Best bulk SMS providers in Australia

What bulk SMS is, and what it is not

Bulk SMS is an application-to-person service a business uses to send one message to many mobile numbers at once, for marketing offers, appointment reminders and staff or customer alerts. A provider's SMS gateway hands each message to the Australian mobile networks for delivery. The message part is the billing unit of bulk SMS: a single SMS holds 160 characters in GSM-7, or 70 with an emoji or any character outside that set, and a longer message goes as parts of 153 or 67, each charged as one message.

An SMS gateway is the service that moves messages from your software or browser to the mobile networks. Every bulk send goes through one. The site's page on SMS gateway providers in Australia compares them by connection method.

An SMS marketing platform adds contact lists, campaign scheduling and opt-out handling on top of sending. The site compares SMS marketing platforms separately.

Sending your first campaign takes five steps.

How to send bulk SMS

1. Pick a provider. Choose one at your monthly volume.
2. Register your sender ID. Do it through that provider, or send from a number instead.
3. Import your list. Upload a CSV or Excel file of recipients, and 17 of the providers in the table take one, as the upload column shows.
4. Write the message. Check its part count before you send.
5. Send or schedule. Send now or set a time.

The full procedure, from registration to scheduling, is the site's guide called "How to send bulk SMS in Australia". With the list in place, the next question is what the month will cost.

What a month of bulk SMS costs

Bulk SMS is billed as your monthly volume times the per-part rate.

• 1,000 a month: $35 at Mobile Message, $70 at the median rate, $140 at the dearest (Telstra and Bulk SMS Australia)
• 15,000 a month: $450 at Mobile Message, $893 at the median rate, $1,950 at the dearest (Telstra)
• 125,000 a month: $3,125 at Mobile Message, $6,875 at the median rate, $13,750 at the dearest (Telstra)
• 250,000 a month: $6,250 at Mobile Message, $13,750 at the median rate, $27,500 at the dearest (Telstra)

A message of two parts doubles every figure above. The rate falls as volume rises, though the dearest rate at 15,000 a month is still 4.3 times the cheapest. Providers billed in US dollars sit in the table at their landed cost, 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 of the four major Australian banks' fee, and that cost moves with the exchange rate. 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 behind those figures is built a particular way.

How the providers here are ranked

The site reads each rate from the provider's own pricing page on a dated visit, with captures taken from an Australian IP address. It opens no accounts and sends no test traffic. A free trial tells you more about delivery and support than any page can.

A provider with no score has not been scored, and it sorts last rather than scoring zero. The Australian presence tier is separate from the score and does not affect the ranking. 15 of the 21 providers in the table are headquartered in Australia.

The method page sets out how we rate every provider in full. Four terms in the fine print move the rate you actually pay.

Four things that change your real rate

The pricing basis. Some providers price by monthly volume and some sell prepaid credit bundles. ClickSend steps its rate by the size of a single top-up, at 7.20c from a $20 top-up and 6.70c from $500.

Credit expiry. Cellcast, Mobile Message and touchSMS credits never expire. SMS Broadcast credits expire 12 months from purchase.

The reply number. A dedicated virtual mobile number carries a monthly fee at most providers, and 2 of the 21 in the table include the first one free.

GST. Every rate in the table excludes GST, so add it when you weigh a quoted price against your budget.

The site's page on the cheapest bulk SMS compares every rate at these four volumes side by side. Price is one thing, and the law is another.

Is bulk SMS legal in Australia?

Bulk SMS is legal in Australia when your message identifies you with contact details valid for at least 30 days, carries an unsubscribe that works for at least 30 days and is honoured within 5 working days, and is sent with consent. The duty sits with the business that sends, not the platform it uses, and consent can be express or reasonably inferred from the person's conduct and relationship with your business. A purely factual message, such as an appointment reminder with no marketing content, is exempt from the consent and unsubscribe rules but must still identify the sender, and the site's guide to Australian SMS rules covers each rule in full.

Is bulk SMS legit?

A message your customer can recognise names your business, comes from a registered sender ID or a known number, and carries a working unsubscribe. A business with an ABN registers on the SMS Sender ID Register a sender ID that matches its registered business name, company name, trade mark or domain name, and registration goes through each telco or message provider it sends with. Senders using a phone number do not need to register.

Your messages are not blocked when the sender ID is unregistered. Since 1 July 2026 a text sent with a sender ID that is not registered shows "Unverified" in place of the name, and the message is still delivered. ACMA says unregistered sender IDs are grouped in one thread with other Unverified messages, scam texts included.