If you've shopped cloud phone systems, you've probably had Toky on a tab somewhere. It's a solid VoIP product — virtual numbers in a lot of countries, a clean softphone, call recording, integrations with the usual CRMs. For a small sales or support team that mostly needs to make and take calls, it does the job.
But a lot of buyers don't actually want a phone system. They want a way to reach people: a dialer for the calls, real SMS for the texts that get answered, and a clean answer on compliance so their messages don't get filtered. That combination is where Toky's "call platform with SMS bolted on" model starts to feel like you're paying for one thing and improvising the other.
Full disclosure: I work for ReadySMS, so I have a side in this. I'll try to be fair about where Toky is genuinely the better pick, because for some teams it is.
Where Toky is genuinely strong
Let me start with the obvious: if your primary need is a polished international cloud phone, Toky is a reasonable choice. Confirm the current specifics on their site, but in general the product is built around:
- International number coverage — virtual numbers across a wide range of countries, which matters if you support customers outside North America.
- A clean inbound/outbound calling experience — softphone, IVR, call queues, voicemail, recording.
- CRM integrations that log calls automatically.
If you're a global support desk or a team that lives on the phone and texts only occasionally, that's a coherent toolset. ReadySMS isn't trying to be your full PBX with international DIDs and an IVR tree.
The friction shows up when SMS becomes a real channel for you — when you're sending campaigns, doing follow-up at volume, or texting US numbers that run through carrier filtering. That's a different problem than "make a call work," and it's the one we built around.
The add-on-pricing problem
Cloud phone products tend to price SMS as a secondary feature: a per-message rate that's fine for a handful of texts, plus number fees, plus whatever your plan tier costs to unlock messaging at all. None of it is outrageous in isolation. It just isn't designed for someone whose plan is "text 5,000 leads on Tuesday."
ReadySMS prices the other way around. SMS is the product, so the per-segment cost is the headline number, not a footnote. Here are the tiers (per outbound segment, plus a flat $0.0045/segment carrier pass-through that's billed separately so the invoice is legible):
| Tier | Volume / month | Per segment | + carrier | All-in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 0–50,000 | $0.0155 | $0.0045 | $0.0200 |
| Growth | 50,000–500,000 | $0.0125 | $0.0045 | $0.0170 |
| Enterprise | 500,000+ | $0.0028 | $0.0045 | $0.0073 |
That carrier pass-through is the same wholesale fee everyone pays — we just don't mark it up and bury it. You can sanity-check your own numbers against the cost calculator.
A worked example
Say you send a 175-character promo with one emoji to 5,000 contacts. The emoji forces unicode encoding, which drops the segment limit to 70 characters — so 175 chars splits into 3 segments.
On the Starter tier:
`` 5,000 contacts × 3 segments × ($0.0155 + $0.0045) = 15,000 segments × $0.0200 = $300.00 ``
Drop the emoji and tighten the copy under 160 characters and it's a single GSM-7 segment:
`` 5,000 × 1 × $0.0200 = $100.00 ``
Same campaign, a third of the cost, just from understanding segment math. If your current dialer treats SMS as a tacked-on extra, you rarely get that visibility. We wrote up the encoding traps in more detail in reduce SMS costs.
SMS deliverability and done-for-you 10DLC
Here's the part that bites people. In the US, application-to-person texting runs over A2P 10DLC, and unregistered traffic gets carrier-filtered — meaning your messages quietly don't arrive. A cloud phone that lets you "turn on SMS" doesn't always mean your texts will actually land.
ReadySMS handles 10DLC registration in-app: brand and campaign registration, the carrier fees (roughly ~$10/mo per brand and ~$20/mo per campaign), and approval that typically lands in 4–7 business days. You don't go fight with a registration portal in another window. If the term is new to you, what is 10DLC walks through it.
On top of registration, the compliance stack runs on every send:
- Automatic STOP/opt-out handling — an opt-out propagates so that contact can't be messaged again across campaigns.
- Quiet-hours enforcement — sends are held outside permitted local hours based on the recipient's area, which reduces TCPA exposure.
- Litigator and DNC scrubbing — known TCPA-litigator and DNC numbers can be screened out before send.
- Consent/attestation capture — opt-in is recorded, building an audit trail.
None of this makes you lawsuit-proof — compliance is ultimately the sender's responsibility — but it's the difference between "we have a policy" and "the platform enforces it by default." There's also a standalone litigator scrub at $0.005 per contact if you want to screen a list before a big push; given TCPA exposure can run $500–$1,500 per text, that's cheap insurance.
The built-in power dialer
Toky's whole identity is the phone, so it's fair to ask whether ReadySMS even competes there. We do, with a Power Dialer built into the same platform as the SMS — so calls and texts share one contact list and one inbox instead of two disconnected tools.
| Free | Pro | Team | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $0/mo | $29/agent/mo | $69/agent/mo |
| Agents | 1 | up to 3 | unlimited |
| Per-minute | $0.06 | $0.05 | $0.0375 |
| Included | 1 number, 500 min/mo | — | speed-to-lead, lead routing, manager monitoring |
You get call recording, voicemail drop, transfer/barge/whisper, and auto-text. Minutes bill in 6-second increments. On the Team plan, speed-to-lead auto-dials a new lead the moment it arrives — and pairs the call with an instant text, which is the real edge. A new lead contacted in the first five minutes is dramatically more likely to convert than one called an hour later.
If you want a fuller comparison of dialer-first tools, the CloudTalk alternative and Aircall alternative posts cover that ground from the call-platform angle.
Native GoHighLevel integration
This one's specific. If you run on GoHighLevel — or you're an agency managing client sub-accounts — Toky isn't built around your stack. ReadySMS connects to GHL via OAuth with two-way sync: inbound and outbound messages land in both ReadySMS and GHL, mapped per location/sub-account so each client stays isolated.
For an agency, that's the difference between a tool you have to babysit and one that just shows up where your team already works. Setup is covered in the GHL SMS setup guide. If you're not on GHL, the integrations page shows the other options — ReadySMS works fine standalone too.
When Toky is still the right call
I'll be straight: don't switch just to switch. Toky is the better fit if:
- You need international virtual numbers across many countries as a core requirement.
- You want a full PBX experience — IVR, queues, the works — and SMS is genuinely incidental.
- Your texting is a few replies a week, not campaigns, so SMS pricing barely registers.
ReadySMS is the better fit if SMS is a real channel, you send to US numbers and need 10DLC handled, you want a dialer and texting under one roof, or you're on GoHighLevel.
The practical takeaway
If you're choosing a cloud dialer mainly to talk to people, Toky is a fine phone system and you should confirm its current pricing and features directly on their site. But if your actual job is reaching people — texting at volume, calling fast, and not getting carrier-filtered — a tool where SMS is the headline feature, not an upsell, tends to cost less and break less.
ReadySMS gives you registered SMS with transparent per-segment pricing, a built-in power dialer, done-for-you 10DLC, and native GHL sync. There are 20 free test sends to start, plus a $25 credit when you register, so you can send real messages before deciding anything. Check the pricing, run your own numbers in the calculator, and compare it honestly against what your current phone tool charges once SMS is switched on.