Twilio Pricing in Czechia: 1,000 Minutes and 1,000 SMS

Twilio has no flat monthly plan or commitment for Czech numbers - calls and SMS are billed per use, in US dollars (Twilio Pricing API v2, verified 25 August 2026); a number is rented separately for a monthly fee. It charges 1.02 CZK for an outbound call, 1.46 CZK for an SMS, and 31 CZK a month for a number.

Add up 1,000 minutes of outbound calls, 1,000 SMS messages and one number for a month, and Twilio's total comes to roughly 2,511 CZK. The same usage costs 2,305 CZK at volai - 206 CZK less, or 8% less.

1,000 minutes and 1,000 SMS messages are a deliberately round number for comparing rates, not an estimate of typical traffic - a small app usually sends a few hundred messages a month, a bigger one thousands. The ratio between Twilio and volai stays the same regardless of volume, because both sides bill linearly per minute and per message - double the traffic simply means double the gap in money.

What does Twilio charge per minute and per SMS

Before adding it all up, here are the unit prices side by side - the same figures shown on the pricing page and the REST API docs, so the numbers never drift apart.

volai prices exclude VAT, current as of 2 September 2026; Twilio prices per Twilio Pricing API, verified 25 August 2026.

What do 1,000 minutes and 1,000 SMS cost together

Add up the outbound calls, the SMS, and the monthly number rental, and the gap is easy to see:

volai comes out 206 CZK cheaper, or 8% less. The number assumes outbound SMS only - volai can send SMS but not receive them into an app (more on that below).

What about inbound calls

The table above only covers outbound calls - for inbound, the number type matters more than anywhere else in this comparison, and it is worth spelling out why. In Czechia, Twilio sells inbound minutes either on a regular local number or on a toll-free line at 6.54 CZK a minute; below we use the toll-free rate for comparison because it is the only publicly stated figure, the same one the volai vs. Twilio comparison uses. On a regular local number it is the other way around - there, Twilio is cheaper than volai for inbound calls: 0.22 CZK a minute (Twilio Pricing API v2, verified 25 August 2026), roughly 2.3 times less. Always check Twilio's own pricing tool for the exact rate on a specific number type.

volai charges 0.50 CZK a minute for inbound calls regardless of number type - against the toll-free line, 1,000 inbound minutes cost 500 CZK instead of 6,540 CZK, 13 times less, but against a regular local number it is the other way around. volai's advantage here is not one record-low price - it is that the rate is the same no matter which number you buy. At Twilio, the cheap rate and the ability to receive SMS never land on the same number (more on that below).

Why is Twilio pricier in Czechia

Twilio bills in US dollars, so the koruna amount on a card statement shifts slightly with the exchange rate every month. volai charges directly in CZK excluding VAT and issues a Czech tax document automatically with every top-up.

Twilio also requires proof of a Czech address before it will sell a local Czech number - a company register extract for a business, a photo ID for an individual (Twilio Regulatory Guidelines for Czechia, twilio.com/en-us/guidelines/cz/regulatory, verified 2 September 2026). At volai, a number from the current stock (Prague, Brno, the 910 range) is active the moment the API call returns; a number from another region is ordered against an address picked from an address registry and is usually ready within a minute - no documents to upload.

Twilio also sells voice and SMS on two different number types in Czechia - a local or toll-free number can receive calls but not SMS, and a mobile number is the other way around (checked via Twilio's available phone numbers API, 25 August 2026). An app that wants both on one number ends up paying for two numbers - and a mobile number costs considerably more than a local one at Twilio. At volai, one number at 25 CZK a month handles both calls and SMS.

What about adding a voice agent

The prices above are for telephony only - none of them include a voice agent that can actually hold the conversation. Twilio has no ready-made agent: build one from the Voice API for audio streaming, speech recognition, a language model and speech synthesis - each billed separately and each integrated separately.

volai prices the agent as a single surcharge of 2.50 CZK/min on top of the call price, built on ElevenLabs - write the instructions in the portal and the agent answers the phone - for calls handled by the built-in agent, a transcript and a recording are captured automatically (recording can be turned off, and we keep recordings for 90 days). On 1,000 inbound minutes, that adds 2,500 CZK on top of the call cost at our rate - a calculator for a specific business lives on the AI Receptionist page.

When is it still worth staying with Twilio

Price is not the only criterion, and a 8% gap on calls and SMS should not decide it alone if the app needs something volai does not (yet) do:

• Inbound SMS into the app - volai only sends SMS; our carrier can only deliver inbound messages to a SIM card for now, not into the API - we are working on it.
• Numbers outside Czechia - volai only sells Czech numbers (+420); calls and SMS do reach Slovakia too. Twilio covers dozens of countries worldwide.
• More channels on one account - Twilio offers WhatsApp, video and email alongside telephony; volai stays with voice and SMS.

If a Czech phone number plus calls and outbound SMS to Czechia and Slovakia are all a project needs, the comparison is clear. For a fuller breakdown beyond price, see the volai vs. Twilio page; if the decision is to switch, the step-by-step guide is at Migrating from Twilio. The current price list, including the voice agent, is on the pricing page.

Every number on this page is computed straight from volai's live rate card and the stored Twilio benchmark, not typed once and left to go stale - if either rate ever changes, so does this article.

What's next