Two SMS providers, compared on price, features and ratings, so you can pick fast.
Updated October 2026
THE VERDICT
Bandwidth wins on reviews and support. MessageBird wins on price and developer experience.
Bandwidth starts at $0.004 versus MessageBird's $0.00331. Bandwidth rates higher with developers (4.4 vs 4.1 on G2). Pick based on volume and team, and the scorecard below breaks down where each one leads.
Winner cells are tinted, green where Bandwidth leads, violet where MessageBird does.
FAQ
Bandwidth starts at $0.004 versus MessageBird's $0.00331. Compare your expected monthly volume against the per-message rates above.
Bandwidth pricing is usage-based with no fixed platform fee. US 10DLC (local long code) SMS starts at roughly $0.004 per outbound message. Toll-free SMS is listed at $0.0065 per message on Bandwidth's toll-free product page and $0.007 per message on its general pricing page, so expect a rate in that range. On top of per-message rates, A2P 10DLC traffic incurs mandatory carrier registration and pass-through surcharge fees set by the mobile carriers.
Bird (MessageBird) provides official open source SDKs for PHP, Python, Node.js, Java, Ruby, and Go, available on its GitHub organization. The underlying API is REST based, so it can also be called from any language over HTTP. This covers most common backend stacks for SMS and omnichannel messaging.
Yes. Many teams route different message types through different providers or fail over between them. Courier lets you send through both behind a single API and switch providers without changing your code.
Why not both?
Use both behind one API.
Route Bandwidth, MessageBird, or both, and switch providers without changing your code. Courier sits in front of every channel.
Pricing, plans and feature availability as of October 2026 and may change. Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms. MessageBird is now Bird.