SMS API for DR Congo: bulk SMS to +243 numbers
DR Congo
Calling code +243
- Per SMS segment
- $0.01387
- Messages for $100
- 7,209
- Local language
- French
- Encoding
- GSM-7 or Unicode
What a bulk SMS send to the DR Congo costs
| Messages | 1 segment | 2 segments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $0.01387 | $0.02774 |
| 1,000 | $13.87 | $27.74 |
| 10,000 | $138.70 | $277.40 |
| 100,000 | $1,387.00 | $2,774.00 |
Number format in DR Congo
Mobile numbers in the DR Congo have 9 digits after +243. Locally they are written with a leading 0 (0991 234 567); in the API that 0 is dropped, so the same number goes in the to field as +243 991 234 567.
Alphabet and segments
Texts in French fit 160 GSM-7 characters per segment until they use â, ê, î, ô, û, ç, ë and ï: those letters are outside GSM-7 and turn the message into Unicode at 70 characters per segment (67 per part). For short alerts, write them without those letters to keep one segment; for longer texts, the console names each letter that changed the encoding.
Time zone and timing
The DR Congo spans several time zones, from UTC+1 in Kinshasa to UTC+2 in Lubumbashi (January offsets). A send_at of 08:00 UTC lands at 09:00 in Kinshasa in January; for a nationwide reminder, split the list by region and give each batch its own send_at.
Send to DR Congo with one request
The answer comes back at once with the message id, the country the number was matched to (CD) and the price. A delivered or failed event follows on your webhook, and a failed message is refunded.
For a list, send the same text to up to 10,000 numbers with POST /v1/batches, or a personal text per number in messages.
curl https://bulksmsapi.cc/v1/messages \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $BULKSMSAPI_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"to": "+243991234567", "text": "Your Northwind code is 482913. It expires in 10 minutes."}'const res = await fetch("https://bulksmsapi.cc/v1/messages", {
method: "POST",
headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.BULKSMSAPI_KEY}`, "Content-Type": "application/json" },
body: JSON.stringify({ to: "+243991234567", text: "Your Northwind code is 482913. It expires in 10 minutes." }),
});
console.log(await res.json()); // price: "0.01387", country: "CD"import json, os, urllib.request
req = urllib.request.Request(
"https://bulksmsapi.cc/v1/messages",
data=json.dumps({"to": "+243991234567", "text": "Your Northwind code is 482913. It expires in 10 minutes."}).encode(),
headers={"Authorization": "Bearer " + os.environ["BULKSMSAPI_KEY"], "Content-Type": "application/json", "User-Agent": "northwind-app/1.0"},
method="POST",
)
with urllib.request.urlopen(req) as res:
print(json.load(res)["price"]) # "0.01387"What developers send to the DR Congo
Money alerts
Users in Lubumbashi receive SMS notifications confirming their mobile money transactions and balances.
Delivery updates
Customers in Goma get texts about the status of their online orders and delivery times.
Health reminders
Patients in Kisangani are notified by SMS about upcoming clinic visits and vaccination schedules.
Event notices
Residents in Bukavu receive SMS alerts about community events and meeting times.
More countries in West and Central Africa
SMS to DR Congo: questions
More answers on accounts, payments and the API are in the FAQ.
How much does it cost to send bulk SMS to the DR Congo?
How many SMS to the DR Congo does a $100 top-up send?
How do I write DR Congo numbers for the API?
Start sending to The DR Congo
Create an account, top up from $40 and send to the DR Congo at $0.01387 per segment, from the console or with one API call.