Telnyx vs Twilio
Compare Telnyx and Twilio based on observed SMS API performance, features, and pricing
Live performance comparison
Real-world performance data from messages sent through Knock
| Provider | Message volume | Growth | Status page updates (30d) | Status page updates (90d) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| <1M | 3rd of 7 ↑ | 25 | 25 |
| 100M–500M | 1st of 7 → | 25 | 25 |
From February 13th to May 14th, Knock routed <1M messages through Telnyx and 100M–500M through Twilio. Telnyx reported 25 status page updates over the last 90 days, while Twilio reported 25.
Response time
Response time measures how long each provider takes to accept an SMS API request from Knock, including connection overhead and any automatic retries. Lower values mean faster message hand-off.
The chart above shows each provider's daily median response time (p50) from February 13th to May 14th. The top-line number is an average of these daily values: Telnyx averaged 219ms compared to 67ms for Twilio. Telnyx's highest daily p50 was 313ms; Twilio's was 79ms. Twilio is 152ms faster at the median, which can add up at high volumes.
The 90th percentile (p90) captures the slowest 10% of requests, revealing how each provider handles moderate stress. Averaged across all days, Telnyx has a p90 of 389ms compared to 114ms for Twilio. The highest daily p90 was 19505ms for Telnyx and 126ms for Twilio. Twilio handles these slower requests 275ms faster, suggesting more consistent performance across the board.
The 99th percentile (p99) represents the long tail — the slowest 1% of requests. Averaged across all days, Telnyx reached 638ms at p99 while Twilio reached 149ms. The highest daily p99 was 19738ms for Telnyx and 240ms for Twilio, indicating the worst-case response time during spikes or provider-side congestion. Twilio shows a tighter tail, which may matter for time-sensitive SMS notifications like one-time passwords or real-time alerts where even rare delays can impact user experience.
Error rate
Error rate tracks the ratio of 5xx responses and timeouts to total SMS API requests. Knock automatically retries failed requests, so transient provider errors rarely affect end-user delivery.
| Provider | Avg. daily error rate | Highest daily rate | Peak error date | Zero-error days | Days above 0.01% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.21% | 24.57% | Feb 20 | 57 | 26 |
| 0.00% | 0.00% | Feb 13 | 91 | 0 |
Averaged across the date range, Telnyx shows a 0.21% daily error rate compared to 0.00% for Twilio. The highest single-day error rate was 24.57% for Telnyx and 0.00% for Twilio. Twilio demonstrates a lower error rate, indicating slightly more consistent availability during this period. Knock automatically retries failed requests to both providers, minimizing the impact of transient errors on end-user delivery.
About these metrics: Data represents messages sent through Knock during the specified period. Response time measures time from Knock to provider acceptance. Error rate includes only provider 5xx responses and timeouts.
Recent Telnyx incidents
Recent status page incidents for Telnyx
Ongoing since May 28, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT May 28, 09:00 - 11:00 UTCMay 11, 14:41 UTC Scheduled - Our Telephony Engineers will perform maintenance on our SIP proxy servers in the US region. Our TLS certificate for our SIP proxy server(s) of sip.telnyx.com (192.76.120.10 and 64.16.250.10) will be changed during this deployment. This is important for some customers who use an SBC (or other appliance) and have our certificate (or the CA certificate) loaded into the SBC. This information also applies to some custom
Ongoing since May 26, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT May 26, 17:00 - 19:00 UTCMay 11, 14:32 UTC Scheduled - Our Telephony Engineers will perform maintenance on our SIP proxy servers in the Europe region. Our TLS certificate for our SIP proxy server(s) of sip.telnyx.eu (185.246.41.140 and 185.246.41.141) will be changed during this deployment. This is important for some customers who use an SBC (or other appliance) and have our certificate (or the CA certificate) loaded into the SBC. This information also applies to some
Ongoing since May 15, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT May 15, 08:30 - 10:30 UTCMay 12, 16:23 UTC Scheduled - The Telnyx team will be performing maintenance on the network nodes carrying data traffic for IMSI1 sessions in the Americas. Connected devices may experienec a brief (about a minute) period of disconnection during this window.
Started May 14, 2026 — Resolved May 14, 2026
May 14, 13:00 UTC Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.May 14, 12:30 UTC In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.May 14, 12:24 UTC Scheduled - Our Telephony Engineers will perform maintenance on our TeXML services in the Europe/US region. This maintenance should not disrupt service.
Ongoing since May 14, 2026
May 14, 11:03 UTC Identified - The issue partially persists and is being worked on by our engineers.May 14, 00:26 UTC Monitoring - A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results.May 13, 21:44 UTC Investigating - We've spotted that something has gone wrong. We're currently investigating the issue, and will provide an update soon. All cloud storage operations on buckets in us-central-1 might be not operational.
Recent Twilio incidents
Recent status page incidents for Twilio
Ongoing since Jun 25, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT Jun 24, 20:00 PDT - Jun 25, 00:00 PDTMay 1, 00:52 PDT Scheduled - Twilio is conducting a planned maintenance from 24 June 2026 at 20:00 PDT until 25 June 2026 at 00:00 PDT. During the maintenance window, there could be intermittent delays or failures delivering SMS and MMS to and from United States and Canada handsets when sending via subset of long codes, short codes and toll free numbers.
Ongoing since Jun 18, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT Jun 17, 20:00 PDT - Jun 18, 00:00 PDTMay 1, 00:52 PDT Scheduled - Twilio is conducting a planned maintenance from 17 June 2026 at 20:00 PDT until 18 June 2026 at 00:00 PDT. During the maintenance window, there could be intermittent delays or failures delivering SMS and MMS to and from United States and Canada handsets when sending via subset of long codes, short codes and toll free numbers.
Ongoing since Jun 11, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT Jun 10, 20:00 PDT - Jun 11, 00:00 PDTMay 1, 00:52 PDT Scheduled - Twilio is conducting a planned maintenance from 10 June 2026 at 20:00 PDT until 11 June 2026 at 00:00 PDT. During the maintenance window, there could be intermittent delays or failures delivering SMS and MMS to and from United States and Canada handsets when sending via subset of long codes, short codes and toll free numbers.
Ongoing since Jun 10, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT Jun 9, 20:30 - 21:30 PDTMay 5, 11:42 PDT Scheduled - Our SMS carrier partner in Peru is conducting a planned maintenance from 09 June 2026 at 20:30 PDT until 09 June 2026 at 21:30 PDT. During the maintenance window, there could be intermittent delays delivering SMS to and from Peru handsets via subset of Peru short codes.
Ongoing since Jun 5, 2026
THIS IS A SCHEDULED EVENT Jun 5, 12:00 - 17:00 PDTApr 30, 14:59 PDT Scheduled - The Volna mobile, Win Mobile and Personnal Communicational networks in Russia are conducting a planned maintenance from 05 June 2026 at 12:00 PDT until 05 June 2026 at 17:00 PDT. During the maintenance window, there could be intermittent delays delivering SMS to Volna mobile, Win Mobile and Personnal Communicational Russia handsets.
Pricing comparison
| Provider | Plan | Per message | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Telnyx | Pay-as-you-go | $0.004 | $400 |
| Twilio | Pay-as-you-go | $0.0083 | $830 |
Telnyx
No free tier. Outbound SMS to US numbers costs $0.004 per message. Inbound messages are $0.004 each. Phone numbers start at $1.00/month for local numbers. Carrier surcharges are passed through at cost with no markup.
Twilio
Outbound SMS to US numbers costs $0.0083 per message. Inbound messages are $0.0075 each. Phone numbers start at $1.15/month for local numbers. Carrier surcharges of ~$0.003–$0.005 per message apply on top of the base rate.
US carrier surcharges
All US A2P SMS sent via 10DLC incurs mandatory carrier fees on top of the provider base rate. Most providers pass these through at cost.
| Carrier | Outbound SMS | Inbound SMS |
|---|---|---|
| T-Mobile | $0.0045 | $0.0025 |
| AT&T | $0.003 | $0.003 |
| Verizon | $0.004 | $0.00 |
| US Cellular | $0.005 | $0.00 |
Pros and cons
Telnyx
Twilio
Pros
- Among the lowest per-message rates for US domestic SMS
- Private IP network provides lower latency than providers using the public internet
- Transparent, pay-as-you-go pricing with no monthly minimums
- Strong developer experience with well-documented APIs and SDKs
Pros
- Largest ecosystem of SDKs, tutorials, and community resources for SMS
- Trusted by Airbnb, Uber, and Netflix for mission-critical messaging
- Comprehensive compliance tooling with opt-out management and content filtering
- Supports SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, and voice in a single platform
Cons
- Smaller community and ecosystem compared to Twilio
- No free trial credits for new accounts
- Feature set is narrower than full-suite platforms like Twilio
Cons
- Per-message pricing can add up at high volumes without committed-use discounts
- Phone number provisioning and compliance setup can be complex for new users
- Support response times vary by plan tier
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Telnyx and Twilio?
Telnyx is a developer-first communications platform with competitive pricing and a private IP network for reliable SMS delivery. Twilio is the most widely adopted cloud communications platform, offering SMS, MMS, voice, and WhatsApp through a unified API. Telnyx is best suited for cost-effective developer sms, while Twilio is geared toward full-featured sms at scale.
Which is cheaper, Telnyx or Twilio?
No free tier. Outbound SMS to US numbers costs $0.004 per message. Inbound messages are $0.004 each. Phone numbers start at $1.00/month for local numbers. Carrier surcharges are passed through at cost with no markup. Outbound SMS to US numbers costs $0.0083 per message. Inbound messages are $0.0075 each. Phone numbers start at $1.15/month for local numbers. Carrier surcharges of ~$0.003–$0.005 per message apply on top of the base rate. The best value depends on your sending volume and destination countries.
Which is faster, Telnyx or Twilio?
Based on real-world data from Knock, Telnyx has a median SMS API response time (p50) of 219ms compared to 67ms for Twilio.
Which is more reliable, Telnyx or Twilio?
From February 13th to May 14th, Telnyx showed an error rate of 0.21% while Twilio showed 0.00%. Both rates are within acceptable thresholds for production SMS delivery, and Knock automatically retries failed requests to minimize the impact of transient errors.
Which is more popular, Telnyx or Twilio?
On the Knock platform, Telnyx handled <1M messages from February 13th to May 14th compared to 100M–500M for Twilio. Telnyx is currently trending upward in adoption, while Twilio volume has remained stable.
Can I use both Telnyx and Twilio together?
Yes. Knock enables you to integrate multiple SMS providers into a single notification workflow. You can use Telnyx and Twilio side by side, route traffic between them, or migrate from one to the other without changing your application code.
What are the main pros and cons of Telnyx vs Twilio?
Telnyx strengths include among the lowest per-message rates for us domestic sms and private ip network provides lower latency than providers using the public internet. Twilio strengths include largest ecosystem of sdks, tutorials, and community resources for sms and trusted by airbnb, uber, and netflix for mission-critical messaging. On the other hand, Telnyx drawbacks include smaller community and ecosystem compared to twilio, while Twilio drawbacks include per-message pricing can add up at high volumes without committed-use discounts.
Use either provider with Knock
Knock enables you to integrate Telnyx, Twilio, or any combination of SMS providers into a single notification workflow. Manage templates, orchestrate cross-channel delivery, and switch providers without changing your code.