Many years ago when we launched the RingCentral Developer Platform we provided every developer with a free account to try out our APIs and develop applications against them. This free account was called the RingCentral Developer sandbox. Partners could use the sandbox to build and distribute applications to RingCentral customers, and customers could use the sandbox to keep their development and business data properly segregated from each other.
Fast forward to now. A lot has changed within the industry, making it difficult for us to continue offering this service for free.
As a result, we are beginning the process of transitioning partners and customers away from this free service and migrating them to a new, low-cost, fully-supported, and feature-rich Developer plan.
This is the first step in a larger 2024 plan to simplify the RingCentral developer experience, by streamlining the process by which applications are registered, developed, and distributed to users. We will discuss these larger plans in an upcoming post, but for now, we want to acquaint developers with this new plan, by answering questions we anticipate developers might have.
I am a RingEX customer, do I need to purchase a developer account to use the APIs?
Every RingEX Core, Advanced and Ultra subscriber already has access to RingCentral’s APIs, and can develop applications and integrations using their RingEX account.
Only those RingEX customers who would like to completely segregate their app development activities from the day-to-day operations within their primary account should purchase a second Developer account.
I tried to sign up for a Developer Account, but my registration was blocked and is being held for review. What should I do?
Our RingCentral development account is currently available in the following countries:
- United States
- Canada
- Australia
- United Kingdom
To sign up successfully for a development account, the person signing up must do the following:
- Initiate the sign-up process while being physically in one of the above countries.
- Provide a business address that is located in one of the above countries.
- Provide a payment method tied to a bank in one of the above countries.
Later in the year, we will be expanding the set of countries our development account can serve. In the meantime, developers can sign-up for a RingEX plan (Core, Advanced, or Ultra). While more expensive, a RingEX account will give you the access you need to call our APIs, not to mention a complete account ready to serve your business’ communication needs.
I would like to send SMS with my developer account, how do I enable that?
The ability to send SMS is disabled during your development account’s free trial. If you wish to begin sending SMS, you will need to login to the Developer Console, and click the “Upgrade” button displayed on the banner for your free trial. Upon upgrading your free trial to a paid account, you will be able to begin the next step: TCR registration.
TCR registration is required for all accounts wishing to send SMS in any way. The process can sometimes take several days or weeks to complete, so we recommend that you begin the process as soon as you are able.
If you are an existing RingEX customer and are using a Development account as a secondary account, you will need to go through the TCR registration process a second time. We recognize that this is an inconvenience, and we are working to simplify this process in the future. Thank you for your understanding in this matter.
How do I purchase additional capacity or licenses for premium RingCentral products?
A RingCentral development account comes with the capabilities most developers and use cases require. However, you may find from time to time, depending upon your use case and the products you need to integrate with, that your account may not have the access you require.
To rectify this, you are free to purchase additional capacity or licenses for products like RingSense, Webinar and more through the RingCentral Admin Console. Here are a list of products developers frequently inquire about:
- Additional SMS capacity to be able to send more SMS messages
- Additional voice minutes to be able to conduct more phone calls
- Additional phone numbers, or toll-free numbers
- RingCentral Webinar licenses
- RingSense licenses
If you need help in adding services to your account, please contact support who will be happy to assist you.
What is the difference between a RingEX Core/Advanced/Ultra account and a Developer account?
A developer account is not intended for, or permitted to be used for official business communications. For this reason, every phone call that is made, SMS that is sent, or fax sent to or received from a Developer account is augmented with a watermark to unambiguously convey that a communication is taking place from a “Developer account” and it is for “testing purposes only.”
The primary benefit of a Developer account is one of cost. We have designed the plan to meet the needs of the vast majority of developers, and to keep costs to a minimum regardless of how many developers you are collaborating with in your account.
Some developers’ needs may exceed the basic limits of a Developer account. If this is the case for you, then you can easily purchase additional capacity or access as needed, while keeping your costs relatively to low when compared to other RingEX plans.