HN Explorer

Show HN: Postack – SMS API for Developers (postack.dev)

8 points by ufarooqi ↗ HN
Hello developers,

I'm excited to share something I've been working on out of my own frustrations with Twilio and others - meet Postack, an SMS API that's all about making your life easier. We're offering white-glove onboarding, quick campaign approvals, and some of the best pricing in the market, which gets even better as you scale.

Designed with a focus on developer experience, we aim to remove the headaches associated with SMS campaigns, making integration a breeze. Check us out and let's make SMS communication straightforward and cost-effective together.

14 comments

[ 0.29 ms ] story [ 37.6 ms ] thread
cranberryturkey
need a pricing page
ufarooqi
It was already there. I should have added it in Navbar too which I just did. Thanks for correction.

https://postack.dev/pricing

cranberryturkey
you should tell us what "per segment" means. Never heard of it. I use twilio mostly.
gelstudios
Have you ever had an SMS get chunked into two?

A segment is the character (really byte) limit for a single message.

ufarooqi
Twilio also charges per segment, they are probably not transparent. So a segment means 160 characters (It’s a bit more complicated than that).

So if you want to send an 320 characters long SMS. You are sending two segments.

Let me know if it makes sense?

cranberryturkey
that makes sense. you should put a * with a defintiion or something
gelstudios
Interesting, how are you handling A2P?

Curious, what was the worst thing about Twilio?

FYI I went straight for api examples, and the docs page looks like a placeholder https://docs.postack.dev/quickstart

ufarooqi
Absolutely, I get the concern about the docs looking like a placeholder. We're putting a lot of effort into crafting the best SDKs for major languages, so for now, the most comprehensive guide is at https://docs.postack.dev/api-reference/introduction.

Regarding A2P messaging, it's pretty standard: create your brand and campaigns, typically with a 72-hour turnaround. We're streamlining compliance by auto-generating legal documents, webform screenshots using templates, and leveraging ChatGPT to preemptively fix any issues before they reach upstream carriers. It's all about making the process as smooth as possible for you.

ufarooqi
On Twilio: It took me a staggering three weeks just to get my business profile reviewed and approved, followed by another 2-3 weeks of back-and-forth communication to get my campaign off the ground. It was a real test of patience.
gelstudios
Not meant as a nitpick but lots of links to docs are "dead" or redirect to that placeholder. quick example: on your home page both compliance links go nowhere.
ufarooqi
Compliance pages are still WIP. Just fixed other links. Thanks for help.
jineshshah36
Are you running on top of twilio? Where do you get your numbers from?
ufarooqi
We are not running on top of Twilio. We use multiple tier-1 aggregators for redundancy and Twilio is not one of them. In-fact Twilio also uses some of them.

Numbers are sourced from DID wholesalers.