced and allow you to identify local-friendly number formats that resolve caller names.

Pricing: This API comes with predefined packages and the cost for the initial 5 million messages is starting form $0.0075 per SMS and $0.004 per SMS will be charged for the next 20 million messages.

2. Nexmo SMS Messaging API

The NEXMO SMS API is another demanding SMS APIs out there in the market that allows developers to send and receive SMS text messages to users around the globe by simply accessing their REST API. In fact, NEXMO is one of the preferred APIs if you are looking to integrate SMS messages into your Android and iOS mobile app.

Its features generally include:

• Send an SMS
• Pricing by country code
• Pricing by phone number
• Search numbers

Pricing: The average pricing of the NEXMO SMS API is starting from $0.0001/ per user of an API call. The best part about using NEXMO API is, all incoming messages are free, but shortcode incoming messages are charged at $0.005 per SMS.

3. Plivo SMS and Voice API

The Plivo API is a widely used API by mobile app developers as it uses HTTP verbs and standard HTTP status codes to make it easier for you to integrate communications into your code. Moreover, to secure your requests to your servers, it serves its API over HTTP.

Basic features it offers:

• Authentication: All the requests to Plivo API are verified with BasicAuth by using AUTH ID and AUTH TOKEN. 
• Call Recording and Storage: With Plivo, you can record calls and store calls for free. 
• Delivery Reports: To make your marketing campaign successful, this API provides you with a real-time delivery report to help you determine whether your broadcast message is delivered to the user or not.

Pricing: While using Plivo API, the estimated charges would be $0.0030 for outbound calls and $0.0210 for inbound calls from toll-free numbers. However, inbound calls are free for long codes as well as shortcodes.

Conclusion

On-demand mobile applications have become an urgent need of the modern marketplace, but without integrating the right APIsyour app will not perform smoothly. And one of the most commonly used features of your on-demand app is text SMS and voice messages that keep your customer informed, engaged and updated with all the activities. So it makes sense to look forward to integrating a Voice and Text API in your on-demand mobile app to make it highly functional.

Suppose you are in a startup phase or may not have a significant budget. In that case, you can choose to hire a mobile app development company that can quickly help you integrate the right APIs instead suggesting you building it from the scratch which takes a hefty amount of effort, investment and resources.

Appsted is one of the top choices of software development companies engaged in developing app development solutions for all sorts of businesses. Being backed by the pool of skilled programmers, developers and designers, they hold the expertise in developing solutions that perfectly sync your business needs.

If you still have any query, you can drop a mail! Our experts will reach you soon!