What is CPaaS (Communications Platform-as-a-Service)?

CPaaS refers to a cloud-based platform that provides the ability for organizations to add communication services to their applications without the cost and maintenance overhead of developing their own solutions.

It allows them to use SMS, Voice or messaging apps like WhatsApp, Viber and Messenger and to easily adopt new communication channels as their business adapts to the changing preferences of their customers.

Working with a CPaaS provider also helps organizations to easily scale the volume of their communications to deal with seasonal variations in messaging traffic – without having to make expensive hardware purchases to cover peak periods.

CPaaS works by providing an Application Programming Interface (API) that software developers working for an organization can use to access messaging tools and features made available by the CPaaS provider.

For example, a financial institution or bank would partner with a CPaaS provider to be able to send customers SMS alerts when they were about to reach their spending limit, or when there was a potentially fraudulent transaction on their account.

The financial organization can concentrate on their core business and the secure API link between their operational systems and the CPaaS provider’s communication services gives them peace of mind that important messages will get delivered to their customers.

Apart from the multiple communication tools that companies get access to, they can also benefit from go-to-market partnership, go-to-market strategy, sales expertise, client onboarding and customer support.

The right CPaaS provider can help companies of all sizes to save time and money, easily scale their communications, and quickly adapt to changing market conditions and changing customer preferences.

Not all CPaaS providers are equal. When looking for a CPaaS provider it is important to do your research and find providers that have experience of your market type and size, cover the communication channels that you want to use, and offer the flexibility that you need to satisfy your use cases.

Research and advisory groups that specialize in the CPaaS space like Omdia, can provide practical advice and reviews of providers that you can consult. Their 2022 report of the top providers of CPaaS solutions, includes Infobip as a ‘leader’.

Some of the key considerations when drawing up a shortlist of providers should be:

Infobip offers a CPaaS service called CPaaS X which is an evolution of the standard CPaaS model and provides our platform customers with greater flexibility and more advanced configuration, management, and reporting capabilities.

With the flexibility that CPaaS offers there really are no limits to the communication use cases that can be covered, but here are a sample that Infobip customers currently use our APIs for – covering channels including SMS, email, WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber, and web chat.