specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Africa's Talking
providerId: africastalking
created: '2026-06-20'
modified: '2026-06-20'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Communications
- SMS
- USSD
- Voice
- Airtime
- Mobile Data
- Payments
- Africa
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
- Throttling
description: >-
  Africa's Talking throughput is governed primarily by carrier-imposed
  delivery rates and per-account messaging caps rather than a single published
  numeric API rate limit. SMS throughput depends on whether you use a shared or
  dedicated short code and on telco throttling; large batches are buffered via
  the enqueue option. Voice concurrency, payments velocity, and airtime limits
  are bounded by carrier rules and account standing. Specific numeric limits
  are not published as a single table and are not reconciled in this artifact.
notes: >-
  Confirm per-product throughput, short code capacity, enqueue behavior, and
  any account-level caps with Africa's Talking support or your account manager
  on reconciliation. Honor delivery report callbacks to track throttling.
sources:
- https://developers.africastalking.com
- https://help.africastalking.com
- https://africastalking.com/sms
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: SMS Throughput
  scope: account
  metric: messages_per_second
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Bounded by carrier delivery rates and shared vs dedicated short code capacity.
- name: Bulk SMS Enqueue
  scope: account
  metric: messages
  limit: buffered
  notes: Set enqueue=1 to buffer very large outbound batches for paced delivery.
- name: USSD Sessions
  scope: account
  metric: concurrent_sessions
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Session concurrency depends on short code provisioning and carrier limits.
- name: Voice Concurrency
  scope: account
  metric: concurrent_calls
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Concurrent channels depend on registered numbers and carrier capacity.
- name: Payments Velocity
  scope: account
  metric: transactions
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Payment throughput bounded by mobile money provider rules and account wallet balance.
policies:
- name: Carrier-Governed Throughput
  description: Effective rate limits are set by downstream mobile carriers; dedicated short codes raise SMS throughput.
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter on 429 responses and honor delivery report callbacks.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com