Frequently asked questions

Sendozi is a Nigerian SMS platform. You fund one naira wallet and send Bulk SMS, transactional alerts and promotional campaigns from a dashboard or an HTTP API, with per-recipient delivery reports.

Not to open an account. Individuals can sign up and test immediately. Production sending requires KYC approval, and a branded sender ID usually requires the business documents the networks ask for - we tell you what a specific request needs.

You can test in sandbox within minutes of signing up. Going live depends on two things outside a stopwatch: KYC approval and sender ID registration, which the mobile networks decide. Start both early rather than on the day of your campaign.

No. The dashboard works from any browser: upload contacts, write the message and send. The API exists for teams that want messaging inside their own product, not as a requirement.

Yes, in sandbox. A sk_test_ API key runs the same validation as a live send without calling a provider or debiting the wallet. There is no automatic trial credit, so a real message to a real phone needs a funded wallet.

By card or bank transfer from the dashboard. Corporate accounts can request an invoice for a transfer payment.

No. The balance stays in your wallet until you spend it or close the account.

Sendozi resolves pages from the character count of the whole message. The first page ends at 160 characters, and longer messages roll into further pages at 306, 459, 612, 765, 918 and 1000. A single send cannot exceed 1000 characters, and the dashboard shows the page count before you send.

Sendozi's page table is applied to the character count regardless of encoding, so a 70-character Yoruba message is billed as one page. Encoding still matters technically: the SMS standard carries 160 GSM-7 characters per segment but only 70 Unicode characters, which is why messages in Hausa, Igbo or Yoruba - or any message containing an emoji or a curly apostrophe - occupy more segments on the network.

Yes. Above 1,000,000 messages a month, rates are negotiated - email support@sendozi.com. Below that, everyone pays the published per-page rate.

No. There is no setup fee, no monthly minimum and no contract. You pay per message from your wallet balance, and the balance does not expire.

Yes. Every top-up generates a receipt, and registered businesses can download invoices from the dashboard. VAT is shown at top-up and on invoices where it applies.

Unused wallet balance is refundable when you close your account, subject to identity verification and the process set out in our Terms.

A message rejected before it reaches a route - an invalid number, an unapproved sender ID, an insufficient balance - is not charged. A message the provider rejects has its wallet debit reversed. A message accepted by the network and then undelivered because the handset was unreachable is chargeable, which is how SMS works everywhere.

The most common cause is the Do Not Disturb register: the networks block promotional traffic to DND-active numbers, and no provider can override that. Transactional messages travel a separate corporate route and are not filtered as marketing. Other common causes are an unapproved sender ID, a number that is not in valid +234 format, and a handset that was unreachable until the message expired. The delivery report names which applied.

You can build and test in sandbox immediately. A production send with an unapproved sender is refused rather than delivered under another name. Alphanumeric sender IDs must be registered per network, we handle the submissions, and the dashboard shows the status of each.

It depends on the network and on how complete the submission is, and the decision is theirs rather than ours. Sendozi does not publish a guaranteed turnaround because it cannot honour one. Submit before you plan the campaign.

Most messages are handed to the network within seconds. Delivery to the handset is the network's decision and depends on coverage and whether the phone is on: an unreachable handset is retried until the message expires. Your delivery report updates as each network confirms.

Yes. Import a CSV, map the columns once, and the list is ready for campaigns and personalisation. Normalise numbers to +234 format first - local 0-prefixed numbers are rejected. You are responsible for having consent to message the people on the list.

Yes. Those languages send correctly as Unicode. Because their orthographies use characters outside the GSM-7 alphabet, the SMS standard carries 70 characters per segment rather than 160, so plan message length accordingly.

No. The SMS API accepts Nigerian mobile numbers in +234 format only, and anything else is rejected. There are no international routes and no international pricing.

No. An alphanumeric sender ID is one-way, and Sendozi does not receive inbound SMS, so a reply - including a STOP reply - is not captured. Put a contact route in the message for anyone who needs to respond or opt out, and record opt-outs on your suppression list.

Yes. Sends can be scheduled from the dashboard, and the cost is checked against your balance when the send runs, so fund the wallet before the scheduled time.

Between 08:30 and 19:30 WAT. That window is enforced on the server, not only in the dashboard: a promotional send composed at 21:00 becomes a visible scheduled send for the next morning rather than arriving at an hour your customers did not agree to. Transactional and OTP messages are not subject to it.

No. The networks approve a sender ID for one route, against the sample message in that request letter, so promotional and transactional traffic need separate requests, separate letters and separate approvals. Sendozi enforces it: a transactional request naming a promotional sender ID is refused before your wallet is touched, and the reverse is refused too.

Exactly three: [firstName], [lastName] and [fullName], which is built from the two name columns. A birthday schedule uses [firstName] and [signature]. Anything else is rejected before the campaign is priced, because a message that goes out reading "Dear [name]" is worse than one that is refused.

Per recipient, after their own details are merged in. A longer name can push one recipient's message from one page to two, so the dashboard renders every row, counts its pages and shows the exact total in naira before you send. An average would over-charge some recipients and under-reserve for others.

Yes. Each row in the schedule keeps its own birthday and its own delivery time, and it runs again on that date every year until you pause it. A 29 February birthday is delivered on 28 February in a non-leap year rather than skipped for three years at a time.

Yes, and that is the point of the schedule file: each row carries its own WAT time. One global send time would discard the per-recipient scheduling the CSV exists to express. Times outside the promotional window are reported by row number when you upload, rather than quietly moved.

Sendozi operates as a data processor under the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 and provides consent, suppression and record-keeping tooling designed to support your compliance. It does not hold an NDPA certification, and no messaging platform should claim one. Our Privacy Policy sets out what we collect and why, and documentation for institutional due diligence is available on request.

No. Sendozi publishes no certifications, and states this plainly rather than implying otherwise. The security and compliance page describes the safeguards that actually exist today.

You do. Sendozi processes them only to deliver your messages, and you can export or delete them at any time.

Give them a route you monitor - a phone number, an email address or a link - and record the request on your suppression list, which every subsequent send checks. Sendozi does not receive inbound SMS, so a STOP reply is not captured automatically.

Use the account closure option in settings, or email hello@sendozi.com from your account email. We verify the request, settle the wallet per the Terms and delete personal data on the schedule in our Privacy Policy.

Call +234 808 880 8090 or email support@sendozi.com during Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM WAT. Include your account email and, for a delivery question, the message ID or the request_id from the API response - that is how a specific send is traced.

Yes. The documentation covers the quickstart, the SMS endpoints, webhooks, idempotency and error handling, with working examples in several languages. If you are stuck on something specific, the team will look at it.

Yes. Add team members with their own logins and keep one wallet and one combined delivery record for oversight.

One-time passwords are transactional traffic and travel the corporate route, which is not filtered as marketing. You declare the route on each request with sms_type: "transactional", and Sendozi does not guess it for you.

Yes. Every message carries a status timeline you can read by API, export from the dashboard, or receive as a signed webhook as events happen.

Yes. Call the API from your order workflow and send a different template on each status change. Use an idempotency key derived from the order so a retry cannot send twice.

You need the number at the moment you send, and a lawful basis for holding it. Store it in +234 format so it deduplicates cleanly, keep a record of where it came from, and delete it when the purpose it was collected for has ended.

Yes. Group contacts however your institution is organised and message any group independently, from the same wallet.

Yes. Every message is logged with its content, recipient, timestamp and delivery status, and the log is exportable. Retention follows the schedule in our Privacy Policy.

A one-page message to 500 recipients is 500 pages, so 500 times ₦7.00. The dashboard shows the exact figure before you send, and a message over 160 characters is billed as two pages per recipient.

Personal sender IDs follow the same network registration rules as business ones, and the networks decide. We will tell you what is possible for your case during setup.