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Why we built Authevo: WhatsApp OTP for Egypt & MENA

By The Authevo Team6 min read

If you’ve shipped phone verification in Egypt or the wider MENA region, you already know the pain. SMS one-time codes are costly, delivery is inconsistent, and you often pay full price for messages that never arrive. We built Authevo because the channel users actually live in — WhatsApp — was being ignored by the tools developers had to reach for.

The problem with SMS OTP in MENA

  • Cost — international SMS termination across the region is expensive, and prices swing per country and per carrier.
  • Deliverability — messages get filtered, delayed, or silently dropped, and you rarely learn which.
  • You pay for failure — most providers bill per attempt, so undelivered codes still cost you money.

Why WhatsApp, with Telegram fallback

WhatsApp is the default messaging app for many people across Egypt and MENA. After a one-time recipient link, Authevo can fall back to Telegram automatically when WhatsApp cannot deliver. If the recipient is not linked, the API returns 409 CHANNEL_NOT_LINKED with a one-tap URL your product must display. We do not deliver OTPs by SMS or email.

Developer-first, and honest about cost

The core product is two REST endpoints — send a code, verify a code — so you can integrate from any backend without an SDK. The first 50 successes are free; new accounts then pay $0.006 per message until 500 successes before moving to the destination’s pay-per-success rate. Shared-number MENA rates currently range from $0.01 to $0.03. As a verified Tech Provider on Meta’s WhatsApp Business Platform we run on official WhatsApp infrastructure rather than gray routes.

Security is built in, not bolted on: phone numbers are hashed with SHA-256 and never stored in plaintext, OTP codes are never stored in plaintext, WhatsApp Business tokens are encrypted with AES-256-GCM, and webhooks are signed. That’s the foundation we wanted as developers — so we built it for the region we’re from.