Bland

Overview

Bland is an enterprise voice AI platform for phone agents. Its messaging stack runs the same pathways, personas and memory over SMS, RCS and iMessage, and the same API also takes WhatsApp. Bland iMessage gives an agent a branded contact with your company name and logo instead of a plain number. Messaging is an Enterprise feature set up with an account executive; SMS is also on the self-serve Agent Phone Plan.

Key features

• iMessage with photos, videos, documents, voice memos, tapbacks, text effects, Live Stickers, typing indicators, read receipts and delivery status
• RCS with a verified business profile, suggested replies, buttons and cards, falling back to SMS
• One /v1/sms API for SMS, RCS, WhatsApp and iMessage, with HMAC-signed webhooks
• Human handoff and resume on any thread
• Shared contact memory across voice and messaging
• AI phone calls, a hosted MCP server and a CLI
• SOC 2 Type II, HIPAA with a BAA, GDPR, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS (self-attested)

Pricing

Voice plans are Start (free, $0.14 a minute), Build ($299 a month, $0.12 a minute) and Scale ($499 a month, $0.11 a minute). SMS costs $0.02 per message in or out. The Agent Phone Plan is $29.99 a month ($14.99 the first month) for one US number with unlimited US and Canada calls and texts, capped at 100 texts a day. iMessage, RCS and WhatsApp prices are not published.

How it compares to Linq

Both send iMessage, RCS and SMS through one API with SMS fallback, and both report SOC 2 Type II. Linq publishes flat pricing from $260 a month with no per-message fees; Bland's iMessage needs an Enterprise contract and its SMS is billed per message. Bland's core product places and answers AI phone calls, while Linq's docs say its API does not place or answer calls. Linq documents iMessage group chats, polls and threaded replies; Bland's iMessage docs do not mention them.

Best for

Enterprises already running Bland voice agents that want the same agent on SMS, RCS and branded iMessage.

Sources

• docs.bland.ai/tutorials/messaging/imessage
• docs.bland.ai/tutorials/messaging/overview
• docs.bland.ai/tutorials/messaging/sms
• docs.bland.ai/tutorials/messaging/rcs
• docs.bland.ai/api-v1/post/sms-send
• docs.bland.ai/platform/billing
• docs.bland.ai/platform/agent-phone-plan
• docs.bland.ai/tutorials/post-call-webhooks
• docs.bland.ai/tutorials/webhook-signing
• docs.bland.ai/integrations/mcp/overview
• docs.bland.ai/integrations/mcp/personal-agents
• docs.bland.ai/sdks/cli
• docs.bland.ai/api-v1/post/sms-conversations-handoff
• docs.bland.ai/api-v1/get/audit-logs
• docs.bland.ai/api-v1/get/sms-conversations-id
• docs.bland.ai/enterprise-features/infrastructure-and-releases
• docs.bland.ai/llms.txt
• bland.ai/product/bland-imessage
• bland.ai/pricing
• bland.ai/security
• bland.ai/integrations