Most African apps start on Firebase. It’s free, it’s there, and it works. Then one day your marketing team asks for a win-back journey, or segmentation beyond "everyone with the app installed", and you realise you’ve outgrown it.
The next step depends on your team and your roadmap. We partner with OneSignal because it fits teams that want a platform their marketers can run themselves, in place within days.
What OneSignal is
OneSignal started as a push notification tool, and its SDK is still the most widely used app messaging SDK in the world. These days it covers push, email, SMS, and in-app messaging from one place, with a journey builder for automation across all of them.
Where it shines
- Speed to value. Implementations take days.
- Push delivery you can rely on, which makes sense for a platform that started there.
- Marketers can operate it themselves, without filing engineering tickets for every campaign.
- Developer-friendly: open API, free unlimited API access, and documentation your engineers won’t curse at.
- A free tier you can run a real app on, with clear pricing as you grow.
Is it right for you?
OneSignal keeps things simple on purpose: quick to set up, predictable pricing, and a platform your marketers can run themselves. It suits growing teams, and grows with them.
Who it’s right for
Scaling apps outgrowing Firebase, lean teams without dedicated engagement engineers, and mid-market companies that want a platform their own team can run. In the African app ecosystem, OneSignal suits teams from "we launched last quarter" onwards.
“Our test for fit is boring on purpose: will your team still be running this themselves a year from now?”
How we implement it
- Firebase migration without losing your existing subscriber base.
- A clean event model, so segments follow behaviour rather than guesswork.
- Journey setup for the key lifecycle moments: onboarding, re-engagement, win-back.
- Self-serve enablement, so your marketers run the platform themselves instead of leaning on us or your developers.
Outgrowing Firebase and not sure what the next step should be?
Explore our customer engagement service →
