Communications Platform as a Service companies, or CPaaS companies, are cloud-based platforms that integrate communications capabilities into existing business applications.
These fully supported platforms facilitate real-time customer interactions for improved marketing, sales, customer service, and more–without developers needing to spend extensive time building individual integrations with communications service providers from scratch.
Which CPaaS company should you use? This article will review CPaaS benefits, features, and the best Communications Platform as a Service for this year.
CPaaS, or Communications Platform as a Service, is a software category of cloud-based platforms that enables businesses and developers to integrate communications capabilities directly in their applications.
Users can easily create secure, highly scalable communications solutions that can be integrated with other cloud-based services or existing on-premises systems. These platforms offer features ranging from communications integrations to data intelligence, messaging, speech recognition and synthesis, call conferencing, and more.
CPaaS removes the burden of manually building communications features from developers, and supports richer customer engagement opportunities that legacy communications solutions cannot provide. Plus, by freeing up developers’ time, they can focus on building capabilities specifically designed to increase revenue and adoption.
CPaaS is becoming more popular for a reason: it provides incredible communication abilities without time-consuming backend work. Frost & Sullivan found that 74% of IT decision-makers expressed familiarity with CPaaS and programmable communications, citing their invaluable benefits.
Some of the many benefits of implementing CPaaS include:
CPaaS offers a range of customer engagement tools that help businesses connect with their customers in real time. As an emerging technology that offers numerous advantages over traditional legacy technologies, CPaaS provides a unified communications experience across multiple providers. This allows businesses to connect with customers on various channels while maintaining the same user experience.
CPaaS also offers a next-generation customer experience with features like real-time analytics and multi-channel engagement. These advanced capabilities give businesses greater flexibility and control in customer interactions. Plus, CPaaS requires minimal setup and maintenance costs compared to legacy systems, making it ideal for businesses looking to update their communications infrastructure quickly and cost-effectively.
CPaaS provides organizations with access to cost-effective, secure, and reliable platforms that minimize the costs associated with developing, maintaining, and deploying communications integrations and features in-house.
Instead of a team of developers spending one to two years (or more) creating their own platform, the best CPaaS helps an organization add communications capabilities into their application in just a few sprints. These platforms also drastically reduce ongoing maintenance, bug resolution, and unanticipated customer requests that will sidetrack your engineering resources for years to come.
Product and engineering teams at leading brands and fast-growing startups have leveraged CPaaS to rapidly stand up engaging communications features that boost ARR 150%, reduce churn 75% and increase users by 580%.
CPaaS enables businesses to quickly and easily scale their communication infrastructure up or down as needed, with minimal disruption. This makes it ideal for rapidly growing or changing companies since they can expand their messaging capabilities without the extra cost of hardware and software. CPaaS solutions are incredibly flexible, allowing users to customize their messaging platforms according to their needs.
CPaaS also offers improved reliability and uptime compared to traditional communication solutions. Businesses don’t have to worry about outages disrupting their operations or poor performance degrading user experience.
The best CPaaS companies leverage workflow automation to eliminate the need for organizations to build additional quality-of-life features that save customers time and make them more productive.
Using a Communications Platform as a Service allows businesses to add various communication channels to their customer-facing applications. This makes it easier for customers to reach out for support and for customer service teams to resolve queries.
CPaaS also allows businesses to send personalized SMS or email messages to customers based on their profiles. This helps create a more personalized and engaging customer experience.
[Read the Frost & Sullivan whitepaper for more about CPaaS benefits and solutions.]
What features should your Communications Platform as a Service include? Let’s take a look.
1). Integrations
Integration options allow CPaaS users to connect their applications with other communications channels, systems, and services. These include everything from email, calendar, and contacts to other business applications like CRMs to external APIs and webhooks.
2). Intelligence
CPaaS has a wide range of features to offer, but one of the most valuable is its intelligence analysis capabilities. The best CPaaS providers can efficiently fuel business intelligence and unlock holistic views of customers by making sense of unstructured communications data.
For example, Nylas offers out-of-the-box analytics such as open rates, reply tracking, and link tracking to help build robust email capabilities quickly and effectively. Real-time scheduling capabilities can provide instant booking based on availability across many calendars and time zones. These advanced features allow businesses to maximize customer engagement, loyalty, and revenue via personalized experiences.
3). Scalability
Scalability allows for increased capacity and performance with minimal effort. This feature is especially beneficial for businesses that may experience heavy and unexpected demand spikes from customers. Companies can quickly scale up their resources to meet the sudden demand without investing in more hardware or personnel.
4). Security & privacy
Prioritizing security and privacy ensures the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of communication and applications, as well as protects user data. A CPaaS should have measures in place to encrypt data in transit and at rest, provide robust access controls, protect data privacy, and undergo regular security audits and testing.
Administrators can create multiple layers of security for their system, including setting user access levels, enforcing password policies, and using two-factor authentication.
5). Ease of use
An easy-to-use CPaaS minimizes the learning curve for new users and increases the adoption and usage of the platform. Platforms should offer an intuitive user interface, available comprehensive documentation and support resources, automation, and self-service features.
This helps with the quick deployment of communications applications, reducing time-to-market for organizations looking to bring new services to their customers.
Some of the best CPaaS companies include:
1). Nylas
Nylas is the best CPaaS software that enables businesses to accelerate product velocity and build engaging, customizable email, calendar, and contacts features so you can focus on your customers, not infrastructure.
Nylas’ no-code platform makes navigation easy for non-technical users and enables brands to create unique experiences for their customers. Thanks to its intuitive user interface and enhanced security features, Nylas is trusted by over 200,000 developers and global brands such as Upwork, Wix, Dialpad, and many more.
It’s also well known for its highly scalable, enterprise-grade architecture and responsive customer support team.
Key features & benefits:
Limitations:
Pricing:
Nylas offers a full-service API platform including an email API, calendar API, front-end scheduler, and contacts API. Pricing plans vary by the number of connected accounts (end users).
Get a quote today to choose the best plan for your application and business needs.
2). Twilio
Twilio provides tools and APIs to enable developers to integrate voice, messaging, and video into their applications. Users can receive phone calls, send and receive text messages, create audio conferences, and record videos for streaming services. Twilio also has other communication-related products including chat, email, and fax.
Key features & benefits:
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Twilio offers a range of products with different pricing plans. For example, their SendGrid email API starts at $14.95/month for up to 40k emails.
3). Vonage
Vonage is a communications solution for small and midsize companies. It enables businesses to link their VoIP phone system to any internet-enabled device so they can communicate via text, telephone, or video conferencing.
Vonage provides an admin portal to account managers so they can access and review call recordings, establish dialing restrictions, modify dashboard visibility settings, and check billing information.
Vonage also enables users to integrate their contacts from Google, Outlook, and CRM systems.
Key features & benefits:
Limitations:
Pricing:
Vonage offers voice, video, SMS, and Verify APIs separately, which users can begin with a free trial. Businesses who need further use of them can ask for a custom quote.
4). RingCentral
RingCentral is an integrated mobile-based phone system that allows employees to stay connected no matter where they are or what device they’re using – including smartphones, tablets, desktops, or phones.
The RingCentral mobile app enables employees to remain connected to customers and co-workers regardless of location. It integrates with other email platforms and applications like Salesforce CRM, Box, Dropbox, and Google Docs. RingCentral enables businesses to manage calls, video meetings, SMS messaging, and virtual faxes from a unified interface.
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RingCentral offers four pricing levels for monthly and annual plans:
5). Plivo
Plivo provides communications solutions including voice and text messaging, two-factor authentication, international calling, and call routing. The Plivo software enables businesses to add communications capabilities through APIs, SDKs, and pre-built applications.
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Plivo offers a pay-as-you-go model for those who need varying access to its services. It has pricing packages for SMS, voice, and Zentrunk SIP.
6). 2600Hz
2600Hz is a company that offers telecommunications services and communications APIs to businesses. They specialize in providing virtual phone systems and VoIP services to their customers. Additional products include customer experience optimization tools, call center technologies, and more.
Businesses can use 2600Hz to create custom-branded numbers, secure private networks, and even integrate VoIP services into existing infrastructures.
Key features & benefits:
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2600Hz does not list its pricing plan on its website. Customers must contact them to schedule a demo.
7). Telnyx
Telnyx offers a suite of services for facilitating global communication. Telnyx provides a low latency and high uptime network for worldwide access to voice calls, SMS, faxes, and IP services. Telnyx also offers APIs for deeper integrations into existing systems.
The platform provides additional features including routing capabilities, media optimization, and analytics.
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Telnyx offers pricing plans for seven products:
8). Bandwidth
Bandwidth provides communications infrastructure and software-driven services for voice, messaging, 9-1-1 access, and phone numbers. The platform was designed to help businesses develop and launch applications with less overhead.
Bandwidth offers a variety of features including APIs, real-time analytics, monitoring, and support services. The company has several CPaaS services, such as network orchestration, cloud media processing, and phone number management.
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Bandwidth offers pricing plans for three APIs:
9). MessageBird
MessageBird is an SMS marketing platform that allows businesses to connect with customers across multiple channels like WhatsApp, voice, and live chat. It helps businesses track customer interactions in one place while having access to valuable customer data on the unified portal.
MessageBird also has a flow builder that allows organizations to develop automated workflows, capture customer information, answer inquiries and purchase confirmations, and arrange appointments.
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MessageBird offers four packages that each have various pricing plans depending on the services needed.
10). Sinch
Sinch provides developers with a platform to build communications solutions for mobile applications and businesses. Organizations can create mobile messaging and voice-calling capabilities for their customers, as well as other services like automated customer support, customer service interactions, fraud prevention, identity verification, and payment processing.
Sinch enables companies to reach their audience with various messaging platforms including Viber, WhatsApp, text messages, and MMS. Prioritizing security, businesses can confirm secure logins and sign-ups using one-time passwords (OTPs).
Key features & benefits:
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Pricing:
The pricing for Sinch isn’t listed on the website. But according to various sources, the starting price is $0.003.
11). Infobip
Infobip enables businesses to connect and interact with customers, employees, and business partners in real time. Companies can develop their customer engagement strategy and leverage APIs to create messaging applications. The platform provides enterprise SMS, voice, push notifications and chat services, and analytics.
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According to Infobip, their pricing depends on the location of the traffic, country regulations and restrictions, and numerous other factors. Therefore, potential clients must reach out for a quote.
According to a report by Mordor Intelligence, the CPaaS market is expected to grow by 34.30% between 2022 and 2027. This growth is driven by many factors including the increasing adoption of cloud-based solutions, growing demand for real-time communication and collaboration, and the need for organizations to improve productivity and reduce costs.
The industries that rely on CPaaS the most are:
In terms of geography, North America is the region with the largest market share and Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region.
CPaaS solutions enable businesses to create personalized experiences and achieve customer data intelligence. But which is the right platform for your business?
Nylas offers a range of CPaaS features and capabilities for advanced customer engagement opportunities. The infrastructure is scalable and reliable, ensuring that your communication and collaboration applications perform at their best. Nylas’ APIs allow organizations to launch new features and products within weeks – all while saving thousands of hours for your developers.
Nylas’ CPaaS capabilities mean organizations can capture every customer engagement touchpoint to strengthen customer loyalty and grow their business.
Sign up with Nylas today to experience the power of CPaaS for your business.
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