SMS · AfricaSMS pricing in South Africa
SMS to South Africa costs from $0.028 per message (indicative list rate, reviewed 2026-09-24) over 4 direct operators (Vodacom, MTN South Africa, Cell C, Telkom Mobile); sender IDs (ICASA): Free-form (no pre-registration).
Across 4 direct operators · regulator ICASA
How much does SMS to South Africa cost?
SMS to South Africa costs from $0.028 per message (indicative list rate, reviewed 2026-09-24) over 4 direct operators. Direct binds, registered sender IDs and ICASA-approved routes. List-tier rates shown — Growth, Volume and Enterprise discounts apply automatically.
| Operator | Rate (USD per SMS) | Send window |
|---|---|---|
Vodacom Direct bind · A2P registered | $ 0.0314 per SMS | — |
MTN South Africa Direct bind · A2P registered | $ 0.0302 per SMS | — |
Cell C Direct bind · A2P registered | $ 0.0291 per SMS | — |
Telkom Mobile Direct bind · A2P registered | $ 0.0280 per SMS | — |
- The WASPA Code of Conduct sets no sender-ID pre-registration; alphanumeric sender IDs must identify the business, and WASPA members must give WASPA their alphanumeric IDs on request.
- 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 South Africa: routes, rules and timing.
The same operator, regulator and timing data as our South Africa coverage page, so both pages always agree.
| Regulator | Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) |
|---|---|
| Operator routes | 4 · Vodacom, MTN South Africa, Cell C, Telkom Mobile |
| Sender-ID lead time | Free-form (no pre-registration) |
| Typical OTP latency | 3.0 s |
| Mobile subscribers | 110M |
| Dialling code · MCC | +27 · 655 |
| Time to launch | Live in 5–15 business days from test-access request to production |
| Billing currencies | USD · ZAR |
| Published SMS band | USD 0.022 – 0.045 |
SMS to South Africa: common questions
Which operators carry SMS to South Africa, and at what rate?
What does the SMS price include?
Do I need to register a sender ID in South Africa?
How do I get test access for South Africa?
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 | $ 0.0280 |
| Growth | 100K – 1M messages / month | −12% | $ 0.0246 |
| Volume | 1M – 5M messages / month | −26% | $ 0.0207 |
| Enterprise | 5M+ messages / month | −40% | $ 0.0168 |
More on South Africa
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 South Africa 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"}'