Interkey products
Interkey Digital Connect is Interkey’s enterprise messaging platform: one integration for OTP and two-factor delivery, transactional alerts, mass notifications and campaign messaging, across SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, web chat and in-app messaging, backed by a Saudi messaging lineage that started in 2004.
Orientation
The whole page in one table, before the detail.
| Product | Interkey Digital Connect, an Interkey product |
|---|---|
| Messaging channels | SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, website live chat, in-app mobile chat |
| Message types | OTP and two-factor verification, transactional alerts and service updates, mass notifications and announcements, campaign and loyalty messaging |
| Integration | REST API for application traffic; SMPP for high-volume SMS; SOAP where an existing business system speaks it |
| Mobile | In-app chat SDK for iOS and Android applications |
| Access control | Role-based access with admin and user levels, privilege management, and two-factor authentication on platform accounts |
| Network access | IP whitelisting and VPN-controlled access to the platform where required |
| Campaign controls | Predefined and approved message templates, campaign scheduling and sub-scheduling |
| Reporting | Delivery tracking and reporting across every channel in one place |
| Typical volumes | Enterprise scale, from transactional bursts to sustained campaign traffic |
| Operator relationships | Delivered by a company operating in Saudi telecommunications since 1999 |
| Support | Riyadh-based team, Arabic and English |
| Commercial model | Quote only: priced by channel mix and volume |
One integration
A Saudi bank, retailer or government service typically talks to its customers across at least five channels. An OTP goes by SMS. A delivery notification goes by WhatsApp. A support conversation starts in an app and continues on Instagram. Each of those usually arrives as a separate integration, with its own credentials, its own delivery reporting and its own failure modes, and no single view of whether the customer actually received anything.
Digital Connect collapses that into one integration, one set of delivery reporting, and one place to manage the channels and the message types that run over them. Interkey builds and operates it, and it is built for organisations operating in Saudi Arabia.
Use cases
Messaging programmes are usually described by channel, which is the wrong axis for buying one. What decides the platform is the kind of message: an OTP and a loyalty campaign share a channel and share almost nothing else, in urgency, in consent, in what failure costs, or in how they are priced.
One-time passcodes and two-factor verification. The category with the shortest useful lifetime and the highest cost of failure: a passcode that arrives ninety seconds late has already failed, and the visible symptom is a customer who cannot log in. Routed and monitored differently from everything else on this list for exactly that reason.
Account alerts, service updates and transaction confirmations, generated by a business system in response to something that just happened. Expected by the customer, tied to a record on your side, and judged on whether delivery can be proved rather than on volume.
Mass notifications and announcements: a service interruption, a schedule change, a safety or continuity message that has to reach a whole population quickly. Reach and speed matter more than richness, which is usually what keeps this category on SMS.
Promotions, offers, loyalty programmes and marketing messages. The only category the customer can reasonably decline, which makes template approval, scheduling and audience control part of the product rather than good manners. Also the category whose economics changed most when WhatsApp moved to per-message billing by template type.
One integration
Your business systems
The banking core, the commerce platform, the ERP, the support desk
Digital Connect API
One REST integration, or SMPP for high-volume SMS; one set of delivery reporting
Channels
Saudi operator routes
Traffic terminated onto stc, Mobily and Zain networks, with registered sender identities
Your customer
Reached on the channel they actually use, with delivery you can prove
The channel decision happens per message, not per project: the same integration sends an OTP by SMS, a delivery update by WhatsApp and a support reply into the app, with one view of what was actually delivered.
Integrations
The platform sits between your existing systems and the channels above; it is built to plug into what you already run, not to replace it.
The interface follows the system: REST for application-generated traffic, SMPP where sustained SMS volume justifies it, and SOAP where an existing core banking or ERP integration already speaks it.
An SDK for iOS and Android puts chat inside the application itself, so the messaging layer ships with the app build rather than as a separate web widget maintained by a different team.
Messaging is rarely a standalone project: it usually arrives attached to a new mobile app, a customer portal, or a legacy notification system being replaced. Interkey’s backend engineering, API development and systems integration work means the messaging layer can be delivered as part of the application, not bolted on afterwards by a different supplier.
Platform controls
The messaging API is the part developers see. The part a compliance or operations owner asks about is everything around it: who can send what, from where, on whose approval, and what record exists afterwards.
Role-based access with admin and user levels, so the person who approves a campaign is not necessarily the person who can change routing or read the full message log. Privileges are managed per account, and platform logins can be protected with two-factor authentication.
Access to the platform can be restricted to whitelisted IP addresses or placed behind VPN-controlled access, which is what a bank or a government entity usually requires before an integration passes review. Configured per environment during onboarding.
Messages can be sent from predefined, approved templates rather than free-form text, which is how an organisation keeps sender identity, language and disclosure consistent across teams, and how WhatsApp categories stay aligned with what was actually approved.
Campaigns can be scheduled, and split into sub-schedules so a large audience goes out in controlled waves rather than one burst. Delivery tracking and reporting cover every channel in one place, so a failed OTP, a delayed WhatsApp template and a missed chat reply surface together.
Lineage
The hard part
Most messaging traffic can tolerate a delay. One category cannot: the one-time passcode standing between a customer and their own account. If OTP delivery is slow or unreliable, the visible symptom is not a messaging problem: it is customers unable to log in, abandoned transactions, and a support queue.
This is where local operator relationships stop being a marketing line and start being the product. OTP delivery quality in a given market depends on how traffic is routed onto the mobile networks that terminate it, how sender identities are registered, and how quickly a problem on one route can be diagnosed and moved. Interkey has been working inside Saudi telecommunications since 1999, alongside the operators who terminate this traffic.
Channels
One integration, every channel a Saudi customer actually uses. Which channel carries which message becomes a routing decision on the platform rather than another integration project.
The channel with the widest reach and the strictest expectations. Available over REST for application traffic and SMPP for high-volume senders that need a persistent binding rather than per-message HTTP calls.
Where a growing share of customer conversation actually happens in this market. These are two-way channels, which makes them different from SMS in kind and not just in cost: they need conversation handling, not just delivery.
Live chat on the website and an SDK for embedding chat directly inside an iOS or Android application, so a customer support conversation can continue in the place the customer already is rather than restarting on a different channel.
Local rules
Enterprise messaging is not a globally uniform service, and the differences in this market are the ones that decide whether a deployment works. A2P messaging here operates under the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST, formerly CITC), and the practical consequence a buyer meets first is sender ID registration: sender identities have to be registered before traffic will terminate reliably, and an unregistered or misconfigured sender is one of the more common reasons a technically correct integration delivers nothing. That registration is administrative work with the regulator and the operators, not an API call, and Interkey handles it as part of onboarding. The sender ID guide sets out the whole process: who registers, what evidence is asked for, how the operators differ, and what happens to unregistered traffic.
Content is bilingual by default. Arabic messages are encoded differently from Latin text (UCS-2 rather than GSM-7), which roughly halves how many characters fit in a single SMS segment, and therefore changes what a campaign costs and how it renders on the handset. A system designed only against English test messages tends to discover this in production, on its first Arabic campaign, as an invoice.
The working week is also not the one most global platforms assume. Traffic peaks fall on a Sunday-to-Thursday pattern, and a support arrangement built around a Monday-to-Friday calendar is least available exactly when volumes are highest. Interkey’s support runs on the Saudi week, from Riyadh, in Arabic and English; the detailed platform and compliance documentation lives with the product itself at connect.interkey.com.sa.
On the platform side the emphasis is on data integrity, encryption of message traffic and content, and alignment with local telecommunications and cybersecurity requirements. Interkey states its regulatory position and the platform’s controls in writing during scoping, against your own compliance questionnaire, rather than asking a procurement team to accept a certification badge on a web page.
Pricing
No published price list, and there is a reason worth stating plainly rather than hiding behind "contact us". Messaging is not one product with one rate. What you pay is driven by four things, and only the first is under the vendor's control.
SMS, WhatsApp and in-app chat have completely different cost structures. WhatsApp moved to per-message billing in mid-2025, priced by template category, so what a WhatsApp programme costs now depends on the mix of marketing, utility and authentication messages, not on conversation counts from articles written before the change.
Termination rates differ per operator. A blended per-message rate hides this, which is convenient for whoever quoted it.
Arabic encodes differently from Latin text, so an Arabic message fits fewer characters per segment. The same sentence in two languages is not the same number of billable segments.
Sustained volume prices differently from bursty transactional traffic.
Buying well
What to ask any provider, including this one: the per-segment rate per Saudi operator for your specific traffic mix, in Arabic as well as English, and whether OTP is priced differently from marketing traffic. A single blended rate across all of that is not a quote, it is an average, and it will not be what you are invoiced.
Procurement
The evaluation questions that separate messaging providers, with Interkey’s own answers on the record. Take the left column to every vendor on your shortlist; a provider that cannot answer these in writing is asking you to discover the answers in production.
| What to establish | Why it decides deals | Interkey’s answer |
|---|---|---|
| Regulatory position | A2P messaging in the Kingdom operates under CST regulation, and your compliance team will ask. | Stated in writing during scoping, with the platform’s compliance documentation at connect.interkey.com.sa. |
| Who registers sender IDs, and who chases them | An unregistered sender is the most common reason a correct integration delivers nothing. | Handled by Interkey as part of onboarding, with the process and responsibilities written down. |
| OTP delivery evidence per Saudi operator | Blended global averages hide exactly the route that will fail your logins. | Measured on a parallel run against your own traffic, per operator, before you commit. |
| Arabic message economics | UCS-2 encoding roughly halves characters per segment; a quote that ignores it is wrong. | Arabic and English rates quoted separately, with segmentation shown on your real templates. |
| Support hours and escalation | Monday-to-Friday support is least available on Sunday and during a Thursday incident. | Riyadh team on the Sunday-to-Thursday week, Arabic and English, with a named escalation path. |
| Contracting entity | Procurement needs a local entity, local invoicing and a commercial registration it can verify. | A Saudi company, registered in Riyadh, CR 1010156897. |
Operations
A platform relationship, not a one-time integration project. What continues to happen after go-live:
Sectors
The pattern is consistent across sectors: banking and fintech for authentication and transaction alerts; e-commerce and logistics for order and delivery updates, which is where WhatsApp has largely displaced SMS in customer preference; government and semi-government services for appointment and status notifications, where reach matters more than richness; and healthcare for appointment reminders, where a missed message has a direct operational cost.
Interkey works across all of these sectors: government, telecommunications, energy, e-commerce and logistics, and healthcare, which is the same client base the rest of the business serves.
From the insights library
The platform, delivery and identity, regulation and data, and the commercial questions procurement raises, in one place.
Procurement guideWho registers, what evidence is asked for, how the operators differ, and what happens to unregistered traffic.
ComparisonWhat a global platform’s published Saudi rate does not include, and what migration actually involves.
ServiceWhere messaging is part of an application build, the same company delivers both halves.
Saudi messaging lineage since 2004
Saudi Bells, founded for VAS and SMS services
Traffic on Saudi operator routes
Working alongside the networks since 1999
Support on the Saudi working week
Riyadh team, Arabic and English
A Saudi contracting entity
Registered in Riyadh, CR 1010156897
Next step
Name the channels, the monthly volumes and whether OTP is in scope, and the pricing conversation starts from your traffic mix rather than a rate card.
Or directly
+966-11-2180999 info@interkey.com.saTawuniya Towers, North Tower, 7th Floor, King Fahad Highway, Olaya, P.O. Box 56835, Riyadh 11564, Saudi Arabia