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Telecommunications · head to head

Exotel vs Gupshup

Exotel logo

Exotel

Telecommunications

Indian cloud telephony and contact centre platform sold as prepaid credit bundles

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Gupshup logo

Gupshup

Communication

Conversational messaging and CPaaS with a flat platform fee stacked on top of Meta per-message rates

From
$0.001/message
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Exotel bundles expire: the 9,999 rupee Dabbler pack has only five months of validity and unused credits are lost at the end, so seasonal or uneven calling volumes waste money that a pay-as-you-go carrier would not.; Gupshup the Gupshup platform fee of about 0.001 dollars per message is negligible next to Meta pass-through rates, so comparing providers on their own fee is misleading, and the country and category mix of your traffic determines almost the entire bill.
  • They diverge on capability: Exotel covers Exophones, Gupshup covers WhatsApp Business API.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Exotel and Gupshup actually diverge.

Attributes where Exotel and Gupshup differ
AttributeExotelGupshup
Starting priceOn request$0.001/message
Pricing modelPrepaid credit bundle with a fixed validity periodPer message sent
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, APIWeb, API
CategoryTelecommunicationsCommunication

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Exotel

  • Exophones
  • IVR and call flows
  • Number masking
  • Contact centre
  • SMS and WhatsApp
  • Call recording and quality
  • CRM integrations
  • Communication APIs

Only in Gupshup

  • WhatsApp Business API
  • Flat platform fee
  • RCS messaging
  • SMS and voice
  • Bot Studio
  • Agent inbox
  • Campaign manager
  • Emerging market reach

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Exotel

  • An Indian delivery or marketplace platform that must connect customers and riders without exposing either phone numbernot Gupshup
  • A lending or insurance business running outbound collections that needs recorded, monitored calls from Indian numbers with DLT compliance handlednot Gupshup
  • A healthcare aggregator routing patient calls to the right clinic by IVR with fallback to a queue outside working hoursnot Gupshup
  • A product team that wants to trigger verification calls and SMS from its own application over a REST API rather than buy an agent productnot Gupshup

Gupshup

  • An e-commerce brand sending order and delivery notifications over WhatsApp to customers across India and Southeast Asianot Exotel
  • A bank or fintech running one-time passcodes and transactional alerts with fallback from WhatsApp to SMSnot Exotel
  • A company deploying a WhatsApp chatbot for tier one support with handover to human agents for anything it cannot resolvenot Exotel
  • A marketing team running WhatsApp template campaigns to opted-in lists in markets where email engagement is lownot Exotel

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Exotel

  • Bundles expire: the 9,999 rupee Dabbler pack has only five months of validity and unused credits are lost at the end, so seasonal or uneven calling volumes waste money that a pay-as-you-go carrier would not.
  • Voice, SMS and WhatsApp draw from one shared credit pool, which means a marketing SMS burst can consume the credits your support line needs and force an unplanned top-up.
  • Per-minute billing runs on a pulse of 30 or 60 seconds, so a 61 second call is charged as two full minutes; on high call volumes this materially inflates the effective rate against a per-second competitor.
  • Coverage and pricing are built around India, with a smaller footprint in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, so a business calling mainly North America or Europe gets worse rates and less carrier depth than a global CPaaS provider.
  • The enterprise contact centre tier publishes no pricing at all, so the transparent bundle prices only apply to the small end and larger buyers are back in an opaque sales process.

Gupshup

  • The Gupshup platform fee of about 0.001 dollars per message is negligible next to Meta pass-through rates, so comparing providers on their own fee is misleading, and the country and category mix of your traffic determines almost the entire bill.
  • Gupshup publishes no single flat rate for a full send, so accurate cost modelling requires you to build a country by country and category by category forecast before any provider comparison is meaningful.
  • Meta moved from conversation-based to per message billing in July 2025, which materially changed the economics of high-frequency messaging, and any budget or ROI model built on the old conversation pricing is now wrong.
  • Template approval sits with Meta rather than Gupshup, so rejections and category reclassifications can stall a campaign regardless of provider, and support quality on chasing them is a common complaint.
  • The product surface is broad, spanning CPaaS APIs, bot building and campaign tooling, and the non-API tools are less refined than dedicated conversational marketing platforms, so many buyers use Gupshup purely as a pipe.

Pricing, plan by plan

Exotel

On request
  • Dabbler$9999/year
    • Validity is five months, not twelve
    • Rental component of 4,999 rupees included in the price
    • 5,000 shared credits across calls, SMS and WhatsApp
  • Believer$19999/year
    • Validity is eleven months
    • Rental component of 10,499 rupees included
    • 9,500 shared credits
  • Influencer$49499/year
    • Validity is eleven months
    • Rental component of 10,499 rupees included
    • 39,000 shared credits
  • Enterprise Contact Centre$undefined/year
    • Full contact centre with supervisor tooling and AI agents
    • Custom credit and agent volumes
    • Pricing quoted, not published

Gupshup

$0.001/message
  • Messaging$0.001/message
    • About 0.001 USD Gupshup platform fee per outgoing template message
    • Same fee on outgoing and incoming session messages
    • Meta per-message charges passed through on top, varying by country and category

Which should you pick?

Choose Exotel if

  • You need exophones.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, API.
  • You also want ivr and call flows.
Exotel review

Choose Gupshup if

  • You need whatsapp business api.
  • You work on Web, API.
  • You also want flat platform fee.
Gupshup review

Questions people ask

Is Exotel or Gupshup better?
Neither clearly leads. Exotel starts at On request and Gupshup at $0.001/message, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Exotel or Gupshup?
Exotel starts at On request and Gupshup at $0.001/message.
Does Exotel or Gupshup run on more platforms?
Exotel runs on Web, iOS, Android, API. Gupshup runs on Web, API.
What is Exotel best used for?
Exotel is most often used for an indian delivery or marketplace platform that must connect customers and riders without exposing either phone number, a lending or insurance business running outbound collections that needs recorded, monitored calls from indian numbers with dlt compliance handled, a healthcare aggregator routing patient calls to the right clinic by ivr with fallback to a queue outside working hours, a product team that wants to trigger verification calls and sms from its own application over a rest api rather than buy an agent product. Of those, an indian delivery or marketplace platform that must connect customers and riders without exposing either phone number and a lending or insurance business running outbound collections that needs recorded, monitored calls from indian numbers with dlt compliance handled are not what Gupshup is typically brought in for.
What can Exotel do that Gupshup cannot?
Exotel covers Exophones, IVR and call flows, Number masking, Contact centre. Gupshup covers WhatsApp Business API, Flat platform fee, RCS messaging, SMS and voice.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Exotel: Does Exotel publish prices?

Yes for its business phone system bundles: 9,999 rupees for Dabbler, 19,999 for Believer and 49,499 for Influencer. The enterprise contact centre is quoted.

Gupshup: What does Gupshup charge?

About 0.001 USD per outgoing template message and per session message in each direction, plus roughly 0.0001 USD per second on voice. Meta per-message charges are passed through on top.

Exotel: Do unused credits roll over?

No. Credits are tied to the bundles validity period, five months on Dabbler and eleven months on the higher packs, and expire at the end of it.

Gupshup: Is Gupshup cheaper than other WhatsApp providers?

On its own platform fee it is competitive, but that fee is a small fraction of the total. Meta pass-through rates dominate, so provider choice rarely changes your bill much.

Exotel: Can I use Exotel outside India?

Exotel operates in Southeast Asia and the Middle East as well, but India is where it holds licences, handles DLT registration and has the best rates and carrier relationships.

Gupshup: Did WhatsApp pricing change?

Yes. Meta retired per 24-hour conversation pricing on 1 July 2025 and moved to per message billing, and Gupshup followed.

Exotel: Is there a free trial?

Yes, a seven-day trial with 500 rupees of credit and no commitment.

Gupshup: Is it only for India?

No, but its strongest carrier and operator reach is in India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

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