Sending Bulk SMS

Bulk SMS is the standard way to send transactional or marketing messages to one or many recipients.

Basic Example

use SamuelMwangiW\Africastalking\Facades\Africastalking;

$response = Africastalking::sms('Hello from MyApp!')
    ->to('+254712345678')
    ->send();

Or with the global helper:

$response = africastalking()->sms('Hello from MyApp!')
    ->to('+254712345678')
    ->send();

Sending to Multiple Recipients

Pass an array of phone numbers to to():

$response = Africastalking::sms('Your OTP is 123456')
    ->to(['+254712345678', '+256706123567', '+255712000000'])
    ->send();

Full Method Reference

Method	Description
sms(string $text)	Set the message text (can also be set later with message())
message(string $text)	Set or overwrite the message text
text(string $text)	Alias for message()
to(string|array $numbers)	Set recipient phone number(s)
as(string $senderId)	Override the sender ID from config
bulk()	Mark as bulk (default — usually not needed explicitly)
enqueue()	Optimise throughput by batching with the API before waiting for telco acknowledgement
send()	Dispatch the request and return the response

Advanced Example

use SamuelMwangiW\Africastalking\Facades\Africastalking;

$response = Africastalking::sms()
    ->message('Your order #1234 has been shipped and will arrive in 2–3 days.')
    ->as('MyStore')                              // custom sender ID
    ->to(['+254712345678', '+256706123567'])
    ->enqueue()                                  // for high-volume sends
    ->send();

The Response

send() returns a SentMessageResponse object. Per-recipient results are in the ->recipients collection, each a SentMessageRecipient:

foreach ($response->recipients as $recipient) {
    echo $recipient->number->number; // +254712345678
    echo $recipient->status->value;  // "Success" | "InvalidPhoneNumber" | etc.
    echo $recipient->cost;           // "KES 0.8000"
    echo $recipient->id;             // AT message ID
}

Sender IDs

In the sandbox environment you may use any alphanumeric sender ID. In production, sender IDs must be registered with Africa's Talking for your account.