MSG91 or Fast2SMS for a small business in India, Twilio if you are texting Indian customers from abroad, but register on DLT first, because no commercial SMS goes out in India without it. Every sender registers as a principal entity on a telecom operator's DLT portal (Vilpower, Jio and others), then registers each sender ID (header) and each message template, which operators check before delivery. MSG91 charges ₹0.25 a message at 5,000 messages, falling to ₹0.16 at volume, plus 18% GST; Fast2SMS starts at ₹0.25 from a ₹100 recharge and falls to ₹0.11, one rate for promotional, transactional and OTP messages, with ₹50 free credit; Gupshup bills SMS from a prepaid wallet with no platform fee; Twilio charges $0.0832 per SMS to India. If you already email through Klaviyo, its SMS is easiest outside India. Use SMS for OTPs, order and delivery alerts and as a fallback for customers you can't reach on WhatsApp. The rule: finish DLT registration, then pick on the per-SMS price at your volume.
Part of SMS marketing on eChai Explore.
7 resources, 5 India-specific, 7 link-checked.
A short guide to registering your business on a DLT portal so you can send SMS in India.
On youtube.com by CallerDesk 5 min
One of the operator DLT portals every Indian business must register on before sending commercial SMS; the FAQ explains principal entity registration, headers, content templates and transactional versus promotional messages.
From vilpower.in by Vodafone Idea 15 min
The best global reference for SMS specifically, useful for the transactional/OTP fallback layer that still matters even in a WhatsApp-first Indian messaging strategy.
From Klaviyo by Klaviyo
MSG91's India SMS rates by volume: ₹0.25 a message at 5,000, falling to ₹0.16 at the top slab, plus 18% GST.
From msg91.com by MSG91 3 min
Fast2SMS's prepaid rates: ₹0.25 per SMS from a ₹100 recharge, down to ₹0.11 at larger slabs, one rate for promotional, transactional, OTP and API SMS, with ₹50 free credit on signup.
From fast2sms.com by Fast2SMS 3 min
Gupshup's self-serve pricing: no platform fee, a prepaid wallet for WhatsApp, RCS, SMS and voice plus 18% GST, and 1,000 AI messages free a month then ₹1 each.
From gupshup.ai by Gupshup 3 min
Twilio's per-message price for SMS to India ($0.0832 outbound), useful for a business outside India texting Indian customers or comparing global providers.
From twilio.com by Twilio 3 min
The same ground, over in Grow & market, our Starting Up track.
