Frequently asked questions.

One credit sends one SMS segment to one recipient. A standard message of up to 160 plain characters is one segment. Longer messages, or messages with emoji or some special characters, use more segments. For example, a two-segment message sent to 1,000 people uses 2,000 credits.

Choose how many credits you want and pay with an M-Pesa prompt on your phone, or pay through our Paybill using your unique account number shown in your dashboard. Credits are added when Safaricom confirms the payment.

Yes. Pay any amount to our Paybill with your account number and you get as many credits as it pays for, at the best rate the amount reaches. Cents below the price of one credit are carried to your next top-up. You can also buy by amount or by number of credits in the dashboard.

Yes. Every new account gets 10 free credits to test with. They are added when your first sender ID is approved, so you can send right away.

No. Purchased credits stay in your balance until you use them.

Mobile networks require every branded sender name (such as your organisation's name) to be registered for the organisation that uses it. We submit your application and documents to the network supplier. Approval times depend on the networks.

Credits are used when the network supplier accepts a message for delivery. If a message is rejected before acceptance, its credits are returned to your balance. A message accepted by the network but not delivered to the handset is still charged, because the network charges for it.

Yes. Pick a date and time in East Africa Time. The credits are held when you schedule, and returned if you edit or cancel before the send time.

Yes. Write fields in braces, for example "Dear {Firstname}, your account has been credited with {Amount}". Values come from your contacts or from the columns of a spreadsheet you upload, and you can set a fallback for missing values. We count the segments after personalising every message, so the cost you see is exact.

Promotional and marketing messages are only sent between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm East Africa Time. If you send one outside those hours it is scheduled for 6:00 am. Transactional messages such as one-time codes, receipts and reminders can be sent at any time.

There is a one-time setup fee for each network you register the sender ID on (Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom). The fees are shown on the pricing page and when you apply, and are paid separately from SMS credits.

Kenyan mobile numbers on Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom, in 07…, 01… or +254 format. International numbers are not supported yet.

Yes. Account owners create an API key under Developers. Your CRM, website or core system can then send one-time codes, account notifications and other messages with a single HTTP request, check balances and receive delivery reports by webhook. API messages use the same credits and checks as the dashboard, and transactional ones skip the bulk queue.

Every promotional message ends with "STOP*456*9*5#": Safaricom customers dial *456*9*5# to stop promotional messages. Anyone can also ask the sender, or us, to be removed; each organisation keeps an opt-out list and opted-out numbers are removed from every campaign automatically. See our opt-out page for details.

Credits for messages rejected before sending are returned automatically. Unused purchased credits can be refunded within 12 months of purchase, and payment mistakes are refunded in full. See our Refund Policy for the details.