Data is money. Keep more of yours.

Most of the world buys data the prepaid way — a bundle at a time, topped up when it runs dry — and the smaller the top-up, the more each gigabyte costs. The people with the least to spend pay the highest rate. Take South Africa, where GoldChat was born: more than 8 out of 10 SIMs are prepaid (ICASA, 2026), and the smallest bundles carry the steepest price per gigabyte in the country. Wherever you top up, it's the same story, so let's call a chat app what it really is: a thing that spends your money.

GoldChat spends as little of it as we could manage. The whole app is about 5 MB, next to WhatsApp at around 137 MB, Telegram near 70 MB and Signal around 116 MB (the universal Android APKs, Sep 2026). An hour of voice calling uses 7–9 MB. In MyBroadband's June 2024 test, a WhatsApp call used about 18 MB an hour. Roughly half the data, every time you call — and the meter runs live on the call screen while you talk. You watch the meter. You don't guess.

Your number? Used once to verify you, then never shown to anyone — not even in groups. On WhatsApp, join one group and every member can see your number: strangers, salespeople, that one uncle's friend. Here, people chat with you by @username. One optional extra: friends who already have your number saved can see you're on GoldChat — they see your profile, never your number back — and one switch in Account turns even that off.

We promised this page would say it in gold, so: GoldChat chats are now end-to-end encrypted. Messages, photos, voice notes and stickers are sealed on your phone, and our server cannot read them — only your devices and theirs hold the keys. The honest fine print, because that's how we do it: both sides need a current version of GoldChat (older versions fall back to HTTPS-only until updated), and message reactions plus delivery details (who messaged whom, when) aren't end-to-end — the full picture is in our privacy policy.

No ads here. Not now. Not ever.

Almost every app you own sells your attention to advertisers — that's the business. We're boycotting it. GoldChat has no ads, no trackers and no ad companies in the building, and there is no version of our future that has them. Your attention belongs to the people you're talking to. Join the boycott.

No ads, ever. Not banners, not "sponsored messages", not promoted anything. If you ever see an ad in GoldChat, we broke this pledge — hold us to it.
Your data is never for sale. No selling, no renting, no "sharing with partners". There is no ad machine to feed.
We don't read your chats. Messages sit on our server in Johannesburg only so they can reach you — stored to deliver, not to mine. One country, one privacy law (POPIA), no maze of jurisdictions. Nobody profiles you off them, wherever in the world you are.
Your number stays yours. Shown to no one, ever. It verifies you, and — only if you leave "Find me by my number" on — lets friends who already have it see you're here. Flip that switch off and it does nothing but verify you.
Screenshots are blocked in the Android app — chats and video calls both come out as a black square. (iPhones and web browsers don't allow any app to block screenshots — no one who claims otherwise is telling the truth.)
Encryption, honestly: we said this page would say it in gold the day it shipped — end-to-end encryption shipped. Chats between up-to-date devices are sealed so even we can't read them; reactions and delivery details aren't end-to-end, and we'll keep saying so plainly — see the note above.

Signed in the open, Mtuthuko Mngomezulu — founder, GoldChat

See what you're losing

Pick your currency, type what you pay for a gigabyte, move the slider. The rates are measured; the maths is yours.

I talk about 30 minutes a day

I pay about per gigabyte

WhatsApp callsR–/month

Telegram callsR–/month

GoldChat callsR–/month

Staying on WhatsApp for your calls costs you about R– a month more than GoldChat — R– a year out of your pocket. In any currency, that is – GB a year you never buy.

Voice-call rates: WhatsApp 0.30 MB/min and Telegram 0.33 MB/min as measured by MyBroadband; GoldChat 0.13 MB/min from our own engineering caps (7–9 MB/hour). Month = 30 days. Video isn't compared here — no credible independent measurements exist for the other apps, and we only publish what's measured. Bonus: installing WhatsApp (±137 MB) costs about 25 times the data of installing GoldChat (±5.4 MB) — at R85/GB, that's about R11 against 45c.

The live data meter

Your usage on screen while you talk — a meter we haven't found in WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal.

Username-first

Your number is used once to verify you, then never shown to anyone. People find you by @username.

Home address: Johannesburg

Your data lives in one country under one privacy law (POPIA), and the founder is named and reachable — wherever you're chatting from.

Say it with stickers

Free sticker packs plus a maker to create your own, photos compressed to save your data, moments that vanish in 24 hours.

	GoldChat	WhatsApp	Telegram	Signal
App download (Android)	±5.4 MB (v1.13, Sep 2026)	±137 MB (Sep 2026)	±70 MB (Sep 2026)	±116 MB (Sep 2026)
Voice call data, per hour	7–9 MB — about half of WhatsApp's measured figure	±18 MB measured; 13.5 MB with data saver (MyBroadband, Jun 2024)	±20 MB measured — its "use less data" setting measured MORE (MyBroadband, Mar 2023)	No credible independent measurement found
Live data meter on the call screen	Yes — watch your usage while you talk	No — totals in Settings, after the fact	Not that we've found	Not that we've found
End-to-end encryption	Yes — chats between up-to-date devices are end-to-end encrypted (reactions and delivery metadata aren't; older app versions fall back to HTTPS until updated — stated plainly)	Yes — default since 2016	Partial — opt-in Secret Chats only; regular chats and groups are not E2EE	Yes — everything, by default. Best in class today
Your phone number	Used once to verify you, never shown to anyone — not even in groups	Your number is your account; optional usernames rolling out through 2026 still require it	Number required to sign up; optional usernames	Number required to sign up; usernames can hide it (since Feb 2024)
Who's behind it & where your data lives	Independent, built in South Africa; data held in Johannesburg under one privacy law (POPIA), not scattered across jurisdictions; founder named and reachable	Meta — shares your number, device and usage info with Meta companies; data on global infrastructure incl. the US; backups in Google Drive/iCloud aren't E2EE unless you switch that on yourself	Privately owned, HQ in Dubai; data in centres across multiple countries; discloses IPs and numbers to authorities on valid court orders	US nonprofit, donation-funded — no ads, no data sale

Data is money. Keep more of yours.

The live data meter

Username-first

Home address: Johannesburg

Say it with stickers

If you're guarding state secrets, use Signal. If you're guarding your megabytes, come talk to us.

If you're guarding state secrets, use Signal.
If you're guarding your megabytes, come talk to us.