From Uganda to Six Countries — How We Built Local SMS Routes

We started with one market that had to work

Yoola SMS was built in Uganda first: MTN, Airtel, Mobile Money top-up, delivery reports that schools and SACCOs could trust, and a free API developers could wire in an afternoon. The product had to survive real volume and real support calls before it moved anywhere else.

What we refused to call “expansion”

Turning on a country as an international destination — same credit rate, thin coverage story, no local payment — is easy. We do not treat that as being live in a market.

For us, fully live means:

• Local (or clearly local-equivalent) pricing customers can plan around
• Direct or quality routes to the networks people actually use
• A way to pay that matches how businesses in that country already pay
• The same dashboard, API, and support standard as Uganda

Malawi and Zambia came next

Those markets proved the playbook outside Uganda: local networks, local money, same platform. The goal was not a map with more pins. It was the same operational honesty in a second and third currency.

Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda

East Africa’s corridors are connected. A business in Kampala serves customers in Nairobi; a fintech in Kigali talks to users in Dar. They asked for one SMS layer, not three contracts.

We brought Kenya (Safaricom, Airtel), Tanzania (Vodacom, Airtel, Tigo, Halotel), and Rwanda (MTN, Airtel) onto the same product with local-rate structures and Mobile Money-oriented top-up — six countries on one account model.

What stayed the same on purpose

• No monthly fee to keep an API key
• Credits that do not expire
• Honest delivery reporting
• Documentation aimed at real integrators
• Support that understands African business constraints

WhatsApp on the same spine

As WhatsApp Business Messaging went live on the platform, the same principle applied: same account, clear template categories, no fake “unlimited WhatsApp” claims. SMS remains the reach layer; WhatsApp is the high-intent layer where templates and consent fit.

What we are optimising for

Not the loudest launch. Routes that stay up, prices that make sense at 500 messages and at 60,000, and a single integration path for teams building across East and Southern Africa.

If you are in one of the six

Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia — create an account, send a test, read the delivery report. That is the product.

Start free →

Launch notes: Kenya, Tanzania & Rwanda announcement