A SIP trunk connects an office phone system (a PBX such as 3CX, FreePBX, Yeastar or Avaya; see PBX systems in Kenya) to the phone network, with Kenyan numbers and call minutes. In Kenya, trunks are sold by the big telcos (Safaricom, Airtel), by fibre and enterprise carriers (Jamii Telecom/Faiba, Liquid Intelligent Technologies), by local cloud providers such as Cloud One, and by global platforms such as Zadarma. Most sell through a sales team, on a contract, with prices on request. Sautikit is the self-service option: sign up online, claim a Kenyan number at KES 500 a month, and use its SIP credentials (sip.sautikit.com, port 5080, UDP) in your PBX the same day. Inbound calls are free and outbound calls cost KES 3.00 a minute billed per second, with no trunk fee or contract.
Provider details below were read from each provider's public pages on 5 November 2026. Where a price is not published, we say so rather than guess.
| Provider | How you buy | Published price | Contract |
|---|
| Sautikit | Online, self-service | Number KES 500/month; inbound free; outbound KES 3.00/min per second | None |
| Safaricom Business | Account manager | Not published | Enterprise agreement |
| Airtel Business | "Talk to an Expert" form | Not published | On request |
| Cloud One | Application form, then KYC | Outbound KES 3/min; trunk price on request | One year (pay-as-you-go trunk) |
| Jamii Telecom (Faiba) | Sales by phone or email | Not published on pages we could open | On request |
| Liquid Intelligent Technologies | Enterprise sales | Not published for Kenya | On request |
| Zadarma | Online, self-service | Nairobi number US$13.50/month (monthly billing) | None |
What you get: a Kenyan number with its own SIP credentials. Open the number in the console, go to SIP & Devices, click + Add device, and copy the username and password into your PBX. Each number can have several devices, and the number's Forward setting decides which one inbound calls reach.
- No channels to buy: a number has no calls-at-once size, so you do not pick 4, 8 or 16 up front.
- Price: KES 500 a month per number, no setup fee. Inbound calls free; outbound KES 3.00 a minute to Kenyan networks, billed per second. AI agents KES 4.00 a minute.
- Sign-up: online, paid from a prepaid KES wallet topped up with M-Pesa or card.
- Setup guides: 3CX, FreePBX, Yeastar, Grandstream UCM, Avaya IP Office, plus voice AI platforms such as ElevenLabs and Vapi.
- Also on the same number: the SautiKit Phone apps, call routing, AI agents, broadcasts and a voice API.
Safaricom sells fixed voice, toll-free 0800 numbers and premium-rate numbers to business customers through account managers. It does not publish SIP trunk prices. Its premium-rate service page says those numbers require an existing E1 or SIP line.
On the 3CX community forum, a Kenyan user trying to connect a Safaricom SIP trunk to 3CX found no ready-made template, and a reply said Safaricom would only connect the trunk if the PBX was hosted in Kenya (3CX forum). Ask your account manager about hosting requirements before you plan a cloud-hosted PBX.
Airtel Kenya's business site has a SIP trunk page describing direct-dial numbers, one shared number across many lines, and a single bill. Prices are not published; you start with a "Talk to an Expert" form or WhatsApp.
Cloud One is a Nairobi provider of SIP trunks, virtual numbers and hosted 3CX. Its pay-as-you-go trunk lists outbound calls at KES 3 a minute to Kenyan networks, KES 1 a minute to other Cloud One numbers, and free inbound calls. The trunk is issued on a one-year term, comes in 4- and 8-call sizes with pricing on request, and is deployed within 24 hours after KYC. Numbers are bundled with the trunk and, in Cloud One's words, "are not offered as a standalone service". Full comparison: Sautikit vs Cloud One.
Jamii Telecom, the company behind Faiba, sells enterprise SIP trunks and extensions aimed at call centres and BPOs, through its sales team. We could not open a published price list.
Liquid launched its OneVoice cloud PBX in Kenya in November 2021 (HapaKenya) and sells voice and SIP services to enterprises through sales. Kenyan prices are not published.
Zadarma is a global VoIP platform with self-service sign-up. It lists a Nairobi 020 number at US$13.50 a month on monthly billing, with two simultaneous calls included, and bills in US dollars. Full comparison: Sautikit vs Zadarma.
Ask every provider the same questions:
- Can I buy one number, or must I buy a trunk of a fixed size?
- How many calls can run at once, and what happens to the next one? Most trunks are sold by channels (4, 8, 16); when they are all busy, the next call cannot get through.
- Is there a contract, and how long?
- What does an outbound minute to Safaricom and Airtel mobiles cost, and is it billed per second or per minute?
- Are inbound calls free?
- How long from sign-up to first call?
- Does the trunk work with my PBX on a cloud server outside Kenya?
- How do I pay: M-Pesa, card, bank transfer?
If the answers you want are "one number, no channel count, no contract, today, M-Pesa", that is the gap Sautikit fills.
Whatever provider you choose, two settings cause most failed setups in Kenya:
- The port. Sautikit uses 5080, not the default 5060. Turn off auto-discovery in 3CX and enter it by hand.
- SIP ALG on the router. Huawei and ZTE fibre routers often have it on, which causes one-way audio and dropped calls. See how to turn off SIP ALG and 3CX trunk errors 403, 408 and 488.
A SIP trunk is a phone line delivered over the internet to a PBX. It carries your phone numbers and calls, so the PBX can ring extensions on inbound calls and place outbound calls to any network.
Safaricom sells business voice services, including toll-free and premium-rate numbers, through account managers. It does not publish SIP trunk prices; contact Safaricom Business for a quote.
Most providers do not publish trunk prices. Sautikit has no trunk fee: each Kenyan number is KES 500 a month with SIP credentials included, inbound calls are free, and outbound calls are KES 3.00 a minute billed per second.
Yes. Sautikit numbers are monthly with no contract, and you sign up online and pay with M-Pesa or card.
Any trunk that registers with a username and password works with 3CX's generic template. For Sautikit, use sip.sautikit.com, port 5080, UDP. See Connect 3CX to a Kenyan SIP trunk.