Cheapest bulk SMS in Australia

Why the cheapest rate depends on your volume

The cheapest bulk SMS rate in Australia among providers billing in Australian dollars moves with the volume you send. At 1,000 a month it is 3.50c (Mobile Message), at 15,000 3.00c (Mobile Message), at 125,000 2.50c (Mobile Message), and at 250,000 2.50c (Mobile Message). Clickatell bills in US dollars and costs less at landed cost at 1,000 and 250,000 a month: at 1,000, ≈ 3.18c AUD landed, billed as 2.133 US cents, converted at the RBA rate on 2 October 2026 plus a 3.5% card FX fee (median of the four major banks); at 250,000, ≈ 2.24c AUD landed, billed as 1.503 US cents, converted at the RBA rate on 2 October 2026 plus a 3.5% card FX fee (median of the four major banks).

The table above sorts 21 providers, including those billed in US dollars at their landed cost, and 16 of them bill in Australian dollars. At 15,000 a month the dearest published rate, 13.00c (Telstra), is 4.3 times the cheapest.

Three pricing bases sit behind those numbers. Some providers set the rate by monthly volume band, so it falls as your send count rises. Others sell prepaid credit bundles, and the rate depends on the bundle size. ClickSend steps its rate by the size of a single top-up, from 7.20c on a $20 top-up to 6.70c on $500, so a business that buys small top-ups pays the higher rate whatever its monthly volume.

Some of those rates are first-purchase prices that do not last.

First-purchase rates are not the rate you keep

Mobile Message charges 1.6c for 30 days from signup, then 4.0c from 500 credits down to 2.0c from 1,000,000, so the opening price covers one month.

SMS Broadcast charges a flat 4.2c on a first purchase, then 7.0c from 500 credits, 6.5c from 2,000 and 6.0c from 10,000 on recharge, and those credits expire 12 months from purchase.

Cellcast's pricing page carried a "First Purchase 2c - March Only!" banner in September. A price with a month in its name is a promotion, not a rate.

This page applies one rule: a first-purchase or introductory price is not carried as a rate, because it is not what a monthly sender pays. The rate you keep is still not the whole bill.

Costs that sit outside the rate

• Minimum purchases: Mobile Message requires 500 credits and touchSMS 400 credits, which is $20 excluding GST.
• Credit expiry: Cellcast, Mobile Message and touchSMS credits never expire, and SMS Broadcast credits last 12 months from purchase. Bulk SMS Australia's pricing page says no expiry, while its terms forfeit the credits of an account unused for 12 continuous months.
• Card surcharge: SMS Broadcast adds 1% to any bill paid by credit card.
• Carrier fees: ClickSend prints "Additional carrier fees apply" beside every rate, and its Australian carrier-fee cells are blank, so any surcharge stays unpublished.
• Minimum monthly charges: Telstra sets a minimum by band, $0 at the 14c band with no commitment and $1,273 at the 13c band from 10,000 a month.
• The reply number: a dedicated virtual mobile number carries a monthly fee at most providers, and the first one is free at 2 of the 21 providers listed.
• GST: every rate in the table above excludes it.

Some published figures never reach the table above, and the next section explains why.

Prices this page does not rank

A "from" price or an "as low as" figure is a floor, not a rate you can plan on, so the table above does not carry it.

Bird, Clickatell, Omnisend, Twilio and Vonage bill in US dollars, and the table above shows each at its landed cost, with the US-cent figure beside it. That cost is the US-cent price converted at the Reserve Bank rate on 2 October 2026 plus a card foreign exchange fee of 3.5%, the median fee of the four major Australian banks. The landed cost moves with the exchange rate, and a buyer whose card charges a different fee, or none, pays a different amount. The cheapest named on this page is the cheapest billing in Australian dollars.

19 providers that currently trade publish no rate that maps onto a monthly volume, so no table ranks them. The site's provider reviews cover every brand, published rate or not.

The four checks below turn the cheapest real rate into the cheapest real bill.

Getting the cheapest real bill

1. Find your volume band. Match your message count to the nearest column in the table above, because a rate at the wrong volume tells you nothing about your bill.
2. Check the pricing basis and the expiry. Ask whether the provider prices by monthly volume, by credit bundle or by top-up size, and whether the credits expire, because expired credits are money paid for messages never sent.
3. Add the reply number and any minimum. Count the monthly fee for a dedicated virtual mobile number, then any minimum purchase or minimum monthly charge, because fixed costs can erase a small gap in the rate.
4. Ask for the rate at your own volume. Most providers negotiate above their published bands, so a quote at your true volume is the rate to plan on.

The cheapest real bill is the rate that survives those four checks. Price is one measure, so this site also ranks bulk SMS providers on score as well as price.