You are building something, you want to plug in an AI API, and you get stuck at the payment page: card declined, spending cap reached, foreign transaction fees, or no international card at all. If you build from Nairobi, Kampala, Kigali or Lusaka, you know that wall.
The short answer: yes, you can use the OpenAI or Claude API without a credit card, by paying with M-Pesa or another mobile money wallet through a gateway. Here is how it works, what it costs in Kenyan shillings, and what you give up in exchange.
In short
- Yes, you can use the OpenAI or Claude API without a bank card: Tchavi, an OpenAI-compatible AI API gateway you pay for with mobile money, sits between your code and the providers. In your code, two lines change: the base URL and the key.
- You top up from KES 250 with Safaricom M-Pesa in Kenya, MTN or Airtel in Uganda and Rwanda, MTN or Zamtel in Zambia, and Orange in Sierra Leone. Francophone countries are covered too (full list, read live).
- About 13,200 credits for KES 1,000 in October 2026. Credits are the unit every model is priced in. No subscription, purchased credits never expire, and there are no free credits at signup: the account starts at zero and your first paid top-up adds 150 bonus credits.
- It depends on the model: without a discount you pay a margin above the provider's list price; some models carry a discount and can come out at or below it. The exact price is on each model's page or /models. On top of that, a 2% currency margin when you pay outside the CFA zone. What you buy is access without a card. If your international card works everywhere and you use a single provider, go direct.
- One key reaches over 100 models: text, image, audio and video.
How paying for the OpenAI API with mobile money works
Tchavi sits between your code and the providers: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Mistral, DeepSeek and others. You buy credits with mobile money, and every API call spends some of them at the published price of the model you called. The API is compatible with the OpenAI SDK, so code written for OpenAI works once you change the base URL and the key.
- No bank card at any step, and no account abroad.
- One account for GPT, Claude, Mistral, Whisper, image and video models.
- Support by email at support@tchavi.com.
Quick start: your first API call in five minutes
Step 1: create your account
Create your account and top up KES 250 with your email, or with Google or GitHub. No card is requested. Once your email is verified the account is ready, at 0 credits.
Step 2: top up with M-Pesa
In the dashboard, enter the amount in your own currency, pick your operator and approve the payment on your phone. Credits arrive as soon as the operator confirms. The billing page reads the amount and currency from the link above, so KES 250 is already filled in.
Your first paid top-up unlocks the full catalogue (Claude, GPT, image and video) and adds 150 bonus credits. Until then, the API answers 402 on budget models and 403 on the others, which are reserved for accounts that have topped up.
Step 3: create an API key, with a limit
In the dashboard, generate a key. It starts with sk-tch- and is shown once, so copy it right away. You can give it a spend limit in credits and an expiry (from one hour to one month, or a date you choose). If your code goes into a loop, the key stops at its limit instead of draining your balance. See authentication for the details.
Step 4: your first call in Node.js
Tchavi works with the official OpenAI SDK, so you can reuse any code written for OpenAI. Change two lines: baseURL and the API key.
import OpenAI from 'openai';
const client = new OpenAI({
apiKey: process.env.TCHAVI_API_KEY,
baseURL: 'https://tchavi.com/api/v1',
});
const response = await client.chat.completions.create({
model: 'gpt-5-nano',
messages: [
{ role: 'system', content: 'You are a helpful assistant.' },
{ role: 'user', content: 'Explain mobile money in two sentences.' },
],
});
console.log(response.choices[0].message.content);
The same code works with any text model in the catalogue: change only model (claude-sonnet-5-5, gpt-6-sol, mistral-large-latest).
Step 5: the same in Python
from openai import OpenAI
import os
client = OpenAI(
api_key=os.environ["TCHAVI_API_KEY"],
base_url="https://tchavi.com/api/v1",
)
response = client.chat.completions.create(
model="mistral-small-latest",
messages=[
{"role": "system", "content": "You are a helpful assistant."},
{"role": "user", "content": "Explain mobile money in two sentences."},
],
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)
Using a coding agent? Claude Code connects the same way, with two environment variables: Claude Code without a credit card.
Where you can top up
As of 22 October 2026, mobile money top-ups work in these English-speaking markets:
| Country | Currency | Operators |
|---|---|---|
| Kenya | KES | Safaricom M-Pesa |
| Uganda | UGX | MTN MoMo, Airtel |
| Rwanda | RWF | MTN MoMo, Airtel |
| Zambia | ZMW | MTN MoMo, Zamtel |
| Sierra Leone | SLE | Orange |
Cameroon (bilingual) pays in XAF with MTN, and the francophone countries pay in XOF, XAF or CDF. The list moves, so the current version is on the payments page of the docs. There is no Wave for now. If your country is missing, tell me at support@tchavi.com.
What a top-up buys, in Kenyan shillings
Credits cost the same everywhere. Outside the CFA zone, your amount is converted at the day's exchange rate with a 2% currency margin, and the exact figure is shown before you confirm. Around 22 October 2026, KES 1,000 buys about 13,200 credits, and KES 5,000 about 66,000.
The minimum top-up and what it buys, as of October 2026:
| Currency | Minimum top-up | Credits it buys (about) |
|---|---|---|
| KES | KES 250 | 3,300 |
| UGX | UGX 7,000 | 3,400 |
| RWF | RWF 2,500 | 3,300 |
| ZMW | ZMW 50 | 3,300 |
| SLE | SLE 40 | 3,200 |
Rates move daily, so check the estimate on the billing page before you pay.
Why OpenAI and Anthropic decline your card
The US providers charge cards through payment processors that often reject cards issued in East Africa, without telling you why. Your local card may work fine for online shopping and still fail at an AI provider. The other obstacles come up again and again:
- Capped international cards. Often limited for foreign payments, and for a developer who builds seriously the cap goes fast.
- Fees. Banks usually charge a foreign exchange fee on each international payment, sometimes a flat fee too. Check your statement: the total is often more than you expected.
- PayPal. It accepts some African cards, but fees pile up and an account can be limited without notice.
- Virtual dollar cards. They sometimes work, but they are often declined in turn. The comparison is just below.
Virtual card or mobile money: the honest comparison
| Virtual dollar card, funded with M-Pesa | Tchavi, paid with mobile money | |
|---|---|---|
| Model prices | provider price, plus the card's fees and the currency exchange | depends on the model: a margin above the provider price, or a discount that can bring it to or below the provider price |
| What you give | usually an identity check with the card issuer | an email |
| Payment refused | possible, depending on the card and the provider | no card, so no card refusal |
| Providers | one account and one invoice per provider | one key for over 100 models |
| Currency | dollars | your own currency |
If you already have a virtual card that works with OpenAI and you only use one provider, keep it: it is cheaper. Just keep in mind that if the provider suspects fraud on the card, it can suspend your account, and your API calls stop at once.
What it costs, in short
Credits are the unit, and prices depend on the model. Using the October 2026 rate of about 13.2 credits per KES:
- A WhatsApp-style chatbot handling 1,000 messages a day, each with about 500 input tokens (system prompt and recent turns included) and a 150-token reply, costs about 5,500 credits a day on Claude Sonnet 5.5, roughly KES 12,500 a month. On Claude Haiku 5.5 it is about 275 credits a day, roughly KES 625 a month: twenty times less. Haiku 5.5 thinks before it answers, and those thinking tokens are billed too, so budget a little more.
- Product images: about 83 credits (around KES 6) for a 1K image with Nano Banana.
- Voice transcription: 13 credits per started minute with Whisper, about KES 1 per minute. A hundred one-minute voice notes a day is about KES 2,950 a month.
You are billed per exact token for chat models, per started minute for Whisper, and per second for video.
These are public prices; some models are on discount right now, and each model page shows the price billed today.
What you can build with it
1. A customer-service bot
A small model such as Claude Haiku 5.5 or GPT-5 nano, connected to the WhatsApp Business Cloud API directly. Remember that Meta also bills replies beyond a free allowance, and that cost is separate from your AI bill.
2. A voice app
The user speaks, Whisper transcribes, a chat model answers, and a text-to-speech model speaks back. For Swahili, test before you promise anything: our transcription test on WhatsApp voice notes shows what works and what does not.
3. A product image generator for sellers
The seller sends a raw photo, an image model puts the product in a clean studio setting. You charge per image and keep the difference after the credits it spends.
4. A content tool
A tool that writes posts, captions and emails for local markets, sold as a monthly subscription, with your own key limits protecting your margin.
Should you use Tchavi if your card works?
Honestly: if you have a solid international card, with no annoying cap and fair exchange fees, and you use a single provider, go direct to OpenAI or Anthropic. It is cheaper.
Tchavi is a reasonable trade-off if you:
- use several models (GPT, Claude, Whisper, an image or video model): managing four accounts and four cards is painful;
- want to pay with M-Pesa or another mobile money wallet, with no card and no account abroad;
- want to see prices in credits and pay in your own currency.
The limits to know about
- A detour through the gateway. Each call goes through Tchavi's infrastructure before reaching the provider, which adds a delay. For a chatbot or an agent you will not notice it; if your use case is millisecond-sensitive, measure it yourself.
- A price that depends on the model. Without a discount you pay a margin above the direct rate; some models carry a discount and can come out at or below it (see /models for the exact price). On top of that, there is the 2% currency margin outside the CFA zone. That difference pays for access without a card and for one account across all models. Do your own math for your volume: both price lists are public.
- The catalogue. The main models are there, not every model from every provider. If you want one we do not have, write to us.
- No fine-tuning. Tchavi does inference, not model training.
To get started, create your account and top up KES 250 with M-Pesa, generate a key and make your first call. You only pay what you top up. For any question, write to support@tchavi.com. And if you build something interesting, tell me: I would like to see it.
FAQ
Can I pay for ChatGPT Plus or Claude Pro with Tchavi?
No. Tchavi sells API access for developers: you pay per request, with no subscription, and call the models from your code. To try a model without coding, the playground on each model page uses the same credits.
Does my data go through Tchavi before reaching OpenAI or Anthropic?
Yes, by necessity: Tchavi is a gateway. For text, image and audio, we do not keep the content of your requests, only billing data (model, tokens, cost) and technical data such as the IP address. For video, the prompt stays in your job history, and the finished video is deleted 24 hours after it is created. Files uploaded from the playground are stored so they can be passed to the model, then deleted after 24 hours. Your request is then processed by the model's publisher and, depending on the model, by the host that runs it for them, each under its own privacy policy. If you are building something sensitive (health, finance), write to us before going to production.
How long does an M-Pesa top-up take?
Your credits arrive as soon as your operator confirms the payment you approved on your phone, usually within a minute.
Can I pay with a bank card if I have one?
Not at the moment: mobile money is the only payment method (countries and operators). Cards may come later if demand justifies it.
Do you cover francophone countries too?
Yes. Benin, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Cameroon and others pay in XOF or XAF, and the DRC in CDF. The live list is on the payments page.
Are my API calls encrypted?
HTTPS everywhere, like any modern API. Your API keys are never stored in plain text on the server: we only keep a SHA-256 hash, so even our team cannot read your key back.
What happens if I use more credits than planned?
A request whose estimated cost exceeds your balance is refused with a 402 (Payment Required). A streamed request can overshoot by a few credits, because its final cost is only known at the end. To hold a budget, give your key a spend limit; see authentication.
This article is part of the series "Building an AI product from Africa". Tchavi is an OpenAI-compatible AI API gateway: one key gives access to over 100 text, image, audio and video models, and you pay for it with mobile money, no bank card (countries and operators). In the series: Claude Code without a credit card, Ollama and Tchavi side by side and AI transcription for WhatsApp voice notes in Swahili. More guides, in French: the French blog. Follow us: LinkedIn and X.