Twilio Pricing Plans for Singapore [2025]

For Singapore SMEs looking to enhance customer communications, streamline verification processes, or automate notifications, Twilio offers powerful API solutions. But before implementing these tools for your business, understanding the cost implications is essential - especially when dealing with USD pricing, Singapore's specific SMS regulations, and the various service options available.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll explain Twilio's flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model and examine specific costs for SMS, WhatsApp, voice services, and more - all with Singapore businesses in mind. You'll also learn about local regulatory requirements, potential hidden costs, and how to optimise your Twilio spend to get maximum value.

For Singapore businesses managing international SaaS subscriptions like Twilio that charge in USD, having the right payment solution is crucial.

We’ll explore how Wise Business Card can help you avoid unnecessary fees and get the best exchange rates when paying for your Twilio services.

Table of contents
Twilio pricing overview Key benefits of Twilio's pricing model What is the pricing currency for Twilio in Singapore? Twilio SMS pricing for Singapore Twilio WhatsApp Business API pricing Twilio Verify/OTP pricing Twilio Programmable Voice pricing Other Twilio services pricing How to save on your Twilio bill next month Twilio vs. competitors - price comparison Twilio Pricing FAQs

Twilio pricing overview

Unlike many SaaS platforms, Twilio operates primarily on a pay-as-you-go model rather than traditional subscription plans. Businesses only pay for what they use without getting locked into contracts or rigid pricing structures. That means you’ll never pay for more than you need - and, better yet, volume discounts are automatically triggered as your usage grows.

Each Twilio service (SMS, WhatsApp, Voice, etc.) has its own pricing structure rather than offering unified packages. While Twilio doesn't offer a completely free plan, they do provide a free trial credit to new users upon signing up. This allows Singapore businesses to test the various APIs before committing.

Key benefits of Twilio's pricing model

The pay-as-you-go approach offers several advantages:

• Scalability: Your costs scale proportionally with your usage, making it suitable for businesses of all sizes, ensuring that smaller purchases aren’t disproportionately expensive
• No upfront investment: Start small and expand as your communication needs grow
• Flexibility: Mix and match services based on your specific requirements
• Predictable usage-based costs: Pay only for what you actually use, rather than paying for a high-tier package with too much wiggle-room
• Customisable solution: Build a communication stack tailored precisely to your business needs

Twilio invoices customers monthly for what you’ve used in that month. Which means your usage could potentially run away with you, with SMS and minutes adding up without you realising. For this reason, get acquainted with these aspects of the billing structure:

• Monthly billing cycle: Twilio charges are calculated at the end of each monthly billing cycle
• Credit card payments: Most businesses pay via credit card, which automatically incurs foreign transaction fees (see below)
• Enterprise options: Larger businesses can set up invoicing arrangements with pre-negotiated volume discounts
• Usage monitoring: Twilio provides a dashboard to track your usage and estimated costs in real-time - make sure you’re checking regularly
• Prepaid options: Businesses can deposit funds to their Twilio account in advance to avoid credit card transaction fees

Ultimately, the Twilio billing structure provides flexibility but requires you to be vigilant on your accumulating usage and the implications of currency conversion.

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What is the pricing currency for Twilio in Singapore?

All Twilio services are priced in USD, which means:

• Paying by bank transfer will incur variable transfer fees and be subject to the bank’s current exchange rate.
• When paying with credit cards, Singapore businesses typically face foreign transaction fees of up to 3.25%.

But there is a way to bring these charges down: Wise Business.

Wise Business account offers a business debit card that can be used in 150+ countries without incurring a foreign transaction fee. Instead, you’ll simply pay low conversion fees, which can be easily seen in the Wise app.

➡️Learn how Wise Business can help you save on cross-currency bills.

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Twilio SMS pricing for Singapore

SMS is Twilio’s primary service, streamlining those essential, convenient, instant customer touchpoints. Its URL shortening and tracking services let businesses send over those key conversion links without eating into your text character limit. Twilio's SMS pricing for Singapore is as follows:

	Price¹
Outbound SMS	USD 0.0435 per message segment*
Inbound SMS	USD 0.0075 per message segment
URL Shortening/ Click Tracking	USD 0.0150 (first 1,000 free monthly)

*Messages are charged in 160-character segments (for ASCII/GSM-7 encoding). If your messages are longer than 160 characters, they’ll be charged as multiple segments, but will still be received as one complete message.

Twilio WhatsApp Business API pricing

Many businesses have progressed from SMS-based customer communication to WhatsApp Business - for many, it feels like a safer option due to WhatsApp’s higher-level encryption. It’s also crucially cheaper for Twilio users.

Twilio's WhatsApp pricing for Singapore follows a conversation-based model:

Conversation Type	Price²
Utility (business-initiated)	USD 0.0157
Authentication (business-initiated)	USD 0.0425
Marketing (business-initiated)	USD 0.0732
Service (user-initiated)	USD 0.0224

A "conversation" includes all messages exchanged between business and customer within a 24-hour period. While SMS is charged per message, WhatsApp is charged per full conversation, no matter how many messages are exchanged.

Twilio Verify/OTP pricing

Not all messages sent are part of longer conversations. For verification services like one-time passwords (OTP), Twilio charges:³

• Base price: USD 0.05 per successful verification
• Plus standard channel fees (For Singapore SMS: USD 0.0435)

This means a successful SMS verification in Singapore costs approximately USD 0.0935 (USD 0.05 + USD 0.0435). Unsuccessful verifications still incur the SMS channel fee but not the verification fee.

To prevent abuse, Twilio limits users to five SMS/Voice delivery attempts per phone number in a 10-minute period.

Twilio programmable voice pricing

For businesses looking to make and receive calls, Twilio's voice services follow the same pay-as-you-go model:

	Price (per minute)⁴
Local calls (outgoing)	USD 0.0368
Mobile calls (outgoing)	USD 0.0578
Browser/App calling	USD 0.0040
Conference calls	USD 0.0018/ participant
Call recording (outgoing)	USD 0.0025
Call transcription (outgoing)	USD 0.024

For Singapore businesses, international prefix numbers are offered for free. Phone number charges are added to message volume and carrier costs for the total price.

Other Twilio services pricing

SMS and WhatsApp are Twilio’s most popular offerings; however, many businesses want to centralise as much of their communication (internal and external) as possible. This includes some of Twilio’s native platforms, as well as broader email and marketing tools. These services are priced slightly differently - using flat fees for bundles, rather than the finer pay-as-you-go models we’ve seen above.

	Price (USD)
Programmable Video	USD 0.004 per participant per minute⁵
SendGrid Email API	From USD 19.95 per month up to 100k emails⁶
SendGrid Marketing Campaigns	From USD 15 per month for 100,000 contacts and 300,000 emails⁶

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Singapore SMS regulatory requirements

Singapore has strict regulatory requirements for SMS messaging that businesses using Twilio must comply with. Because these regulatory requirements add to the total cost of using Twilio's SMS services, it’s important that you factor them into your final Twilio budget.:

• Mandatory Sender ID registration with Singapore SMS Sender ID Registry (SSIR)
• Registration costs: One-time setup fee of SGD 500 per organisation + SGD 200 annually per sender ID
• Non-registered Sender IDs will be overwritten as "Likely-SCAM"
• Registration requires a Singapore-registered company with a valid UEN (Unique Entity Number)

➡️ Learn more about the importance of UENs here.

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How to save on your Twilio bill next month

Singapore businesses can optimise their Twilio expenses through several strategies:

1. Volume discounts - Higher usage means lower per-message rates. If you're sending high volumes, reach out to Twilio about enterprise pricing and committed-use discounts.
2. RCS messaging - Twilio has partnered with Singtel to offer Rich Communications Services (RCS) messaging at SMS prices. This enables enhanced messaging features directly in mobile inboxes, with messages up to 160 UTF-8 characters priced the same as standard SMS.
3. Elastic SIP Trunking - Using Elastic SIP Trunking (using the internet to connect your call to the network) can eliminate channel fees, which can significantly reduce costs for voice services.
4. Usage monitoring - Implement optimisation practices like monitoring usage patterns to identify cost-saving opportunities, and consolidating multiple accounts, if applicable, to unlock higher usage discounts
5. Multi-currency payment solutions - Since Twilio prices all services in USD, using a multi-currency business card like Wise Business can help minimise foreign transaction fees. Also, with the Wise Business Account, you can:

• Hold and manage 40+ currencies
• Get account details to receive payments in 23 currencies
• Send money to 140+ countries
• Get the true mid-market exchange rate with no markups

➡️Get Wise Business for Smart Savings

Please see terms of use and product availability for your region or visit Wise fees and pricing for the most up to date pricing and fee information.

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Twilio vs. competitors - price comparison

When comparing Twilio with its closest competitor, Plivo, there are significant price differences across various services. Here's a detailed comparison of their pricing structures:

	Twilio	Plivo⁷
SMS - Inbound	USD 0.0075 per message¹	USD 0.10000
SMS - Outbound (Local)	USD 0.0435 per message¹	USD 0.05001 per message
Verify/OTP Services (SMS)	USD 0.05 + channel fees³	USD 0.05001
Voice - Inbound	Free⁴	USD 0.00850 per minute
Voice - Outbound	USD 0.0578 per minute⁴	USD 0.03400 per minute
Video Conferencing	USD 0.004 per participant/min⁵	Not available
WhatsApp (Business-Initiated)	USD 0.0745 per conversation²	USD 0.0055 per message⁸

*Details accurate as of 24th April 2025

Why businesses choose Twilio

Despite Plivo's cost advantages at lower volumes for some services, Twilio offers significant other advantages that make it the preferred choice:

Unlike Plivo's relatively flat pricing model, Twilio implements an automatic tiered discount system that significantly reduces costs as usage increases. These volume discounts automatically trigger at key thresholds (starting at approximately 150,000 messages per month), with discounts deepening to as much as USD 0.0010 per message at 1 million messages. For enterprise customers, custom pricing agreements can push these discounts even further. This makes Twilio's total cost of ownership increasingly attractive.

Multichannel communication architecture: Twilio natively supports 12+ communication channels, including WhatsApp, Programmable Video, Facebook Messenger, and email via SendGrid. Plivo focuses primarily on SMS/MMS and voice APIs, requiring third-party integrations for other channels. Twilio's Conversations API enables unified messaging across platforms, reducing development complexity for cross-channel workflows compared to Plivo's siloed approach.

AI-powered customer intelligence: Twilio's USD 3.2 billion Segment acquisition enables predictive engagement through real-time customer data platforms, behaviour-based segmentation, and AI conversation analytics. Plivo lacks native AI and machine-learning capabilities, relying on external Business Intelligence tools for basic analytics.

Strong security and compliance: Twilio maintains ISO 27001/27017/27018 certifications with 48 localised data residency zones, automated regulatory updates for 190+ countries, and SSIR pre-registration for Singapore sender IDs. For financial institutions, Twilio reduces compliance engineering costs through pre-built templates for MAS, GDPR, and PCI-DSS. Healthcare and government clients favour Twilio's HITRUST CSF certification for PHI/PII protection - a gap in Plivo's offering.

While Twilio is not always the cheapest option, it offers a comprehensive suite of communication APIs, superior infrastructure, compliance frameworks, and improved integration capabilities that often justify the extra expense.

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Twilio Pricing FAQs

Does Twilio have a free plan?

No, Twilio doesn't offer a completely free plan, but they provide a free trial credit to new users upon signing up. This allows you to test the platform before committing financially.

What are Twilio's APIs?

Twilio offers various APIs for different communication services:

• SMS and MMS API
• Voice API
• WhatsApp API
• Video API
• Verify API (for authentication)
• Email API (through SendGrid)

Each API has its own documentation, pricing structure, and features.

Does Twilio have specific partnerships in Singapore?

Yes, Twilio has partnered with Singtel to offer businesses in Singapore a platform for Rich Communications Services (RCS) messaging. This partnership enables enhanced messaging features directly in mobile inboxes, with messages up to 160 UTF-8 characters priced the same as standard SMS.

Are there implementation or onboarding costs with Twilio?

There are no implementation or onboarding costs for standard Twilio services. However, enterprise customers with complex multi-channel requirements might need additional support or custom implementations, which could potentially incur setup costs.

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Conclusion

The attraction of Twilio is its powerful set of communication APIs, which, combined with a flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model, give Singapore businesses valuable new ways of contacting customers.

💡 However, the USD-based pricing and complex fee structure require careful planning to optimise costs. By understanding Twilio's pricing structure, Singapore regulatory requirements, and implementing cost-saving strategies, businesses can make the most of Twilio’s tools while managing business overheads. For managing payments to Twilio and other USD-priced SaaS services, consider Wise Business Card to avoid hidden foreign transaction fees and get the best possible exchange rates.

• Hold and manage 40+ currencies for all your international transactions
• Pay your SaaS bills and all overseas ad hoc expenses with the Wise Business card without the hefty foreign transaction fees
• Always get the mid-market rate with zero exchange rate markup
• Seamless integrations with popular accounting software
• Say goodbye to monthly fees

➡️ Get Started with Wise Business today

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Sources:

1. Twilio SMS Pricing
2. Twilio WhatsApp Pricing
3. Twilio Verify API Pricing
4. Twilio Voice Pricing
5. Twilio Video Pricing
6. Twilio SendGrid Email API Pricing
7. Plivo Pricing
8. Plivo WhatsApp Pricing

Sources checked on 24th April 2025