How to make cheap calls in South Africa without a contract

There are two usual ways to pay for calls in South Africa. A contract gives you a bundle of minutes every month for two years, whether you use them or not. Prepaid lets you load airtime, but the per-minute rate is high and bundles expire. Both make you guess in advance how much you will talk.

There is a third way: pay only for the seconds you actually use, at a lower rate, with nothing signed.

That is how Ukutel works. You get a South African cloud number in an app. You load Cloud Airtime, and each call is charged by the second. When the call ends, the charging ends. There is no contract, no 24-month term, and no bundle to finish before month-end.

What this costs, plainly:

• Calls are 40 to 70% less than a normal mobile call, depending on where you are calling.
• Packages start at R80 (about $4.86) a month and include R50 (about $3.04) of airtime. If you want more, you top up. Top-up airtime does not expire.
• If you stop, you stop. There is no cancellation fee because there is no contract.

A few honest points, so you can judge for yourself. The calls travel over the internet, so you need Wi-Fi or mobile data. On a weak connection, a call will not sound good, exactly as a video call would not. And you keep your SIM card: the cloud number is a second line, so your normal number keeps working for everything it does today.

The best way to know whether it suits you is to try it on your own phone, with your own calls. The trial is R25 (about $1.52) for five days. If a friend already uses Ukutel, they can sponsor a three-day trial for you for R5 (about $0.30).

We are a small company, and we would rather show you than tell you.