On 08/01/2016, Twilio introduced origin-based pricing for Programmable Voice and Elastic SIP Trunking to many destinations in Europe. These price changes reflect continuous developments in the markets, and we continue to roll out origin-based pricing to additional European countries as our carriers do so.
What is Origin-Based Pricing?
Origin-based pricing is the concept that calls to the same destination have different prices depending on where each call comes from. For example, a programmable voice call to a mobile number in France might cost $0.05 per minute if called from a French number, but cost $0.125 per minute if called from a US number. Origin is determined by the caller ID of the call whether it be configured in the API, PBX, or Twilio's Console via SIP Trunking.
Why is this happening?
Many telecom networks in Europe impose surcharges for traffic originating from certain locations. Often times, these surcharges are many multiples of the actual underlying rate. Although the details and applicability for each country and network varies, generally calls from outside Europe into Europe will be more expensive than calls within Europe.
How does this affect me?
Historically, Twilio has charged the same rate to call a particular destination regardless of where the call originated. However, for calls to certain European destinations, we have implemented origin-based pricing. For Twilio customers, the origin will be determined by the caller ID information sent when placing the call (Programmable Voice & Elastic SIP Trunking).
Which Countries fall under "EEA"?
In countries where origin-based pricing has been implemented, new routes were created to account for call origination. As such route names will generally end in ‘from EEA’ and ‘from US/CA’. The countries that fall into these various categories are listed in the table below. Also specific origin prefixes can be downloaded from our Voice pricing and SIP Trunking pricing pages.
Categories | Included Countries |
EEA | Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom |
US/CA | United States and Canada, but excludes Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and other ‘+1’ countries |
Grp A | France, Hungary, and Portugal |
Grp B | Austria, Italy, and Poland |
Grp C | Croatia, Czech Republic, Greece, and Lithuania |