What is a cloud phone?
A cloud phone is an Android phone running in a provider's datacenter that you use over the internet, billed by the device or by the minute. You get Android and its apps without buying or shipping hardware.
Can MationX automate cloud phones?
Yes. The MationX app runs on cloud Android phones the same way it runs on handsets and box phones, so the same flows, logs and monitoring apply and one farm can mix them.
When do cloud phones fit, and when do your own phones?
It comes down to SIMs, control and how long you will run them:
- Cloud phones fit
- When you want no hardware, need to start or scale quickly, or the apps only need data and a proxy.
- Your own phones fit
- When accounts need their own SIMs (WhatsApp registration, SMS), when you want the devices in your hands, or when you run the farm long enough for hardware to be cheaper.
What does the cloud provider not do?
Most cloud phone providers give you the phones and templates or a builder; building your flows and fixing them when apps update is still yours. That is the part MationX takes over, on cloud phones and your own alike.
What does it cost?
The cloud phones are billed by your provider. MationX is the same as for any farm: a pilot from $1,000, then from $300 a month, with the price per phone dropping as the farm grows. See pricing.
How do you start with cloud phones?
Tell us which provider you use and what the phones should do; we install the MationX app on two of your cloud phones, prove the flow there, then roll it out to the rest, alongside any phones you own.
From then on it is the same as any farm we run: monitoring, a log of every run, ban handling and fixes after app updates. The phone farm software page compares this with doing it yourself in the provider's builder.
