How did you design a low-bandwidth SMS notification tool for small Kenyan shops?

Love this. For local number provisioning in Kenya, have you looked at Africa's Talking instead of Twilio? Their coverage and shortcodes are a lot friendlier to set up here.

Yeah, Africa's Talking really is the way to go here. I run a boutique in Eldoret and I use their SMS API for order confirmations and customer updates, no hassle with verified caller IDs or international numbers. You can get a short code or an alphanumeric sender ID that just works with Safaricom and Airtel. How is the dashboard coming along? I'm curious if you're keeping it simple enough for kiosk owners who aren't too comfortable with screens.

I hit the same wall with Twilio early on -- the verified-number requirement is a pain, especially when you're prototyping for local shops. I second the Africa's Talking suggestion. Their Kenya short codes and SIM toolkit integration are way smoother for this use case, and you can get a free tier number fast without the whole caller-ID dance. One thing to check on your side: make sure your from number is a proper local number or an Africa's Talking short code -- generic international numbers get flagged or filtered by Kenyan carriers. If you want, I can share the small wrapper I wrote for sending batched confirmations without blowing through rate limits.

That testing question is the real one, I think. I did a quick round with a few kiosk owners in my hood in Nairobi and what surprised me was how fast they picked up the SMS part, but the dashboard was the struggle. They mostly wanted one clear button, not a menu tree. Maybe try showing a friend or relative who runs a shop a rough version this weekend, even with fake orders, and see where they get stuck. Also, since you are on Africa's Talking, a simple USSD-style menu instead of a full app might be even lighter for them.

Solid shout on Africa's Talking, I've seen a few devs here switch over and the short code setup is way less painful. On the dashboard side, I'd say strip it right back, maybe just a big "New order" button and a list they can glance at on a phone screen, kiosk owners don't want to be clicking around menus. Have you tried testing it with an actual shop owner yet, or are you still on the prototype stage?

The Africa's Talking suggestion sounds spot on, and it's good you hit this now before going too deep with Twilio. Quick question though, did you manage to get a local sender ID sorted, or are you still working around that block? And on the dashboard, maybe start with something that looks like their WhatsApp chats so they don't have to learn a whole new screen.