SMS · AfricaSMS pricing in Kenya
SMS to Kenya costs from $0.03 per message (indicative list rate, reviewed 2026-09-24) over 3 direct operators (Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, Telkom Kenya); sender IDs are registered with the CA in 5-7 business days.
Across 3 direct operators · regulator CA
How much does SMS to Kenya cost?
SMS to Kenya costs from $0.03 per message (indicative list rate, reviewed 2026-09-24) over 3 direct operators. Direct binds, registered sender IDs and CA-approved routes. List-tier rates shown — Growth, Volume and Enterprise discounts apply automatically.
| Operator | Rate (USD per SMS) | Send window |
|---|---|---|
Safaricom Direct bind · A2P registered | $ 0.0346 per SMS | — |
Airtel Kenya Direct bind · A2P registered | $ 0.0323 per SMS | — |
Telkom Kenya Direct bind · A2P registered | $ 0.0300 per SMS | — |
- CA + operator sender ID registration.
- Safaricom requires content templates approved per use case.
- English and Swahili scripts supported.
- Long messages (>160 GSM-7 chars) split into segments — billed per segment.
- Concatenation, Unicode and Latin all priced identically per segment.
- Delivery receipts (DLRs) included — no per-DLR fee.
SMS in Kenya: routes, rules and timing.
The same operator, regulator and timing data as our Kenya coverage page, so both pages always agree.
| Regulator | Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) |
|---|---|
| Operator routes | 3 · Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, Telkom Kenya |
| Sender-ID lead time | 5-7 business days |
| Typical OTP latency | 3.1 s |
| Mobile subscribers | 65M |
| Dialling code · MCC | +254 · 639 |
| Time to launch | Live in 5–15 business days from test-access request to production |
| Billing currencies | USD · KES |
| Published SMS band | USD 0.022 – 0.04 |
SMS to Kenya: common questions
Which operators carry SMS to Kenya, and at what rate?
What does the SMS price include?
Do I need to register a sender ID in Kenya?
How do I get test access for Kenya?
Tiers upgrade automatically — the moment you cross the line.
Your effective rate is recalculated every billing cycle from the volume you sent that month. No paperwork, no renegotiation. Discounts apply automatically.
List rate. No commitment, no minimums.
Auto-applies on traffic above 100K/mo.
Includes monthly route review + Slack channel.
Direct operator pricing, signed SLAs, optional private cloud.
| Tier | Monthly volume | Discount | Effective rate (USD per SMS) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay-as-you-go | 0 – 100K messages / month | List rate | $ 0.0300 |
| Growth | 100K – 1M messages / month | −12% | $ 0.0264 |
| Volume | 1M – 5M messages / month | −26% | $ 0.0222 |
| Enterprise | 5M+ messages / month | −40% | $ 0.0180 |
More on Kenya
Above 1M / month, pricing becomes a conversation.
Per-country rate cards negotiated against your traffic mix, dedicated SMPP binds, named account management, signed delivery SLAs and optional on-premise or private-cloud deployment. Most quotes come back within two business days.
- Custom per-country rate cards
- Dedicated SMPP binds (capacity agreed per bind, up to 30,000 SMS/s per node)
- Named account manager + on-call engineer
- Signed delivery SLA — 99.99% uptime
- On-prem or private-cloud deployment
- Quarterly route review and benchmark
Launch SMS in Kenya on approved routes.
Test access on request, with a reply within one business day. Live in 5–15 business days from test-access request to production. Billed in AED, SAR, USD, EUR or GBP.
$ curl -X POST https://api.broadnet.me/sms/sendSms -H "Authorization: Bearer $BROADNET_TOKEN" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"senderId":"BroadNet","destinationNumber":"447700900123","message":"Hello from BroadNet","messageType":"TEXT"}'