SMS API for Madagascar: bulk SMS to +261 numbers
Madagascar
Calling code +261
- Per SMS segment
- $0.01977
- Messages for $100
- 5,058
- Local language
- French
- Encoding
- GSM-7 or Unicode
What a bulk SMS send to Madagascar costs
| Messages | 1 segment | 2 segments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $0.01977 | $0.03954 |
| 1,000 | $19.77 | $39.54 |
| 10,000 | $197.70 | $395.40 |
| 100,000 | $1,977.00 | $3,954.00 |
Number format in Madagascar
Mobile numbers in Madagascar have 9 digits after +261. Locally they are written with a leading 0 (032 12 345 67); in the API that 0 is dropped, so the same number goes in the to field as +261 32 12 345 67.
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
Madagascar keeps UTC+3 all year with no clock change, so 09:00 in Antananarivo is always 06:00 UTC. send_at takes UTC or any ISO 8601 offset, and the console scheduler converts from your own time zone.
Send to Madagascar with one request
The answer comes back at once with the message id, the country the number was matched to (MG) 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": "+261321234567", "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: "+261321234567", text: "Your Northwind code is 482913. It expires in 10 minutes." }),
});
console.log(await res.json()); // price: "0.01977", country: "MG"import json, os, urllib.request
req = urllib.request.Request(
"https://bulksmsapi.cc/v1/messages",
data=json.dumps({"to": "+261321234567", "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"]) # "0.01977"What developers send to Madagascar
Money alerts
Mobile banking apps notify users in Antananarivo when they receive funds from family abroad.
Order confirmations
Delivery services in Toamasina send SMS updates when orders are processed and shipped.
Health reminders
Clinics in Mahajanga send texts reminding patients about upcoming vaccination appointments.
Event notifications
Community events in Antsirabe send SMS alerts with details about dates and locations.
More countries in East and Southern Africa
SMS to Madagascar: questions
More answers on accounts, payments and the API are in the FAQ.
How much does it cost to send bulk SMS to Madagascar?
How many SMS to Madagascar does a $100 top-up send?
How do I write Madagascar numbers for the API?
What language should SMS messages be in for Madagascar?
Are there seasonal peaks in SMS traffic in Madagascar?
Start sending to Madagascar
Create an account, top up from $40 and send to Madagascar at $0.01977 per segment, from the console or with one API call.