If you're looking at TextGrid, you probably want three things: a per-message price you can predict, 10DLC registration that doesn't stall your launch, and an API your engineers can ship against this week. TextGrid presents itself as a lower-cost, Twilio-compatible messaging API. For a team that wants raw pipes and plans to build everything else in-house, that's a reasonable choice.
The useful question isn't "which provider is best." It's "how much of the messaging stack do we want to own?" A raw API gives you a low per-segment rate and leaves registration workflows, opt-out handling, quiet hours, litigator scrubbing and sub-account isolation to your engineers. A platform layer charges more per segment and ships those pieces already built. This post is a checklist for making that call, plus an honest look at where Ready fits and where it doesn't.
Start with what you're actually buying
There are roughly three kinds of SMS provider, and comparing across types without noticing causes most bad evaluations:
- Raw CPaaS APIs (TextGrid, Twilio, Telnyx, Plivo, Bandwidth): the lowest per-segment pricing. You get numbers and a send endpoint, and you build the rest.
- Platform APIs (Ready sits here): one REST API with registration, compliance and sub-accounts built in, and a per-segment rate above raw carrier cost.
- Subscription texting apps (credit bundles, per-seat plans): built for a single business's team inbox, not for a platform that texts on behalf of its own customers.
If you're a CTO or head of product at a CRM or vertical SaaS product, you're choosing between the first two. We've covered the same tradeoff in our Plivo alternative and Telgorithm alternative posts. The logic is the same here.
The comparison checklist
Run every provider on your shortlist through this table. Fill in the right-hand column from their current docs and pricing page. Don't rely on a sales deck.
| What to check | Why it matters | Ready's answer |
|---|---|---|
| Per-segment rate | Your unit cost at any volume | $0.0075/segment Standard, one flat rate |
| Carrier fees | Often hidden or bundled | $0.0045 per segment, itemized |
| Inbound replies billed? | Two-way traffic adds up | Yes, same rate as a sent text |
| 10DLC registration | Unregistered traffic gets carrier-filtered | Brand + campaign registration in-app and via API |
| Sub-accounts | Each of your customers needs its own brand and numbers | Sub-accounts with their own numbers and registration |
| Opt-out handling | STOP has to propagate everywhere | Automatic, and refused sends aren't charged |
| Quiet hours | Reduces TCPA exposure | Held for permitted local hours: campaigns, drip campaigns and automations up to 24 hours, a one-to-one or API text up to 6, otherwise refused |
| Litigator/DNC scrub | Screens out known TCPA litigators | Built in, $0.003 per segment when switched on (off by default) |
| Idempotency | Retries shouldn't double-send | Idempotency-Key header on every send |
| iMessage option | Blue-bubble delivery on iPhones | Blue line, $99/mo per line |
A provider with a low headline rate and four empty rows on this table isn't necessarily the wrong pick. It means the empty rows become engineering tickets.
Pricing: do the math honestly
Raw CPaaS APIs price per segment at or below our rate. Twilio is around $0.0083 per segment, and TextGrid markets itself as low-cost too. Ready Standard is $0.0075/segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee. If per-segment cost is the only line item you care about, a raw API wins that line.
Segment count matters more than most teams expect.
Worked example (assumptions: 5,000 opted-in contacts, one promo send):
- A 175-character promo with one emoji is unicode, so the limit drops to 67 characters per segment. 175 ÷ 67 = 2.6, which rounds up to 3 segments.
- 5,000 contacts × 3 segments = 15,000 segments.
- On Ready Standard: 15,000 × $0.0075 = $113, plus 15,000 × $0.0045 in carrier fees.
- Remove the emoji and trim to 160 GSM-7 characters, and it's 1 segment: 5,000 × $0.0075 = $38, plus 5,000 × $0.0045.
That one emoji tripled the bill. The same thing happens on every provider, because carriers meter segments, not messages. Ready swaps curly quotes, long dashes and ellipses for plain characters before sending, so a pasted smart quote won't push a message into unicode by accident. Emoji still count, though.
The all-in rate above excludes the compliance surcharge. If you switch on scrubbing or landline validation for an account, each adds $0.003 per segment. Both are off by default. Full card at tryready.com/pricing. For ways to bring segment counts down, see how to reduce SMS costs.
10DLC registration: where launches actually stall
Every US business texting from a local 10-digit number needs a registered brand and campaign. If you're a platform, that means registering each of your customers, which is where raw-API teams spend weeks building forms, status polling and resubmission flows. (Background: what is 10DLC.)
On Ready, registration runs in-app and through the API (GET /v1/registration returns status). There's no setup fee. At submit you pay the first month, $25. After that it's $25/mo for registration, and $2 per number. Most approvals take 2 to 7 days.
While a registration is in review:
- An account can send up to 500 texts a month before it registers, at its normal rate.
- An account that bought its number before registering sends on Ready's shared registration at the same rate until its own is approved.
Optional brand vetting ($79 Standard / $179 Enhanced, one-time) raises trust score and can move a brand up a daily-cap tier. Most senders don't need it. If you're pushing tens of thousands of messages a day, look at it.
API access: what a send looks like
If your team already writes against a Twilio-style API, switching endpoints is not the hard part. Here's a single send on Ready:
curl -X POST https://api.tryready.com/v1/messages \
-H "X-API-Key: $READY_API_KEY" \
-H "Idempotency-Key: 3f6c2a1e-8b4d-4e2a-9c1f-7d5e0a9b2c41" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"to": "+12125550199", "body": "Your order #1042 has shipped.", "consent_attested": true}'consent_attested is your promise that the recipient agreed to texts. Ready logs that attestation per send (who sent, to how many, when) as an audit trail. That log is not a per-contact consent record. The opt-in time, wording and page URL still have to live in your own system.
For lists, POST /v1/messages/bulk takes up to 100 recipients per call, so split larger lists into batches. Check whether a number opted out with GET /v1/opt-outs/:phone (the list at GET /v1/opt-outs holds only this account's opted-out contacts), and you can validate or scrub a single number with GET /v1/validate/:phone and GET /v1/scrub/:phone. Full reference: docs.tryready.com/api/messages.
If your product has AI agents, Ready also runs a remote MCP server at https://api.tryready.com/mcp. It lets agents send texts, manage contacts and run campaigns (docs).
Compliance: risk reduction, not immunity
TCPA exposure runs roughly $500 to $1,500 per text, so the compliance rows on the checklist aren't decoration. Ready handles several of them for you:
- STOP and UNSUBSCRIBE are honored automatically, and the opt-out applies across every campaign.
- Quiet hours hold a text until the recipient's permitted local window, and it's charged only when it actually sends. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations wait up to 24 hours for the window; a one-to-one or API text is held only if the window opens within 6 hours, otherwise it is refused with 409 QUIET_HOURS_BLOCK and must be resent; a one-to-one reply to someone who texted you in the last 24 hours goes out at any hour.
- Opt-outs and numbers on your Ban list are refused up front and not charged.
- Litigator/DNC scrubbing can be switched on per account. It's also available standalone at $0.005 per contact.
None of this makes you lawsuit-proof. Compliance is still the sender's responsibility. SMS should go to consented or replied leads, and cold outreach belongs on the phone or in the mail. If your platform's customers send advocacy, political or fundraising texts, email support@tryready.com before the first send and wait for our reply. Signing up and registering isn't enough on its own for those.
When TextGrid is the better fit
Be honest with yourself about this one. Stick with a raw API like TextGrid if:
- per-segment cost is your dominant line item and you send very high volume,
- you already have engineers who've built 10DLC flows and opt-out logic, or
- you only text for your own company and don't need sub-accounts.
Ready makes more sense if you're a platform texting on behalf of many customers and would rather ship sub-accounts, registration and compliance this sprint than build them over a quarter. The same is true if you want extras like the blue line for iMessage ($99/mo per line plus 6 cents a segment, no 10DLC needed). Local presence, which sends from your number closest to the contact's area code, is also available. The Bandwidth alternative post walks through the build-versus-buy math in more detail.
The practical takeaway
Fill in the checklist for every provider you're considering, cost out a real message with real segment math, and count the empty rows as engineering time. If the raw API still wins, use it. If you'd like to test the platform route, the first 20 one-to-one texts are free once a card is on file. Use them before you register, then sign up and send a test from your own stack.