Why Bitstack chose Prelude to boost SMS verification deliverability

Bitstack is a fintech app that offers users a crypto wallet which also works as a bank account. It allows users to pay with crypto or fiduciary money on the web. Founders Alexandre Roubaud and Kabir Sethi created the app in order to make Bitcoin savings accessible to everyone.

Alexandre Roubaud, CEO at Bitstack, describes the genesis:

“I discovered Bitcoin during my studies and was convinced by its value proposition of having an internet currency without permission and fees, allowing money transfer anywhere. It's a predictable, deflationary monetary policy, unlike current fiat currencies. So I reconciled these two worlds: helping people save and invest in Bitcoin. The mission was simple: help people save and invest in Bitcoin effortlessly, regardless of their knowledge or budget.”

Their business model was quickly successful, but the team quickly noticed an issue with their phone verification flows.

Fixing the conversion and deliverability

Bitstack and fintech companies have a main concern regarding SMS verification as their user perform sensible actions related to money: deliverability. When confirming a payment or a transfer, not receiving the SMS is big deal. It adds frustration and complexity to a moment that is already charged emotionally.

Bitstack tested Firebase and Twilio. Both worked fine in a few supported countries. But outside of this list of countries deliverability was not reliable and they had no or little ways to see if the SMS was really delivered or not.

As a global product or even to meet the demands of today's nomadic challenges, it's essential to work with all types of phone number prefixes.

The deliverability issue had also a direct impact on their onboarding conversion rates. The growth of an app is greatly impacted by the conversion of your onboarding flow. A seamless entry point — i.e. the phone verification step — has a direct positive impact on:

• app perception (first thing you get from an new app)

• viral loops (invitation, referral)

• social graphs (friend finders via the address book)

They had to find a solution.

How Prelude helped?

“Prelude offered an optimal combination of delivery success and cost-efficiency, which was crucial for us as we scaled up.” — Alexandre

First of all our onboarding process was quick and simple, and allowed them to start comparing our offers within hours, this was a good argument to give us a shot!

Rather than connecting with a single provider, Prelude automatically connected Bitstack with 20 international and local providers. For each number Bitstack needs to send an SMS to, we arbitrate among all our providers, checking a variety of parameters:

• Operator

• IP

• Route Conversion

• and more…

We then select the route that offers the best conversion to price ratio.

At Prelude, we compute conversions differently from our competitors. Instead of basing it on deliverability, we assess how many sent messages lead to a correct code being entered by the end user in the app. This approach provides us with a reliable KPI to track, as we do not fully rely on the telecommunication providers' ability to confirm message delivery.

This strategy led to a 99.8% delivery rate and 95% conversion rate. It was a 10 points improvement globally compared to competitors and even higher in regions that were inadequately supported by the two other providers. By reducing the number of attempts, we lowered the cost of their SMS verification service. These results convinced Bitstack to gradually shift all their traffic to Prelude.

Our global presence and the ability to provide Bitstack with seamless access to markets worldwide was the final argument for going ahead:

• no registrations

• no LOA to fill

• direct routes

For these reasons, and the fact that we are like Bitstack a French company, Prelude presented itself as a better fit.

Better visibility and transparency

Bitstack came to Prelude primarily to boost their conversion, but they were pleasantly surprised by the capabilities of our dashboard. We provided them with clear indicators of their success in all the regions.

Our dashboard displays acquisitions in real-time, which was a feature Bitstack particularly loved. They were able to track every requests and troubleshoot any user code issue. We also show global statistics on specific countries that helped them understand the efficacy of new releases. If conversions dropped after introducing a new feature, they were able to see the dip immediately.

This level of transparency was something Bitstack did not expect when they met Prelude. But that's what made their team decide to entrust us with their phone verification pipeline.

“I would definitely recommend it. Prelude meets its value proposition for authentication, optimizing success rates and costs. The team is approachable, understands our needs, and the product delivers on its promise. I would highlight the good relationship and fluid communication we have with the team.” — Alexandre

Conclusion

As always, Prelude stood out because of its ability to drive conversions and maintain complete transparency of transactions. Prelude has become a mainstay of Bitstack’s operations, to the extent that it is used weekly by the CTO’s office and the Ops team.

Built for developers

When SMS deliverability issues escalate, the problem can land on development teams’ plates. However, it’s not common practice to provide onboarding data, transparent dashboards or quick customer support. Prelude, on the other hand, is built by and for startups and their dev teams.