What you pay per message, what changes the price, and how to work out the cost of a campaign before you send it.
Bulk SMS is still one of the cheapest ways to reach customers in Kenya. Almost everyone has a phone that receives SMS, messages arrive without data, and most are read within minutes. But the price per message you see advertised is only part of the cost. This guide explains what you actually pay and how to estimate a campaign.
Bulk SMS is sold by volume: the more messages you buy, the less each one costs. These are the prices on Satas SMS Pro, including 16% VAT:
| Messages bought | KES per SMS |
|---|---|
| 1 to 5,000 | 0.60 |
| 5,001 to 20,000 | 0.55 |
| 20,001 to 40,000 | 0.50 |
| 40,001 to 60,000 | 0.45 |
| 60,001 to 99,999 | 0.40 |
| 100,000 to 300,000 | 0.35 |
| 300,001 to 500,000 | 0.30 |
| 500,001 to 700,000 | 0.25 |
| 700,001 to 900,000 | 0.20 |
| 900,001 to 2,000,000 | 0.15 |
| Over 2,000,000 | 0.13 |
So 5,000 messages cost KES 3,000, while 100,000 messages cost KES 35,000. Credits are prepaid with M-Pesa or card, and there is no monthly fee or contract.
One SMS holds 160 characters of plain text. Longer messages are split into parts and each part is charged as one SMS, so a 200-character message costs two. If you use characters outside the standard SMS alphabet, such as emoji or some accented letters, one SMS only holds 70 characters. Keeping messages short and in plain text is the easiest saving.
Messages can come from a number or from your business name, called a sender ID. Registering a sender ID costs KES 6,500 per network, once. Most businesses start with Safaricom and add Airtel and Telkom later. See how to get an SMS sender ID in Kenya.
Check whether a quoted price includes VAT. A price of KES 0.50 plus VAT is KES 0.58 per SMS. Satas prices include VAT.
Old and wrongly typed numbers waste credit. Use a provider that gives you a delivery report for each message, and clean numbers that fail repeatedly out of your list.
Example: a 140-character reminder to 12,000 customers is 12,000 SMS. At KES 0.55 each, that is KES 6,600, VAT included.
Promotional messages, such as offers and adverts, may only be sent between 8 am and 6 pm Kenya time, and every customer must be able to opt out, usually by replying STOP. Transactional messages, such as payment confirmations, one-time codes and appointment reminders, can be sent at any hour. SMS Pro holds promotional campaigns scheduled outside those hours until 8 am.
If you want your website, app or accounting system to send messages, SMS Pro has a REST API and SMPP for high volumes, with delivery reports sent back to your system. See the developer documentation.
With Satas, KES 0.60 per SMS for up to 5,000 messages, falling to KES 0.13 per SMS above two million, VAT included.
160 characters of plain text, or 70 if the message contains emoji or other special characters. Longer messages are charged as several SMS.
No. You buy prepaid credits with M-Pesa or card and only pay for messages you send.
KES 6,500 per network, paid once.
Between 8 am and 6 pm Kenya time. Transactional messages can be sent at any time.
Open an SMS Pro account in a minute, or talk to us about volumes, sender IDs and API access.