Africa's Talking

Africa's Talking is a pan-African communications platform that exposes a unified set of REST APIs for SMS, USSD, Voice, Airtime, Mobile Data, and Payments. Developers authenticate with an apiKey and username and reach mobile subscribers across Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and other African markets through carrier integrations.

Africa’s Talking publishes 6 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Airtime API, Mobile Data API, Payments API, and 3 more. Tagged areas include Communications, SMS, USSD, Voice, and Airtime.

The Africa’s Talking catalog on APIs.io includes 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

Africa’s Talking’s developer surface includes engineering blog, authentication, documentation, and 9 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

23.5/100 emerging ▬ flat Agent 22/100 agent aware Front door AI 1/6 silent Heartbeat 100/100 alive saas Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessEnterprise

1 published contract

Communications SMS USSD Voice Airtime Mobile Data Payments Africa

What this lets a business do 1

Business capabilities this provider's published APIs can perform, derived from its own contracts. Browse all capabilities →

Telecom Billing & Revenue Management

BC-2660

Airtime

POST /airtime/send

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 23.5/100 · emerging

Contract Quality 9.0 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 2.3 / 15

Access Clarity 0.8 / 15

Operational Transparency 1.0 / 10

Contract Governance 1.2 / 9

Discoverability 5.0 / 8

Regulatory Posture 1.5 / 15

Create-or-Update Ergonomics 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 22/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 0 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 0 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 0 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Telecommunications regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics applies to this provider. This API accepts writes, so it carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from the published contracts themselves: whether a caller can create-or-update in one call, whether the write accepts a key the caller already holds, and whether the response says which branch ran. Without that, every write needs a search-and-branch in front of it, and the first time that check is skipped a duplicate record is created. Scored against the observed mean rather than raw — a provider at the catalog average is unchanged by this facet, not penalised by it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 25. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

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Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Idempotency +9 pts — OpenAPI mutating operations declare an idempotency key — a header, a request-body property, or a named de-duplication token whose own description says so (verified); else common[].type matches /idempoten/i (documented)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented)

8 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 5.3 — up to +18.9 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 15.5 — up to +16.9 composite points
Contract Quality scores 48.0 — up to +13.0 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/africastalking/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/africastalking to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
African Payments (Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, WAEMU)	covered	36.4 (thin)	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 1

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 6

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Africa's Talking Airtime API

Distribute mobile airtime to recipients.

Africa's Talking Mobile Data API

Disburse mobile data bundles to recipients.

Africa's Talking Payments API

Mobile C2B checkout, B2C, and B2B mobile money transfers.

Africa's Talking Premium SMS API

Premium SMS subscriptions and checkout tokens.

Africa's Talking SMS API

Send single and bulk SMS and fetch inbox messages.

Africa's Talking Voice API

Outbound calls, transfers, queue status, and media upload.

Open Collections 7

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Africa's Talking Airtime API

OPEN COLLECTION

Africa's Talking Airtime Mobile Data API

OPEN COLLECTION

Africa's Talking Airtime Payments API

OPEN COLLECTION

Africa's Talking Airtime Premium SMS API

OPEN COLLECTION

Africa's Talking Airtime SMS API

OPEN COLLECTION

Africa's Talking Airtime Voice API

OPEN COLLECTION

Africa's Talking API

OPEN COLLECTION

Scroll for all 7

Africa's Talking API pricing

Not yet checked against Africa's Talking's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-06-20 from africastalking.com/pricing; confirm before you rely on a figure.

Plan	Price
Pay-as-you-go usage	—
Enterprise enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

SMS Throughput: see provider documentation messages per second
Bulk SMS Enqueue: buffered messages
USSD Sessions: see provider documentation concurrent sessions

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Africa's Talking's documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Africastalking Plans Pricing

2 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Africastalking Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Africa's Talking

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Africastalking Finops

FINOPS

Spectral Rules 1

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Africa's Talking API Rules

64 rules · 60 errors 3 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

Security Posture 2

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Africastalking Authentication

apiKey · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Africastalking Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Africastalking Agentic Access

14 operations · 11 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

Company 3

The organization behind the API

Blog

Blog

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

CapabilityMap

CapabilityMap

Source (apis.yml)

aid: africastalking
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/africastalking/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
name: Africa's Talking
kind: company
description: Africa's Talking is a pan-African communications platform that exposes a unified set of REST APIs for SMS, USSD,
  Voice, Airtime, Mobile Data, and Payments. Developers authenticate with an apiKey and username and reach mobile subscribers
  across Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and other African markets through carrier integrations.
deliveryModel:
  model: saas
  open_source: false
  commercial: true
  callable_host: true
  label: Hosted service · you call their endpoint
  confidence: high
  source:
  - openapi
  - pricing
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: enterprise
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Enterprise
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  - authentication
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/africastalking.png
tags:
- Communications
- SMS
- USSD
- Voice
- Airtime
- Mobile Data
- Payments
- Africa
created: '2026-06-20'
modified: '2026-10-06'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
apis:
- aid: africastalking:africastalking-airtime-api
  name: Africa's Talking Airtime API
  description: Distribute mobile airtime to recipients.
  humanURL: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  baseURL: https://api.africastalking.com/version1
  tags:
  - Airtime
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/africastalking-airtime-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/sending/bulk
  - type: PostmanCollection
    url: collections/africastalking.postman_collection.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/ussd/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/voice/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/mobile_c2b/checkout
- aid: africastalking:africastalking-mobile-data-api
  name: Africa's Talking Mobile Data API
  description: Disburse mobile data bundles to recipients.
  humanURL: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  baseURL: https://api.africastalking.com/version1
  tags:
  - Mobile Data
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/africastalking-mobile-data-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/sending/bulk
  - type: PostmanCollection
    url: collections/africastalking.postman_collection.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/ussd/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/voice/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/mobile_c2b/checkout
- aid: africastalking:africastalking-payments-api
  name: Africa's Talking Payments API
  description: Mobile C2B checkout, B2C, and B2B mobile money transfers.
  humanURL: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  baseURL: https://api.africastalking.com/version1
  tags:
  - Payments
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/africastalking-payments-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/sending/bulk
  - type: PostmanCollection
    url: collections/africastalking.postman_collection.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/ussd/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/voice/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/mobile_c2b/checkout
- aid: africastalking:africastalking-premium-sms-api
  name: Africa's Talking Premium SMS API
  description: Premium SMS subscriptions and checkout tokens.
  humanURL: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  baseURL: https://api.africastalking.com/version1
  tags:
  - Premium SMS
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/africastalking-premium-sms-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/sending/bulk
  - type: PostmanCollection
    url: collections/africastalking.postman_collection.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/ussd/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/voice/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/mobile_c2b/checkout
- aid: africastalking:africastalking-sms-api
  name: Africa's Talking SMS API
  description: Send single and bulk SMS and fetch inbox messages.
  humanURL: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  baseURL: https://api.africastalking.com/version1
  tags:
  - SMS
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/africastalking-sms-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/sending/bulk
  - type: PostmanCollection
    url: collections/africastalking.postman_collection.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/ussd/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/voice/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/mobile_c2b/checkout
- aid: africastalking:africastalking-voice-api
  name: Africa's Talking Voice API
  description: Outbound calls, transfers, queue status, and media upload.
  humanURL: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  baseURL: https://api.africastalking.com/version1
  tags:
  - Voice
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/africastalking-voice-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/sms/sending/bulk
  - type: PostmanCollection
    url: collections/africastalking.postman_collection.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/ussd/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/voice/overview
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/airtime/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/data/sending
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/overview
  - type: APIReference
    url: https://developers.africastalking.com/docs/payments/mobile_c2b/checkout
common:
- url: https://africastalking.com/blog
  type: Blog
- type: CapabilityMap
  url: capabilities/africastalking-capability-edges.yml
  name: Africa's Talking Business Capability Map
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/africastalking-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/africastalking-domain-security.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/africastalking-authentication.yml
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/AfricasTalkingLtd
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/africa-s-talking
- type: Website
  url: https://africastalking.com
- type: Documentation
  url: https://developers.africastalking.com
- type: Plans
  url: plans/africastalking-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/africastalking-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/africastalking-finops.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Africa's Talking API — frequently asked questions

Does Africa's Talking have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 6 APIs from Africa's Talking, including Africa's Talking Airtime API, Africa's Talking Mobile Data API and Africa's Talking Payments API, and 3 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Africa's Talking API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 6 OpenAPI specifications for Africa's Talking, each linked for download from this page.

How do I authenticate with the Africa's Talking API?

Africa's Talking uses bearer-token authentication (apiKey · 1 scheme). The details are profiled on APIs.io as Africastalking Authentication.

How much does the Africa's Talking API cost?

APIs.io lists 2 pricing plans for Africa's Talking, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Africa's Talking API ready for AI agents?

Africa's Talking has a Kin Score of 23.5 out of 100 (emerging) and an Agent Readiness score of 22.1 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

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