Inbound calls on Shopbell work with seven telephony providers. Setup flow is identical — create a telephony configuration, paste provider credentials, attach a phone number, Shopbell pushes the inbound webhook URL. This guide covers the five most common: Twilio, Vonage, Plivo, Telnyx, Cloudonix.

Twilio (recommended, easiest)

Largest US coverage, best documentation, most features. Create a Telephony Configuration, paste your Twilio Account SID and Auth Token. Buy a number through Twilio directly (Shopbell handles API call) or attach a number you already own. Shopbell pushes the webhook URL automatically. Cost: $1.15/month per number + $0.0085/minute for inbound. See the Connecting a Twilio Number guide for full setup including the error 22105 troubleshooting path.

Vonage (Nexmo)

Strong international coverage. Create a Telephony Configuration, choose Vonage, paste your Vonage API Key and API Secret. Buy a number through Vonage's API or attach a number from your Vonage account. Cost: roughly $0.0052/minute for inbound US, varies internationally.

Plivo

Cost-effective option for high-volume deployments. $0.0025/minute inbound US. Same setup flow — paste Plivo Auth ID and Auth Token, attach a Plivo number.

Telnyx

Modern provider with WebRTC support, competitive pricing. $0.0035/minute inbound US. Setup: paste Telnyx API Key, attach a number. Telnyx has a Call Control API that Shopbell uses for connection.

Cloudonix

Niche provider with SIP expertise. Useful if you have an existing SIP infrastructure. Setup: paste Cloudonix credentials. Less common for Self-Serve DIY customers but supported for SIP-based compliance / enterprise deployments.

Asterisk ARI (self-hosted, on-prem)

For businesses with an on-prem Asterisk PBX. Connect Shopbell to your Asterisk via the Asterisk REST Interface (ARI). Audio streams between your PBX and Shopbell over WebSocket. Best for healthcare and finance organizations that must keep their PBX on-prem for compliance. Advanced — contact our team to assist with setup.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which provider should I pick?

For most Self-Serve DIY customers in the US: Twilio. Easiest setup, best docs, widest coverage. For international deployments: Vonage or Telnyx. For SIP/on-prem PSTN integration: Asterisk ARI or Cloudonix.

Can I use multiple providers?

Yes. Each Telephony Configuration can use a different provider. Attach different numbers to different configurations. Useful for redundancy (one Twilio config as primary, one Vonage as failover for when one carrier has an outage).

Do I need to set the webhook URL manually?

No — Shopbell pushes the webhook URL (https://app.shopbell.ai/api/v1/telephony/inbound/run by default) to the provider when you attach a number. If the URL is wrong (e.g. error 22105 on Twilio), see Troubleshooting.