Bulk SMS, USSD and shortcodes for Kenya
Send alerts, run keyword promotions and put services on a USSD code, without writing a line of code. Developers get one API for all of it, with delivery reports sent to their server.
10 free SMS on sign-up, sent under the ready-made MOBILESASA sender name. No card, no contract.
Your verification code is 482913. It expires in 5 minutes. Never share this code with anyone.
SHINDA → 23358
Karibu! You are entered in the SUPA Mega Draw. Winners are announced every Friday at 8pm. Text SHINDA again after each purchase for more entries.
Hi Otieno, your ticket for Nairobi Jazz Night, Sat 18 Oct, 6pm, KICC Grounds. Ticket no. NJN-2047, 2 guests. Show this SMS at the gate.
Afya Survey Did your child get all vaccines? 1. Yes 2. Some 3. None
More than 2,000 organisations send through us: SACCOs, schools, hospitals, golf clubs, lenders and NGOs.
Same account, same wallet and the same contact list for every channel. Adding a USSD menu or a shortcode later does not mean a new contract.
Upload a CSV or Excel file, merge each person's name and balance into the text, and send to thousands at once or on a schedule. Every message comes back with its own delivery report.
Dear Akinyi, the PTA meeting is on Saturday 12 Oct at 9am in the school hall. Kindly confirm attendance.
Ask by SMS or USSD and count the answers as they arrive. Respondents reply with a number from any phone, and the portal shows each question's winner and every person's full conversation.
Q1 of 5. How was the service at the branch today? 1. Very good 2. Good 3. Poor
1
A menu people dial from any handset, with or without data. Balance checks, loan applications, registration and voting, built in a visual editor and tested in the simulator before anyone dials.
BIDII SACCO 1. Check balance 2. Apply for a loan 3. Mini statement 4. Talk to us
Two-way messaging on a dedicated or shared shortcode. Incoming texts are routed by keyword, answered automatically, and forwarded to your system or kept in the portal.
Welcome to FARMTIPS. You will get one planting tip every Monday. Reply STOP to leave.
Daily tips, devotionals and alert clubs charged to the subscriber's airtime.
Approved templates on the official Business API, from your own number.
Monthly, month-end and birthday messages that send themselves.
Turn the hashed numbers Safaricom gives you back into real ones.
Kenya has more than 60 million active SIM cards and far fewer smartphones. A text or a USSD menu reaches every one of them, with no data bundle and no app.
| Sector | What they send | Usually on |
|---|---|---|
| SACCOs and MFIs | Loan disbursements, statement reminders, meeting notices, USSD balance checks | SMS, USSD |
| Schools and universities | Fee balances, results, emergency parent alerts, staff notices | SMS |
| Hospitals and clinics | Appointment reminders, lab results ready, prescription collection | SMS |
| Banks and fintechs | Transaction alerts, one-time PINs, loan approvals, fraud alerts | SMS, USSD |
| Retail and e-commerce | Order and delivery updates, promotions, loyalty points, tasting surveys | SMS, shortcodes |
| NGOs and government | Community outreach, emergency alerts, beneficiary notices, field data collection | SMS, USSD, surveys |
| Property managers | Rent reminders and receipts, viewing appointments, maintenance updates | SMS |
| Media and churches | Listener polls, competitions, daily devotionals, show keywords | Shortcodes, premium |
Direct carrier connections, a queue that does not drop messages, and a delivery path we run ourselves. Rebuilt in 2025 on ten years of running it.
The campaign lands on a durable queue. Fee-reminder week and month-end statement runs are exactly when platforms fall over; ours queues, throttles and keeps going.
Each number goes to Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom or Equitel over its own direct connection. When one carrier slows down, traffic to the others keeps moving.
The network confirms the phone received it. Most messages arrive within five seconds of leaving us.
The report reaches the portal, the API and your signed callback in the same second, with the time, the parts and the cost of that message.
Roles decide who sends, who reads reports and who approves a campaign before it goes out. Finance tops up, marketing writes, a manager approves and IT connects the API, all in one account.
Hashed API tokens scoped to one integration each, an audit log of every action, and operations run under the Kenya Data Protection Act 2019. We never sell, share or mine a contact list.
Delivery by network and by sender, USSD completion, survey drop-off and campaign counters that move while it sends. Any date range, exported to Excel.
Plain JSON over HTTPS with a Bearer token. Swap in your token and a number and send. The /v1/ and /v2/ endpoints never change shape, so an integration written in 2019 still runs today.
POST /v1/send/message
curl -X POST https://api.mobilesasa.com/v1/send/message \
-H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_TOKEN" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"senderID": "MOBILESASA",
"phone": "254712345678",
"message": "Hello from Mobile Sasa"
}'Response
{
"status": true,
"responseCode": "0200",
"message": "Accepted",
"messageId": "9b8a028b-f9bb-49f6-bc89-a5214ff1ba93"
}No subscription and nothing hidden. The rate drops by itself as your monthly volume grows, and larger organisations can go postpaid. Every price here includes VAT.
| Monthly volume | KES per SMS |
|---|---|
| Up to 50,000 | 0.60per SMS |
| 50,001 to 500,000What most of our clients pay | 0.40per SMS |
| 500,001 to 2,000,000 | 0.35per SMS |
| Above 2,000,000 | 0.25per SMS |
A message longer than 160 characters is charged per 160-character part, as the networks bill it. Delivery reports, the API and the portal are included.
| Template category | KES per message |
|---|---|
| Marketing | 4.00per message |
| Utility | 0.80per message |
| Authentication | 0.80per message |
Billed separately from SMS, at the rate for the template you send. Replies inside an open conversation are free. We set up the Business number and templates with you at no charge.
One-time, per network
Dedicated codes and platform keywords
Monthly fees renew from your wallet
For resellers and software houses
Salamu is this platform under your brand: the portal on your domain, at your prices, with our carrier connections behind it. Set-up takes hours, not months, and you keep the margin.
SACCOs, schools, golf clubs, insurers, lenders and NGOs. Some send a few hundred messages a month and some send millions, and they all top up the same way.
We send fee balance reminders to 12,000 parents every term. It used to take days. Now it is under an hour and we can see who received it.
The API is straightforward. We integrated loan disbursement alerts in a single afternoon, and delivery reports come back straight away.
We ran a member survey across 5,000 members. The live responses page saved us weeks of counting by hand.
Most messages reach the handset within 3 to 5 seconds of submission. Bulk campaigns are queued and sent at the throughput each carrier allows.
All four Kenyan networks: Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom and Equitel. You send to a phone number and we work out the network and the route.
No. Mobile Sasa is prepaid: top up and send. There is no monthly commitment and no minimum spend. Larger organisations can ask for a postpaid account and settle at month end.
It is the name that shows as the sender on the recipient's phone, such as your school or SACCO name instead of a number. We register it with each network for you. Until yours is approved, messages go out under the shared MOBILESASA name.
USSD is the menu that appears when someone dials a code like *657*123#. It works on every phone, including basic phones with no data. SACCOs, banks and anyone serving customers without smartphones use it for balances, loan applications, registration and voting.
Create an account, make an API token under settings, and call the REST API with it as a Bearer token. High-volume systems can connect over SMPP instead. The /v1/ and /v2/ endpoints are frozen, so what you build today keeps working.
Mobile Sasa operates under the Kenya Data Protection Act 2019. Data is stored encrypted, API tokens are hashed, access is by role, and every action is written to an audit log.
Yes. Registering gives you 10 free SMS to send straight away, plus the portal and the API to explore. After that you top up as you go.
Leave your number and what you need. Someone from the Nairobi office calls back, usually the same working day.