Send SMS to Kenya
from $0.0200/msg

import requests

api_key = "your_api_key_here"
headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"}

payload = {
    "recipient": "+254712345678",
    "message": "Your OTP is 123456. Valid for 10 minutes.",
    "sender_id": "MyCompany"
}

response = requests.post(
    "https://api.smsroute.cc/sms/send",
    headers=headers,
    json=payload
)

print(response.json())

curl -X POST https://api.smsroute.cc/sms/send \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "recipient": "+254712345678",
    "message": "Your OTP is 123456. Valid for 10 minutes.",
    "sender_id": "MyCompany"
  }'

import fetch from "node-fetch";

const apiKey = process.env.SMSROUTE_API_KEY;

const res = await fetch("https://api.smsroute.cc/v1/messages", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: `Bearer ${apiKey}`,
    "Content-Type": "application/json",
  },
  body: JSON.stringify({
    to: "+2545551234567",
    from: "smsroute",
    text: "Your verification code is 384921",
  }),
});

console.log(await res.json());

package main

import (
    "bytes"
    "encoding/json"
    "fmt"
    "io"
    "net/http"
    "os"
)

func main() {
    payload, _ := json.Marshal(map[string]string{
        "to":   "+2545551234567",
        "from": "smsroute",
        "text": "Your verification code is 384921",
    })

    req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST",
        "https://api.smsroute.cc/v1/messages",
        bytes.NewBuffer(payload))
    req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("SMSROUTE_API_KEY"))
    req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")

    resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
    if err != nil { panic(err) }
    defer resp.Body.Close()

    body, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    fmt.Println(string(body))
}

<?php
$apiKey = getenv('SMSROUTE_API_KEY');

$payload = json_encode([
    'to'   => '+2545551234567',
    'from' => 'smsroute',
    'text' => 'Your verification code is 384921',
], JSON_UNESCAPED_UNICODE);

$ch = curl_init('https://api.smsroute.cc/v1/messages');
curl_setopt_array($ch, [
    CURLOPT_POST => true,
    CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => true,
    CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER => [
        'Authorization: Bearer ' . $apiKey,
        'Content-Type: application/json',
    ],
    CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS => $payload,
]);

echo curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

Pricing: smsroute.cc vs. Twilio, Vonage, and Others

smsroute.cc charges $0.0200 USD per SMS to Kenya. No setup fee, no monthly minimum, no hidden surcharges. You pay only for messages sent. The table below compares smsroute.cc to major competitors on their standard Kenya rates:

For a typical campaign of 100,000 SMS to Kenya, smsroute.cc costs $2,000 USD; Twilio would cost $5,000 USD. That is a $3,000 saving on a single campaign. At scale, these savings compound: if you send SMS to Kenya quarterly, smsroute.cc saves you $12,000 per year compared to Twilio. There are no volume discounts, no tiers, and no contracts; your rate is flat across all usage levels.

Mobile Operators and Coverage

Safaricom Kenya (65% market share): The dominant carrier, serving 65% of Kenyan mobile subscribers. Safaricom routes SMS through its tier-1 infrastructure and enforces strict sender-ID validation. Interconnect agreements with international gateways are mature; smsroute.cc maintains direct peering with Safaricom's SMS aggregator.

Airtel Kenya (22% market share): The second-largest carrier. Airtel's network covers both urban and rural areas and accepts registered sender IDs. Delivery through Airtel is typically 95–97% on first attempt, with second-attempt retry queues helping smsroute.cc achieve overall 98.2% success across all carriers.

Equity Bank Mobile Money / equitel (8% market share): A mobile money and MVNO provider operating on Safaricom's infrastructure. equitel subscribers receive SMS through Safaricom's backend, so sender-ID registration applies uniformly. Often used for financial transactions and remittances.

Other carriers (5% market share): Smaller MVNOs and enterprise networks. smsroute.cc's routing logic automatically detects carrier affiliation and selects the optimal ingress point. Coverage is best-effort for these carriers but included in the 98.2% success baseline.

Consent, Data Protection, and the Do Not Disturb Registry

The Kenya Information and Communications Act (2013) requires explicit opt-in consent for marketing SMS. This is a hard rule: you cannot send a promotional message to a Kenyan number unless the recipient has previously consented to receive it. Consent must be documented and timestamped. The Data Protection Act (2019) strengthens this requirement by defining "consent" as freely given, specific, and informed; pre-ticked boxes or pre-filled forms do not qualify.

The CA manages the Do Not Disturb (DND) registry, a national opt-out list for marketing SMS. Any Kenyan subscriber can register their number and block promotional messages. You must check the DND registry before sending marketing campaigns and exclude all registered numbers from your recipient list. Transactional SMS—OTPs, account confirmations, delivery notifications—are exempt from DND restrictions, provided they are not marketing-adjacent. The line is strict: a message saying "Confirm your login" is transactional; a message saying "Confirm your login and claim your free 20% discount" is marketing and subject to DND filtering.

Violations are monitored and enforced. The CA has published enforcement actions against major senders in the telecommunications and financial sectors. Non-compliance typically results in first-instance warnings, followed by sender-ID suspension if the violation repeats within a 90-day window. Persistent offenders face formal administrative fines and potential referral to Kenya's Data Protection Commissioner.

Latency and Delivery Performance

smsroute.cc delivers SMS to Kenya with a median latency (p50) of 210 milliseconds and a 95th-percentile latency (p95) of 420 milliseconds. This means 95% of your SMS are delivered within 0.42 seconds. Latency varies by time of day and operator; Safaricom (65% of traffic) typically returns delivery receipts in 150–250 ms, while Airtel (22% of traffic) averages 200–350 ms.

Overall delivery success is 98.2%. This figure is measured across all operators (Safaricom, Airtel, Equity Mobile Money, others) and includes first-send success, automatic retries on temporary failures, and fallback routing. Permanent failures—invalid numbers, blocked subscribers, network rejections—do not increment the retry count; these are reported as failed within 5 seconds. smsroute.cc maintains 99.9% platform uptime and 99% tier-1 delivery, meaning 99% of SMS reach tier-1 networks (Safaricom and Airtel) in the first attempt.

Latency is best during Kenyan business hours (09:00–18:00 EAT, Monday–Friday). During peak hours (18:00–21:00 EAT) and weekends, latency may increase by 50–100 ms due to network congestion, but delivery success remains at or above 98%. smsroute.cc does not deprioritize any traffic based on time of day or sender ID; all SMS are queued fairly and routed through the optimal operator path.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources

• Full Pricing by Country
• Developer Documentation
• Send SMS to Any Country
• Send SMS to Nigeria
• Send SMS to India
• Send SMS to Indonesia

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