Top SMS API providers to deliver SMS to Indian users in 2022.
SMS is one of the oldest, yet most engaging forms of text-based communication. It is widely used in India for business and personal communications as an alternative to email notifications. According to a study, the Indian SMS market was worth Rs. 13,000 crore in 2017.
In this article, we’ll list the list of top SMS API providers that you can use to deliver SMS messages programatically to your Indian users. In India, businesses need DLT Registration from TRAI to send both transactional and promotional SMS. All the SMS APIs listed below supports DLT header and template registrations.
Top SMS API services in India
Textlocal
Textlocal is one of the largest and best SMS API providers in India. With Textlocal’s robust SMS API, we can deliver both promotional and transactional messages to users. Their delivery success rate is one of the best in industry. So Textlocal is one of the best choice for sending important communications like OTPs and other SMS of transactional nature.
Textlocal’s SMS pricing starts at ₹295 for 1,000 messages. With higher tiers, SMS can get as cheaper as 17 paisa per SMS. They have a simple SMS API that can be integrated with any programming language such as Node.js, PHP etc.
Plivo
Plivo SMS API platform offers a simple, fast, and scalable way to modernize their customer communications. Their SMS API allows developers to send messages to users in India and other countries. Plivo’s platform sends over more than a billion transactions every month and maintains 99.99% API uptime.
They have built-in features like 2FA, SMS Marketing, Autoresponders and SMS Surveys.
With Plivo, you can send SMS to Indian users starting at 14.0 paisa per SMS, and for international users, it will be around ₹4.2/SMS
Documentation - https://www.plivo.com/docs/sms/api/message/
Gupshup
Gupshup is a multi-channel conversational messaging platform that helps businesses engage with customers across 30+ messaging channels including Whatsapp. Their SMS API allows developers to send messages to over 225 countries. They have large portfolio of customers including ICICI, NSDL, Citibank, OLA, Swiggy etc.
They have pre-defined SMS templates, realtime analytics, and OTP services to make the best out of the SMS API.
API-Documentation - https://www.gupshup.io/developer/sms-api
Fast2SMS
Fast2SMS is a bulk SMS API provider that allows you to send DLT, Promotional, Marketing and OTP SMS. Their platform has delivered over 200 Million SMS.
With Fasts2SMS, you can get free 50 SMS API credits that you can use to test their service.
Their pricing starts around 20paise per SMS and can be as cheap as 14 paise or lower depending on the quantity of bulk SMS credits you buy.
They have a simple SMS API that can be integrated with your application. You can find their SMS API documentation here.
2Factor
2Factor is an API First provider that offers HTTP APIs to deliver SMS, OTP verification and marketing SMS to India.
They have business critical features like fail over handling, instant delivery, SLA and real-time reports.
2Factor SMS API pricing differs for services such as SMS OTP Service, Voice OTP, Transactional SMS and promotional SMS. Their transactional SMS pricing starts at 16paise per SMS.
API Documentation - https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/301893/TWDamFGh
Final Thoughts
I’ve tried to summarise the list of top 5 SMS API providers in India. There are several other providers that you can find online with a Google search. While choosing an SMS API provider for your business, make sure to consider the API Latency, Delivery Success Rate, Pricing, and Built-in features like OTP, 2FA, Templates etc.
If you’re looking to send SMS notification along with other channels such as Email, WhatsApp, In-App, Push etc using a single API, try Engagespot, the multi-channel notification infrastructure API.