Customer expectations are changing faster than ever—and businesses need a smarter way to keep up. According to the latest Metrigy research, “MetriCast Communications Platform-as-a-Service Market Share & Forecast”, CPaaS is no longer optional. It’s the connective tissue powering customer engagement around the world. This is great to see because I genuinely believe CPaaS is transforming how businesses interact with customers, employees, and partners. At its core, CPaaS empowers organizations to embed communications—voice, video, SMS, messaging, email—directly into digital workflows and customer experiences, using APIs and increasingly accessible low-code/no-code tools.
Why global CPaaS adoption is accelerating
The study found that 74.7% of companies are already using or planning to use CPaaS, with the highest adoption seen in Asia-Pacific (42.1%), followed by Europe (40.4%) and North America (35.9%). This marks a shift from previous years, when North America led in early adoption, signalling that global markets are converging in CPaaS maturity.
Interestingly, the report shows that small and mid-sized companies, those with fewer than 250 employees, now account for nearly three-quarters of global CPaaS revenue. This confirms that CPaaS is not just an enterprise tool – it’s a scalable, accessible, and highly relevant technology for companies of every size. But it’s not just about CPaaS. Overall, companies want integrated tools to make their lives easier—and they are now seeing that instead of waiting for a customer to get in touch through a contact center or similar, they can proactively contact them and talk with them, instead of talking to them
Why CPaaS matters: the conversation shift
The report’s biggest takeaway is that CPaaS is shifting customer engagement from broadcasting to conversations. Customers demand dialogue on their terms—SMS, video, web chat—and CPaaS weaves these channels together.
Here’s what else Metrigy found:
- Omnichannel is non-negotiable: Customers expect seamless experiences across every touchpoint. CPaaS delivers this, and Metrigy highlights that programmable messaging is still king, followed by voice and email.
- The rise of low-code/no-code: Low-code/no-code is a game-changer in democratising access to powerful communication tools, enabling even non-technical teams to design and deploy engaging customer experiences.
- CPaaS for All Sizes: While large enterprises are significant CPaaS adopters, the report also shines a light on the crucial role of smaller businesses. As noted above, small companies (20-249 employees) account for a significant portion (74.7%) of CPaaS revenue.
- Growth is strong: The CPaaS market is on a solid growth trajectory, with a projected 7% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) through 2029. This isn’t a flash in the pan; it’s a fundamental change in how businesses operate, otherwise it wouldn’t be growing.
Navigating the CPaaS Landscape: Key Considerations
The Metrigy report also offers valuable insights into provider selection and churn, which are crucial for EMEA businesses:
- Integrated solutions are preferred: Customers are increasingly seeking CPaaS solutions that integrate seamlessly with their existing UCaaS and CCaaS platforms, highlighting the importance of a unified communications approach because that approach streamlines communications, provides consistent data, reduces complexity, and enhances operational efficiency while also being a consistent user experience for staff, more cost-effective and more secure.
- Provider reliability is paramount: Businesses are looking for CPaaS providers with a strong product roadmap, reliable service, and robust support. A 21.9% churn rate underscores the importance of choosing the right partner.
The business case for using CPaaS
Ultimately this is about being there for your customers. When integrated with your other tools, CPaaS lets you improve the customer journey and touchpoints, giving you higher engagement and, hopefully, increased revenue. It’s a tool that lets you contact an audience quickly and scales to a large audience while being automated, secure and compliant with regulations.
Whether your goals are reducing operational costs, increasing revenue, improving customer experience, or all of the above, your trusted advisors should help you tie those outcomes directly to your communications strategy. Together, you should be working together to zoom out and look at the bigger picture: What are you trying to achieve, and what’s driving that goal? Which teams need to be involved—Sales, Marketing, Support, IT—and how do they align? Where are your customers, and which channels will actually reach them?
And beyond the tactical, how do you build for long-term success, ensuring security, compliance, and scalability across regions? That’s the right question to ask from the start, so when you roll out CPaaS, it’s not just technically sound—it’s strategically aligned with your broader business objectives. Think of it not as adopting another tool, but as creating a smarter, more responsive way to engage with customers at scale.
How 8×8 CPaaS Helps Businesses Connect
At 8×8, we’re focused on giving businesses the tools to make those strong customer connections. CPaaS and the 8×8 Platform for CX helps companies deliver:
- Truly omnichannel experiences: We empower businesses to connect with customers on their terms, creating unified and consistent journeys across any channel. Think about ShopBack, a leading shopping and rewards platform. They used 8×8’s SMS and WhatsApp messaging for things like payment reminders, and the results were impressive: a “5x increase in engagement and a 2-3x boost per campaign across their APAC markets.” That’s the power of meeting customers where they are.
- Build personalized and engaging interactions: Our APIs and low-code/no-code tools make it easy to tailor communications to individual preferences and needs.
- Work smarter, not harder: We help businesses work smarter by automating tasks and streamlining workflows, freeing up their teams to focus on what truly matters. For example, Mangan.ph, an online food delivery service in the Philippines, automated its SMS notifications with 8×8. The payoff? A 25% boost in productivity and a 35% increase in customer satisfaction. And Welsh Water, a not-for-profit company which supplies drinking water and wastewater services to most of Wales, uses 8×8 Video Interaction to offer remote video calls. This has significantly reduced unnecessary engineer dispatches (by at least 100 appointments) and sped up complaint resolution, showing how CPaaS can even transform field operations.
- Security: Doing verification right means you’re engaging with the right individuals, giving customers peace of mind and reducing the risk of fraudulent activity. That’s why we’ve built in tools like OTPs, number masking, and secure messaging. In industries like fintech or retail, where trust is everything, having that extra layer of protection can make all the difference.
CPaaS is here and not going away – but are you here for CPaaS?
The report reaffirms what many of us in the space have long believed: CPaaS is no longer an emerging trend: it’s a strategic imperative. With spending projected to rise, adoption expanding across every region, and innovation accelerating, now is the time for IT leaders to take action.
At 8×8, we’re proud to help organizations embrace CPaaS as a core driver of agility and experience transformation.
