Proof of Holdings vs Telesign

Telesign advertises $0.0072 per SMS Verify. This is their US rate — one of the lowest per-SMS prices available. For US-only, high-volume phone verification, it's genuinely competitive.

But most businesses verify users internationally. In Europe, Telesign's SMS costs jump to $0.05-0.10+ per message. In Lithuania alone, it's approximately 8 cents per SMS. In some countries, SMS costs reach $0.20-0.50+ per message.

Proof of Holdings charges €0.0079 per proof — the same rate for any country, any asset type. No destination surcharges. A verification to the US, Lithuania, Brazil, or Nigeria all costs the same.

Telesign's strength is phone intelligence. Their PhoneID and Intelligence API provide risk scoring, carrier lookup, number type detection, and fraud indicators. If you need to assess phone number risk before verification, Telesign has a strong offering.

Proof of Holdings doesn't offer phone intelligence. Our approach is different: instead of scoring a phone number's risk, we prove the user controls it with cryptographic evidence. Reverse OTP inherently filters out fraudulent numbers because the real user must actively participate.

These approaches complement each other. You could use Telesign for risk scoring and Proof of Holdings for actual verification with proof tokens.

Telesign's SMS and voice channels are vulnerable to SIM-swap attacks. Their Push MFA requires a mobile app with their SDK.

Proof of Holdings is immune to SIM-swap — Reverse OTP requires the user to send a message from their actual messaging app, not just receive one at a phone number.

Every verification produces an RS256-signed JWT proof token verifiable offline. Telesign returns verification status with no cryptographic attestation.