Built by developers,
for developers.
And for the businesses that depend on messages actually arriving. This is the story behind Africa's honest messaging infrastructure.
African-built messaging
infrastructure, filling gaps
no one else fills.
Fake DLRs everywhere
We were building products on top of African SMS APIs and kept hitting the same wall: delivery reports that said "delivered" when messages never arrived. Debugging was impossible. Pricing was opaque. Developer experience was an afterthought.
No one was filling it
Twilio and Vonage are excellent — for the US and Europe. African providers had the carrier connections but none of the developer tooling. We needed both: direct carrier access and a platform that developers actually enjoy using.
SMSGist takes shape
We started with the thing that mattered most: honest delivery data. Real carrier response codes, per-recipient status, accurate timing. Everything else — the SDK, the dashboard, the webhook system — was built on top of that foundation.
Ghana first. Africa next.
Direct carrier connections in Ghana via Npontu/Deywuro. SMS and email from a single API. Multi-tenant organizations, credit delegation, HMAC webhooks, idempotency keys. The Go SDK is live. PHP, Node.js, and Python are coming.
The honest delivery promise.
Most providers report delivery rates that are technically accurate but practically useless. A message marked "sent" at the gateway level isn't the same as a message that arrived on someone's phone.
We built SMSGist around real delivery data. Every message includes the carrier DLR — the actual response from the network — not just our internal status. When something fails, you get the carrier error code and the exact timing, so you can debug it and fix it.
- Real carrier response codes per recipient
- DELIVRD vs UNDELIV vs REJECTED — all surfaced
- Timing data: submission → delivery delta
- No curated numbers — raw data, always
Message batch
OTP Campaign — March 22
+233 245 972 246
DLR: DELIVRD
Delivered
340ms
+233 302 881 100
DLR: DELIVRD
Delivered
512ms
+233 244 000 001
DLR: UNDELIV · ERR:69
Undelivered
8.2s
Real carrier responses. Not estimates. Not averages.
ERR:69 means "absent subscriber." That phone was off or out of range. Now you know — and you can retry later.
What we believe in.
These aren't marketing words. They're decisions that shaped every feature we've shipped and every feature we've refused to ship.
Radical transparency
Every price is public. Every rate is listed. No "contact sales." No hidden fees. You know exactly what you pay before you press send.
Honest delivery data
We show you the real carrier response — DELIVRD, UNDELIV, REJECTED — not a curated dashboard number that flatters your delivery rate.
Developer experience first
Good docs. Working SDKs. A sandbox that actually behaves like production. Idempotency keys. HMAC-signed webhooks. The details matter.
Built for Africa
GHS pricing, mobile money top-ups, direct carrier connections in Ghana. Not an afterthought — the whole product is designed for this market.
Data you can act on
Per-recipient status, carrier response codes, timing data. Not just "sent" and "failed." Real information so you can debug, optimize, and ship.
No nonsense architecture
Live, Test, DryRun modes toggle from the dashboard. Credit delegation flows org → app → credential. Simple concepts, powerful in practice.
We're a small team
building big things.
SMSGist is built by a tight-knit team of developers who got tired of the gap between what African messaging infrastructure could be and what it actually was. We're closing that gap, one honest feature at a time.
We're not trying to be everything to everyone. We're trying to be the most developer-honest, delivery-transparent messaging platform in Africa. That's a focused goal with a large surface area.
100%
Honest delivery data
$0
"Contact sales" pages
1
API for SMS + Email
Full team page coming soon. In the meantime, reach us at hello@smsgist.com
Ready to send messages
that actually arrive?
Get your API key, set up an app, and send your first message in minutes. No credit card. No "contact sales." Just working infrastructure.