Buying mobile data for a team: no batch tool, and what to do instead
There is no data bundle API here and no bulk upload — both are settled absences, said plainly rather than three emails in. What follows is the workflow that replaces them for a fleet of handsets, and how to size packs when the lines do very different jobs.
The two things you probably came for
Both answers are no, and neither is a gap waiting to be filled. Worth two minutes anyway, because the reason for the second one changes what an integration could ever have done for you.
A data bundle API
Not offered. There is no public endpoint, no partner key and no sandbox to request — orders are placed through the ordinary checkout in a browser, the same one everyone else uses.
It is worth knowing why an integration would help less than it sounds. The packs on offer are not ours: they are the destination operator's catalogue, read live against the single number you enter. There is no stable product list to map a spreadsheet column onto, and no way to pre-price a bundle before a number exists to price it for. What the ordering screen can tell you sets that out.
Bulk or CSV purchase
Not offered either. One order goes to one number, whether it is your first this month or your fiftieth, and there is no list to upload and no batch to queue.
What stands in for it is a saved contact book and one-tap repeats from your order history — which is genuinely workable up to a point, and the next section is that workflow. Both absences sit in the parent's eight-row limits table along with the six others a procurement team usually asks about.
Running a data rollout without a batch tool
Four steps, and only the first one is slow. Do it once properly and every round after it is a few minutes of tapping.
- 1
Build the list once
Put every number into the contact book with its country code, and label each one by what the line does rather than by who is holding it this month. Handsets change hands; the role usually does not, and the label is what tells the next person which pack to buy.
- 2
Make the first pass deliberately
The opening round is one number at a time, and that is the moment to get each size right — the catalogue that loads is that operator's own, so a line in another country will not offer the same packs as the one next to it. Every order returns the operator's reference code and emails a receipt.
- 3
Repeat from history after that
A past order repeats in one tap at the same amount, so the second and third rounds are a list to walk down rather than a form to fill in. Anything that has changed — a bigger pack, a different country — is edited on that number alone.
- 4
Give the cadence an owner
Nothing here renews, schedules or repeats by itself, and no card is kept on file to make that possible. That means the rollout is a diary entry belonging to a named person, not a subscription — which is also why a line you stop topping up simply stops costing anything.
A few dozen numbers on a monthly cadence is a job of minutes once the contact book exists. Several hundred lines, or a rollout that has to run unattended, is not something one-number-at-a-time ordering should be asked to carry — at that size you want a supplier built for provisioning, and we would rather say so here than after you have tried it. The limits table is the full list of what would still be missing.
Size by role, not per head
One size across a fleet overbuys at one end and runs dry at the other. Most organisations have three or four profiles, and each is driven by something different.
| The line | What it does | What drives the size | How to pitch it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trackers and telemetry | Position pings and short status messages, all day, every day. | Frequency of reporting, not file size. Nothing streams. | The smallest thing the operator sells is usually still generous. Validity matters more than volume here. |
| Driver and courier handsets | Navigation, dispatch messages, photo proof of delivery. | Live maps for the length of a shift, plus the odd upload. | A steady monthly pack sized on hours of navigation, not on the number of jobs. |
| Site and supervisor lines | Often a hotspot for other people's devices as well as their own. | Whatever the tethered devices do — this is the line that surprises you. | Size it for the tethering, then check what the operator's terms say about it. |
| Staff working abroad | A local prepaid SIM bought on arrival, or a home line kept alive. | Which country the number belongs to, more than how much is used. | Buy against the number's own market, and treat each trip as its own decision. |
No figures appear in that table on purpose: allowances and prices are the destination operator's, they differ by market, and this site publishes none of them. Turning a profile into an actual number is done on how much data a line really needs, and the four criteria for ranking two candidate packs are on mobile data bundles.
There is no pooled company allowance
The question behind most bulk enquiries is whether one large purchase can cover every SIM. It cannot — not because of a limit here, but because of where data lives.
- There is no company-wide bucket to buy into. A bundle is applied by an operator to one number, and it is spent by that number alone.
- Numbers on different networks cannot share anything at all, and a fleet spread across countries is several operators by definition.
- Some networks do let one line hold an allowance and share it with nominated numbers. That arrangement is the operator's, set up on their side by whoever owns the main line — we put the bundle on the number you name, and their sharing carries on as before.
- What does travel across the whole fleet is the paperwork: one login, one contact book, one searchable history, and the operator's reference kept for at least eighteen months against every order.
How a shared allowance behaves once an operator is running one is set out on mobile data bundles. Whether a given device even has a line you can top up — some trackers and watches do not — is worth checking first on prepaid SIMs for devices.
Buying data for a fleet, question by question
Invoicing, payment and support questions are answered on the business page.
Open the business pageCan one purchase cover data for all our SIMs?
No. A bundle is applied to the single number it was bought for, so a fleet of twenty lines is twenty orders. Where a network runs its own sharing between nominated numbers, that is set up with the operator and keeps working exactly as before once we load the main line.
Do all the handsets need the same size pack?
Rarely, and buying as if they did is the common waste. A tracker and a supervisor's hotspot are different products in practice — the table above splits the usual profiles, and the sizing pages turn a profile into an actual allowance.
Can I see how much data is left across our numbers?
No, and nobody outside the operator can. A balance and a running pack are readable only through that network's own app or short code, by whoever holds the line. The reference code we return confirms an order was delivered; it is not a statement of what is on the number.
Is there a discount for buying data in volume?
No. The fiftieth order costs what the first one did — the operator's own pack price, plus a service fee that depends on the country, the operator and the amount, shown before you confirm. There is no negotiated rate and nothing paid back afterwards.
A bundle we bought never arrived. What happens?
Anything still uncredited after thirty minutes is re-queued automatically, and refunded in full — service fee included — to the card that paid if the retry fails too. Where the operator refuses the load outright, their reason comes back with the refund, and the order reference stays in your history for the dispute.
Where to go next
This page is the data side of buying for an organisation. The account, the sizing and the devices are next door.
Staff posted abroad are a case of their own — sending airtime across a border covers paying in your currency for credit priced in theirs. If what you are actually researching is reselling airtime, the parent page's three evaluation questions are the ones that matter more than a headline commission rate.
Start with one handset
The account is free and needs no card until you order. Load one line, look at the receipt and the reference code, then decide whether the workflow above fits how your team actually runs.