Twilio Console
To get started, you will need to create a free Twilio trial account or login to your existing Twilio account.
Dashboard
Once you are logged in to the Twilio Console, you will land on the Dashboard. This is where you can access your Account SID and Auth Token, which will be needed for using the APIs.
Phone Numbers
Twilio Console > Phone Numbers is where you can purchase and configure phone numbers. To begin experimenting with Twilio’s APIs, you will need to purchase a phone number. It costs $1 per month for the phone line (per message fees are charged separately). This is only needed for development and testing purposes.
Ultimately, after you have refactored your code and tested it using a Twilio phone number, you will be ready to migrate your existing Zipwhip text-enabled phone numbers to Twilio.
Authentication
Zipwhip’s authentication is line based, requiring a separate token (session key) for each line. Twilio’s Authentication is account based, providing access to all lines associated with an account using a single token.
To authenticate with Twilio’s APIs you will need either of the following:
- Account SID & Auth Token - your master credentials found on the Dashboard above. These are used primarily for local development and should not be shared, stored on a server or a git repo.
- API Key & Secret - you can generate unique revokable API Keys for authentication. It is recommended that you generate and use unique API Keys for server side apps rather than using your master credentials.
Accounts and Subaccounts
If you have customers of your own, Twilio Subaccounts are a great way to distinguish different groups or numbers and usage on your project. Each subaccount has its own numbers and usage reporting, as well as unique Account SID and Auth Token credentials, but is billed to the same Twilio project balance.
Learn more: View and Create New Twilio Subaccounts.
Twilio SDKs & CLI
Twilio provides SDKs for all common programming languages (node, python, ruby, java, c#, php). In addition, it is recommended that you install the Twilio CLI, which provides access to Twilio’s APIs from the command line and is a convenient way to explore the APIs.