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What is Twilio used for in a Bolna voice agent?
Twilio is the telephony provider Bolna uses to make and receive calls outside India, including the US numbers you can buy in the Bolna dashboard. Pick Twilio when your callers are in the US, UK, Singapore, Australia or other markets Twilio covers, or when your numbers already live in a Twilio account.
How do I set up Twilio with Bolna?
- Get a number. Either buy a US number at platform.bolna.ai/phone-numbers, or connect your own account under Settings, then Integrations: filter by Telephony, click Connect on the Twilio card and enter your Account SID and Auth Token.
- Open your agent's Calling tab, set the telephony provider to Twilio and save.
- For outbound calls, enter recipient numbers in the dashboard or call the Bolna call API with your agent ID.
- For inbound calls, turn on Inbound Calling in the Calling tab and pick your number. For a number in your own Twilio account, you can instead paste the agent's inbound URL as the number's webhook in the Twilio Console, with the method set to POST.
Screenshots and API examples: Twilio setup guide in the Bolna docs.
Which numbers and regions does Bolna support with Twilio?
| Feature | Twilio on Bolna |
|---|---|
| Supported countries | United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and others |
| Outbound calls | Yes |
| Inbound calls | Yes |
| Bring your own Twilio account | Yes |
| Buy a number in Bolna | Yes, US numbers searchable by area code, $5 per month |
| Keypad input (DTMF) | Yes |
| Voicemail detection | Yes |
| Self-hosted (on-prem) Twilio app | Yes, via a Docker image from Bolna |
For calls within India, use Plivo or Exotel. If you'd rather connect over SIP, see Twilio Elastic SIP trunking. Number rent is billed separately from per-minute call costs; see pricing.
What can you build with Twilio and Bolna?
A front desk that answers every call. Point a Twilio number at your agent so it answers support questions, books appointments or qualifies leads at any hour.
Outbound reminders and follow-ups. Have the agent call for sales follow-ups, appointment reminders, payment collection or surveys, and scale with batch calling.
Keypad input during the call. Ask callers to enter an OTP, order number or callback number on their keypad, and the agent reads the digits like any other message.
Calls that stay in your cloud. Run Bolna's Twilio app in your own infrastructure with your Twilio credentials, so call recordings never reach Bolna.