5 signs you need a business-grade CPaaS solution
Before you venture into the exciting world of communications APIs and CPaaS (Communications-Platforms-as-a-Service), it’s important to consider a few factors that could make-or-break your buying decision. To help you along the way, we’ve identified a few signs to identify whether or not to pursue a business-grade solution vs. a more simple developer-focused CPaaS solution.
Before we hop into the five signs, let’s first answer: what differentiates business-grade CPaaS vs. regular ol’ CPaaS?
We’re glad you asked! While more traditional CPaaS focuses on the developer— the documentation, the SDKs, and excels at fast up-starts, business-grade CPaaS focuses more on the business behind the developer. Business-grade CPaaS focuses on solving needs for the product and executive teams, rather than just simple developer functionality— setting a solid foundation for future growth.
Sign #1: You expect big-time growth
If 1,000 application users sounds like a huge failure to you rather than a raving success, you should start getting concerned about outgrowing your technology stack— including your CPaaS solution. As your user base grows, so will your API usage. This means you’ll need to be prepared to face growing bills, more potential customer support issues to solve, and a growing list of demands from your bigger user base. A business-grade solution typically comes with a wholesale pricing package that will work better with your newly expanded user base than more traditional CPaaS providers. In addition, they’re well-suited for supporting the types of issues that may arise from massive scale.
Sign #2: You need more than just a forum to solve problems
When your customers have issues, you need answers. And you need them from someone who knows the backbone of your solution. Not just some Joe Schmo from the internet. A business-grade provider typically owns the network that powers the APIs— this generally means faster resolve time, root cause information, and a detailed plan for problem prevention.
Sign #3: You want full control
When voice or messaging is a crucial part of your business, it makes sense that you’d want complete control. With a business-grade CPaaS provider, you’ll get more options for that control— more rate decks, which ultimately means more control over the kinds of routes that your traffic takes on the network. A more secure connection is possible with end-to-end encryption. You can relax because you’re in the driver’s seat.
Sign #4: Your users expect maximum quality
When you’re working with more of a developer-focused CPaaS company, you’re also agreeing to work with their network infrastructure. Which typically isn’t owned or operated by the same company. In going this route, you lose the quality control the comes with working with a business-grade CPaaS provider. When your API provider is also your network provider, you get the benefit of greater on-network coverage— an important metric you should always ask your provider about in the buying process. More on-network coverage means greater quality, more control, and a better connection.
Sign #5: You need special functionality… and you need it NOW!
The ability to influence your provider’s product roadmap can make a big difference for your users. If your solution hinges on a special piece of API functionality, you need to be sure that your provider can back that up. A business-grade provider will be more of a partner, rather than just a provider.
Want even more insight like this? Check out Frost and Sullivan’s guide to identifying an enterprise-grade CPaaS provider. It will help you navigate this growing market so you can identify the real business-grade provider that works for your application.