All figures are in Australian dollars and exclude GST.
What a small business actually pays per message
Nearly every provider here advertises a first-purchase rate. Whether that rate is a real saving or a one-off hook depends on something most comparison pages never mention: whether the credits expire.
| Provider | Advertised rate | Credits expire? | What you pay ongoing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile Message | 1.6c for 30 days from signup, no quantity cap | Never | 1.6c if you stock up in the window, otherwise 4.0c at 500 credits or 3.5c at 1,000 |
| Texto | 3.0c flat | 12 months | 3.0c |
| Cellcast | No intro offer | Never | 4.3c at 250 credits, 3.7c at 1,000, 3.1c at 5,000 |
| Notifyre | No intro offer | Not stated | 5.0c pay as you go, $10 minimum top-up |
| SMS Broadcast | 4.2c first purchase | 12 months | 7.0c at 500 credits, 6.5c at 2,000, 6.0c at 10,000 |
| ClickSend | No intro offer | Not stated | 7.20c until you top up $500 or more, then 6.70c |
| Twilio | US$0.0515 | n/a | About 7.27c once converted, because Twilio does not bill in Australian dollars |
The contrast worth noticing is between Mobile Message and SMS Broadcast. Both lead with a discounted first purchase. Mobile Message puts no cap on how many credits you can buy at 1.6c inside the 30-day window and its credits never expire, so a business that reads the terms can buy a year of messages at the introductory rate. SMS Broadcast credits expire after 12 months, so from your second year you are recharging at 6.0c to 7.0c against an advertised 4.2c. Same shape of offer, opposite outcome, and the difference is one line in the FAQ.
The real annual cost at 1,000 messages a month
Per-message rates are hard to compare when one provider charges monthly for a reply number and another gives it away. Below is the full annual cost of sending 1,000 messages a month, 12,000 a year, with every provider priced on the same basis: buying credits in roughly 10,000-message lots, with a dedicated Australian number included where one is charged for.
| Provider | Rate | Messages | Number | Total per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile Message | 3.00c | $360 | Free (first number) | $360 |
| Texto | 3.00c | $360 | $180 | $540 |
| Cellcast | 3.10c | $372 | $169 | $541 |
| Notifyre | 5.00c | $600 | $210 | $810 |
| SMS Broadcast | 6.00c | $720 | $179 | $899 |
| ClickSend | 6.70c | $804 | $228 | $1,032 |
| Twilio | ~7.27c | $872 | ~$140 | ~$1,012 |
The cheapest option costs $360 a year and the most expensive costs $1,032, for exactly the same 12,000 messages. That is a difference of $672, or 2.9 times, on a decision most small businesses make once and never revisit.
One further number is worth knowing. A business that signs up to Mobile Message and buys all 12,000 credits inside the 30-day introductory window pays 1.6c each, or $192 for the year. Against Twilio at roughly $1,012, that is a spread of more than five to one.
Why the advertised rate is almost never your rate
Three things separate the headline number from your invoice.
Lot size. Volume discounts are triggered by how many credits you buy in one transaction, not how many you send over a year. Buying 1,000 credits a month for twelve months does not earn the 10,000-credit rate.
Trigger type. Most providers tier on credit quantity. ClickSend tiers on the dollar value of your top-up: you pay 7.20c until a single top-up reaches $500, at which point the rate drops to 6.70c. Two businesses sending identical volumes can pay different rates depending on how often they top up.
Expiry. An introductory rate on credits that expire in twelve months is a discount on your first year only. On credits that never expire, it is a discount on however long you take to use them.
Rates from 250 messages, not 2,000
This is the band most comparison tables skip. If you are a sole trader confirming appointments or a cafe texting a hundred regulars, these are the rates that apply to you.
| Messages bought at once | Cellcast | Mobile Message | Texto | SMS Broadcast | Notifyre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 250 | 4.3c | Not available (500 minimum) | 3.0c | Not available (500 minimum) | 5.0c |
| 500 | 4.3c | 4.0c | 3.0c | 7.0c | 5.0c |
| 1,000 | 3.7c | 3.5c | 3.0c | 7.0c | 5.0c |
| 5,000 | 3.1c | 3.0c | 3.0c | 6.5c | 5.0c |
| 10,000 | 3.1c | 3.0c | 3.0c | 6.0c | 5.0c |
Two observations. Texto charges one flat rate at every volume, which makes it the simplest option to budget for and the cheapest at the smallest quantities. And the gap between the cheapest and dearest provider is widest exactly where small businesses sit: at 500 messages the spread runs from 3.0c to 7.0c, more than double.
Compare Australian bulk SMS providers
The table below covers four established Australian providers on price, features, reliability and support. Rates were last verified on 22 August 2026.
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Two notes on reading it. ClickSend and directSMS are both owned by Sinch, so they are not fully independent alternatives to one another. And ClickSend has closed its voice, email, fax and post products to new customers, so it no longer offers the multi-channel bundle it was once chosen for.
Provider by provider, for small senders
Cellcast
Melbourne-based, prepaid, credits never expire, and shared numbers are free. Rates run 4.7c at 10 credits down to 2.8c at 100,000, with a dedicated number at $18 a month or $169 a year. Strong on features and support for the price, though not the cheapest per message at small volumes. Read the full Cellcast review.
Notifyre
Sunshine Coast based, 5.0c flat pay as you go with a $10 minimum top-up and a virtual number at $17.50 a month. One rate at every volume, which suits businesses that want predictability more than the lowest cent. Read the full Notifyre review.
SMS Broadcast
Now part of Sinch MessageMedia. The 4.2c first-purchase rate is genuinely competitive, but credits expire after 12 months and recharge rates start at 7.0c for a 500-credit top-up, which makes it one of the more expensive options for an ongoing small sender. A 1% credit card surcharge applies. Read the full SMS Broadcast review.
ClickSend
Perth-based, owned by Sinch, 24/7 support and free inbound messages. Tiers trigger on top-up value rather than send volume, so a small business topping up under $500 at a time stays at 7.20c. Voice, email, fax and post are closed to new customers. Read the full ClickSend review.
Twilio
A developer platform rather than a business SMS tool, and the one provider here that does not bill in Australian dollars. Its published Australian rate of US$0.0515 works out near 7.27c once converted, before any card conversion fee. Powerful if you have developers, expensive if you do not. Read the full Twilio review.
Mobile Message and Texto
Both are Australian, both publish rates below most of the established providers at small-business volumes, and neither is yet covered by a full review on this site. Mobile Message offers a free first dedicated number, credits that never expire and a 1.6c introductory rate with no quantity cap. Texto charges a flat 3.0c with a $15 a month number. We are reviewing both and will link the reviews here when they are published.
Sending under your business name: the ACMA Sender ID Register
Since 1 July 2026, Australian businesses that send text messages showing their name at the top of the message, rather than a phone number, must register that name with the ACMA SMS Sender ID Register. This is the change most likely to affect a small business that has been texting customers for years without incident.
The ACMA states that text messages sent using unregistered sender IDs are now being labelled “Unverified”. If your customers have started seeing that word above your messages, an unregistered sender ID is the reason.
What a small business needs to know:
- It applies to branded, or alphanumeric, sender IDs sent to Australian recipients. Messages sent from an ordinary mobile number are not affected in the same way.
- If you have an ABN, your authorised contact or service of notice email address in the Australian Business Register must be current before you can register. The ACMA does not check the Relationship Authorisation Manager for authorisation arrangements.
- There is a separate registration path for organisations without an ABN, such as community groups and schools.
- A restricted terms list applies, so some words cannot be used in a registered sender ID.
- Your SMS provider handles registration in most cases. Ask them directly. Mobile Message, for instance, states that it is an ACMA Certified Provider and registers sender IDs for customers at no charge.
Full detail is on the ACMA SMS Sender ID Register pages. Separately, the Spam Act 2003 still requires consent, accurate sender identification and a working unsubscribe on every commercial message. Our guide to SMS opt-in and opt-out management covers what that means in practice.
SMS for online retail and ecommerce
Online retailers use SMS for a narrower set of jobs than most guides suggest: order and dispatch confirmations, delivery updates, abandoned cart reminders and a small number of promotional sends around sale periods. The volumes are usually modest, which puts most Australian online stores in the same 500 to 5,000 message band as any other small business, and the rates above apply unchanged.
The one requirement that differs is integration. If you run Shopify, WooCommerce or BigCommerce, the question is whether your provider connects to it directly, through Zapier, or only through its API. Every provider on this page publishes an API. Direct plugin support is less common, so confirm it before committing, and be aware that abandoned cart automation usually needs either a native app or a middleware layer rather than a plain SMS gateway.
What to check before you sign up
- The recharge rate, not the first-purchase rate. Ask what you pay on your second top-up at the size you will actually buy.
- Whether credits expire. Twelve months, never, or something in between. This decides whether an introductory rate is worth stocking up on.
- The cost of a reply number. Between free and $19 a month across the providers here, which is up to $228 a year on its own.
- Whether inbound replies are charged. All the providers above include them free. Not every provider does.
- GST and card surcharges. Every rate on this page excludes GST, and SMS Broadcast adds 1% for credit card payment.
- Sender ID registration. Ask whether they register your business name with the ACMA and whether they charge for it.
- Minimum purchase. Mobile Message and SMS Broadcast both require 500 credits minimum per transaction.
Frequently asked questions
How much does text message marketing cost for a small business in Australia?
Between 3.0c and 7.3c per message depending on the provider and how many credits you buy at once. A business sending 1,000 messages a month can expect to pay between $360 and about $1,032 a year including a dedicated number, based on published rates as at 22 August 2026.
What is the cheapest SMS provider for a small business?
On published per-message rates at small-business volumes, Texto at a flat 3.0c and Mobile Message at 3.0c to 4.0c are the cheapest of the providers reviewed here. Mobile Message works out lowest overall because its first dedicated number is free. Cellcast is the cheapest of the longer-established providers at 3.1c to 4.3c.
Do I have to register my business name to send text messages?
Yes, if the message shows your business name rather than a phone number. Since 1 July 2026 branded sender IDs sent to Australian recipients must be registered with the ACMA SMS Sender ID Register, and unregistered IDs are being labelled “Unverified”. Most providers handle the registration for you.
Do SMS credits expire?
It varies, and it matters more than most people expect. Cellcast and Mobile Message credits never expire. Texto and SMS Broadcast credits last 12 months, and Texto volume-package credits only three months. Notifyre and ClickSend do not state an expiry on their pricing pages.
Is there a monthly fee for business SMS?
None of the providers on this page charge a monthly platform fee. All are prepaid or pay as you go. The only recurring charge is a dedicated reply number, which ranges from free to $19 a month.
All rates on this page were read directly from provider websites on 22 August 2026 and exclude GST. Prices change; check the provider before you buy. This site earns a commission if you sign up with some of the providers listed, which does not affect the rates shown or the order they appear in.