Two SMS providers, compared on price, features and ratings, so you can pick fast.
Updated October 2026
THE VERDICT
Africa's Talking wins on price and channel coverage. AWS SNS wins on compliance and routing.
Africa's Talking and AWS SNS take different pricing approaches. Pick based on volume and team, and the scorecard below breaks down where each one leads.
Winner cells are tinted, green where Africa's Talking leads, violet where AWS SNS does.
FAQ
Africa's Talking rates higher on G2 (4.2 vs 4.2). Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms as of the date shown.
Pricing is usage-based and varies by destination country. In Kenya, SMS costs roughly $0.003 to $0.005 per message (about KES 0.40 to 0.60), other African destinations range from about $0.001 to $0.05, and US outbound messages are around $0.03 each. There is no monthly platform fee.
Amazon SNS gives you the first 100 SMS messages sent to US phone numbers each month for free, on an ongoing basis rather than a one-time trial. The wider SNS free tier also includes 1 million mobile push notifications and 1,000 email deliveries per month. There is no free SMS allowance for messages sent outside the United States.
Yes. Many teams route different message types through different providers or fail over between them. Courier lets you send through both behind a single API and switch providers without changing your code.
Why not both?
Use both behind one API.
Route Africa's Talking, AWS SNS, or both, and switch providers without changing your code. Courier sits in front of every channel.
Pricing, plans and feature availability as of October 2026 and may change. Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms.