SMS API for Tanzania: bulk SMS to +255 numbers
Tanzania
Calling code +255
- Per SMS segment
- $0.00877
- Messages for $100
- 11,402
- Local language
- English and Swahili
- Encoding
- GSM-7
What a bulk SMS send to Tanzania costs
| Messages | 1 segment | 2 segments |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $0.00877 | $0.01754 |
| 1,000 | $8.77 | $17.54 |
| 10,000 | $87.70 | $175.40 |
| 100,000 | $877.00 | $1,754.00 |
Number format in Tanzania
Mobile numbers in Tanzania have 9 digits after +255. Locally they are written with a leading 0 (0621 234 567); in the API that 0 is dropped, so the same number goes in the to field as +255 621 234 567.
Alphabet and segments
English and Swahili text stays inside the GSM-7 alphabet, so one segment to Tanzania holds 160 characters and each part of a longer text 153. Watch for curly quotes and emoji copied from other tools: one of them moves the whole text to Unicode at 70 characters per segment, and POST /v1/estimates shows the encoding before you send.
Time zone and timing
Tanzania keeps UTC+3 all year with no clock change, so 09:00 in Dar es Salaam 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 Tanzania with one request
The answer comes back at once with the message id, the country the number was matched to (TZ) 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": "+255621234567", "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: "+255621234567", text: "Your Northwind code is 482913. It expires in 10 minutes." }),
});
console.log(await res.json()); // price: "0.00877", country: "TZ"import json, os, urllib.request
req = urllib.request.Request(
"https://bulksmsapi.cc/v1/messages",
data=json.dumps({"to": "+255621234567", "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"]) # "0.00877"What developers send to Tanzania
Mobile money
Mobile banking apps send SMS confirmations to users in Dar es Salaam for deposits, withdrawals, and transfers.
Exam results
Universities in Dodoma send SMS notifications to students when their exam results are published online.
Utility bills
Electricity providers in Mwanza send SMS reminders to customers about upcoming bill due dates.
More countries in East and Southern Africa
SMS to Tanzania: questions
More answers on accounts, payments and the API are in the FAQ.
How much does it cost to send bulk SMS to Tanzania?
How many SMS to Tanzania does a $100 top-up send?
How do I write Tanzania numbers for the API?
What language should SMS messages in Tanzania use?
How does SMS reach rural areas in Tanzania?
Start sending to Tanzania
Create an account, top up from $40 and send to Tanzania at $0.00877 per segment, from the console or with one API call.