Africa's Talking

Overview

Africa's Talking, founded in 2010, sells communication and payment APIs for developers building for Africa: SMS, USSD, voice, airtime, mobile data and WhatsApp. It connects to mobile operators so developers do not have to work with each carrier directly, and it says more than 150,000 developers use the platform.

Key features

• Bulk, two-way and premium SMS, plus OTP messages, with carrier delivery notifications passed to your application
• USSD menus that work on every type of mobile phone
• Voice API with inbound and outbound calls, SIP agents, conferencing and text-to-speech
• Airtime and mobile data top-ups for rewards or micro-payments
• WhatsApp Business messaging with images, video, documents and location
• Echo, a no-code SMS campaign tool, and SDKs such as Python

Pricing

Pay as you go in local currency, with rates per country. In Kenya, for example, the pricing page lists USSD codes with free setup and monthly maintenance from KES 10,000, and voice calls at KES 0.50 a minute inbound and KES 2.50 outbound. SMS rates were not shown on the public pricing page.

How it compares to Linq

Africa's Talking has no iMessage or RCS, so iPhone users get plain SMS. It adds USSD, airtime and voice for African networks, while Linq sends iMessage with RCS and SMS fallback from real phone numbers. Its voice API places and answers calls; Linq's API docs say its API does not. Linq bills a flat fee from $260 a month; Africa's Talking bills per use.

Best for

Developers building SMS, USSD and voice services for users across Africa, including people on basic phones.

Sources

• africastalking.com
• africastalking.com/sms
• africastalking.com/chat/whatsapp
• africastalking.com/pricing
• africastalking.com/about