Yolla: International Calling

Review by eFreeware

Yolla is an international calling app from Yolla Calls International, and it has been doing one job for a long time: letting you dial landlines and mobiles in other countries without paying carrier rates. The download is free, and the money side runs through in-app purchases.

The reason to consider it is the pricing model. Calls are billed per minute, starting at $0.004, and the developer says the final cost appears on screen before you commit. Your balance does not expire, which matters if you call abroad in bursts rather than every week.

It is not only a dialer. The app also sends international texts to more than 150 countries, tops up mobile numbers in 148 countries, and makes calls between Yolla users free, with video included. For anyone whose main contact with family is a phone call to a landline or a mobile that has no data, that combination covers the basics.

Calling home when the other side has no app

The most useful thing about Yolla is that the person you are calling does not need it. They do not need the app, an internet connection or even a smartphone. You dial their number and their phone rings the ordinary way, which is the point for relatives who are not going to install anything.

That also means you are not asking them to change habits. Your own number is shown to the person you call, so they see a familiar caller rather than an unknown one, and the conversation starts the way it always has.

The trade-off is that calling ordinary numbers runs on paid credit. You are buying minutes against a prepaid balance, and the per-minute price depends on which country you are dialing. The developer lists Eritrea, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Myanmar, Sudan and the UK among the popular destinations, which tells you where the app's rates tend to be most attractive.

Texting and topping up when a call is not practical

Not every situation calls for a conversation. Yolla handles international texts to a long list of countries, so a short message can go out when the time difference or the other person's schedule makes a call awkward.

The top-up feature is the one I would single out for families. You can send airtime to a mobile number in one of 148 countries, which means a relative who runs out of credit does not have to wait for someone local to help them. The same idea applies inside Yolla itself: if a family member cannot add funds to their own account, you can buy credits and send them.

Both of these are small features next to calling, but they solve a recurring problem for people supporting family abroad. The developer describes the top-up feature, and that is the kind of thing worth checking against your own destination before you rely on it.

Free calls between Yolla users

Calls between two Yolla users cost nothing, as they do in internet calling services generally, and video calls are part of that. If the people you speak to most are willing to install the app, the paid side of Yolla becomes a fallback rather than the main expense.

There is a referral arrangement attached to this. When someone you invite makes their first payment, both of you receive an extra $3. A testing program and occasional promotions add bonus credit for free calls, which are worth watching if you call often.

I would treat the free-user-to-user calling as the reason to get a second person on board, and the paid minutes as the reason to keep the app for everyone else. The two work together rather than competing.

Setting up and what you need

Getting started follows a short sequence. You install the app and sign up with your phone number, add credits, then either type the number you want to reach or pick someone from your contacts and place the call. The contact list is used directly.

The requirement is an internet connection, whether that is Wi-Fi, 4G, LTE or 3G. The developer suggests Wi-Fi calling as a way to avoid roaming charges while traveling, and puts the potential saving against traditional carriers at up to 90 percent. That figure is the developer's own estimate and will vary with where you are calling and from where.

A few conveniences sit around the core calling. Credits can be bought in the app or on the developer's site, and optional auto top-ups are available. Support is available around the clock.

The most recent update addresses minor bugs for stability. For an app that has been available since 2015, that is a reasonable sign that the calling side is being kept in working order.

Who gets the most from it

Yolla fits people with a regular reason to call a specific country, especially where the person on the other end is on a landline or an older mobile. If your calls are long, frequent and to a destination with a low per-minute rate, the prepaid balance model is easy to reason about because you can see the cost as you go.

It also suits anyone who wants to keep a single number and have it recognized. Being shown as yourself rather than as an unknown caller removes a small but real friction from calling relatives.

The people who benefit least are those whose contacts are all reachable through a data-based service already. The paid minutes are the part that distinguishes it, and you only get value from those if you actually dial ordinary phone numbers abroad.

The app carries a 4.6 average from more than 36,000 ratings and has passed five million installs, which suggests a settled user base rather than a new experiment. Nine in ten users are said to be satisfied, and seven in ten rate it five stars, figures that come from the company itself rather than from anything I can verify.

A prepaid dialer for calling family abroad

Yolla is worth installing if you make international calls to phones that are not running the same app as you. The per-minute pricing, the balance that does not expire and the fact that the recipient needs nothing at all make it a straightforward option for keeping in touch with family in another country.

The things to accept before you start are that the calling itself is a paid service, that rates differ by destination, and that the free portion depends on getting the other person to use Yolla too. The texting and top-up features are useful additions rather than reasons on their own.

If your calls are occasional and to a country where the per-minute rate is low, the cost is easy to keep an eye on. There is also a free way to talk to someone who will install the same app.

What's new in version 4.89

We fixed some minor bugs to improve the overall stability of the app. Happy calling!