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Plivo pricing, price hikes and cheaper alternatives

Plivo (plivo.com) is a SMS and voice API. Pay-as-you-go per-message SMS and per-minute voice rates plus a monthly per-number rental, with SMS and Verify API access restricted to an Enterprise plan that starts at $1,000/mo.. No free plan.

What Plivo costs

  • 10k texts: $1,131.53/mo (Floor, not a quote. SMS API is Enterprise-only and the Enterprise plan starts at $1,000/mo, so that $1,000 is added to usage at list rates: 10,000 out x $0.0077 = $77.00; 1,000 in x $0.0077 = $7.70; one US local number $0.50; carrier out average (AT&T $0.0035, T-Mobile $0.0045, Verizon $0.0050) = $0.00433 x 10,000 = $43.33; carrier in average of the published AT&T $0.0035 and T-Mobile $0.0025 (Verizon NA) = $0.0030 x 1,000 = $3.00. Usage $131.53 + $1,000 = $1,131.53. Carrier rows are the 'Long Codes' rows because the page never says 10DLC. Enterprise per-message rates and any included usage are not published.)
  • 2k call min: $17.50/mo (Pay as you go, no plan gate. 1,000 outbound minutes x $0.0115 (US Local Calls) = $11.50; 1,000 inbound minutes x $0.0055 = $5.50; one US local number $0.50; no API platform fee published. Single US rate shown, so no mobile/landline average. Browser SDK/SIP at $0.0033/min excluded (not PSTN). Total $17.50. The voice rate page carries no per-rate date (SIP calculator footer says rates as of May 2026).)
  • 1k OTPs: custom pricing (Custom. Verify's per-verification fee is $0 ('OTP delivery is included free'; Plivo Verify charges only for the SMS), and no number fee applies. The US Verify channel rate is not published ('Custom Channel Pricing') and Verify needs the Enterprise plan. Reference only: 1,100 SMS at $0.0077 plus $0.00433 carrier average = $13.24 usage, about $1,013/mo with the $1,000 floor. Carrier fees for Verify messages are not stated.)

Plan compared: SMS: Enterprise plan starting price ($1,000/mo) plus pay-as-you-go usage at list rates. Voice: pay-as-you-go.. Prices are USD per month at each vendor's published US pay-as-you-go rates (or the cheapest plan or credit pack that covers the volume), including phone number rental and per-message carrier fees but excluding one-time sender registration fees, taxes and trial credit. The headline is 10,000 outbound and 1,000 inbound texts from one US local number; we also price 2,000 US call minutes and 1,000 OTP phone verifications.

What Plivo does

Core: Two-way SMS API, Programmable voice.

Important: International SMS, Business phone numbers, US sender registration (partly), SIP trunking and BYOC (partly), WhatsApp Business API (partly), Verification API (partly), SMS pumping protection (partly), AI phone agent, SDKs and test tooling (partly).

Also has: MMS picture messages (partly), In-app and WebRTC calling (partly), Phone number intelligence (partly), Visual flow builder (partly), Bulk SMS campaigns (partly), Security and compliance (partly).

Plivo price hikes

Cheaper alternatives to Plivo

At 10,000 US texts a month, Plivo costs $1,131.53/mo. 2 SMS and voice APIs cost less:

  • Sinch: $86.80/mo (Pay-as-you-go US 10DLC SMS at $0.0078 per message: 10,000 sent, 1,000 received, one number at $1.00/mo, monthly billing), covers 93% of Plivo; missing or partial: Business phone numbers (partly), AI phone agent (partly)
  • Twilio: $138.78/mo (Pay-as-you-go messaging: 10,000 outbound and 1,000 inbound SMS a month on one US local number, carrier fees included), covers 100% of Plivo

Plivo alternatives: 2 SMS and voice APIs compared, at every size.

Other kinds of products that cover part of Plivo

  • MailerSend (Email API): covers 38% of Plivo; missing or partial: Two-way SMS API (partly), Programmable voice, International SMS (partly), Business phone numbers (partly), SIP trunking and BYOC

Every change we logged

  • Aug 24, 2026 · Repriced: Voice AI agent rate lowered to $0.03/min from $0.04/min all-in, but telephony is now billed separately, so the cut is not like-for-like.
  • Jul 20, 2026 · Limits cut: SMS & Verify API and WhatsApp API moved from self-serve channel pricing to the Enterprise plan, which starts at $1,000/mo. The tracker's verified date is Jul 20 (go-live between the Jul 13 and Jul 20 snapshots), and the official pricing page confirms the Enterprise-only rule.
  • Jul 20, 2026 · Repriced: Voice AI agent rate moved from $0.030 to $0.04/min (+33% headline) as one all-in rate that bundles telephony, voice models and transcription. Not like-for-like, since the old rate excluded telephony.
  • Jul 4, 2026 · Price increase: Channel pricing overhaul. The inbound SMS rate rose 40%, from $0.0055 to $0.0077 per message, which adds $2.20 to the sms10k scenario (1,000 inbound messages). The same change split voice into Local, Toll-Free and Browser-SDK-SIP tiers and added toll-free and RCS tiers.
  • Jun 2, 2026 · Price cut: Voice AI agent per-minute rate cut 40%. This is the Voice AI agent product, not the programmable voice API priced in voice2k.
  • May 11, 2026 · Repriced: Call Insights Basic and Premium add-ons removed from the voice add-on list. The $0.0025/min Premium tier was discontinued.
  • Apr 9, 2026 · Repriced: Plan renamed from Professional to Pay as you go. Phone-number prices ($0.50/mo local, $1.00/mo toll-free) were removed from the page, and channel pricing was split by voice tier, SMS code type and WhatsApp conversation type.
  • Apr 1, 2026 · Repriced: WhatsApp and channel pricing reworked. WhatsApp Call rates fell, but the tracker gives no figures. Phone numbers and chat channels moved to one per-minute billing structure.

Sources

Pricing page: plivo.com/sms/pricing/us. Prices last checked Oct 16, 2026. Rates and plan terms come from plivo.com pages checked 2026-10-17. Change history comes from PricingSaaS diffs, not Plivo announcements, and no news search was run; the 2026-06 history point is usage only, before SMS moved to Enterprise.