Clickatell review

Clickatell pricing

Clickatell prices its messages on monthly volume.

Its Australia rate card has six tiers keyed to messages per month, and the largest volumes are directed to its sales team. At fifteen thousand messages a month the rate is 2.01 US cents. It steps down to 1.73 US cents and then 1.50 US cents as your monthly volume climbs the card.

Those numbers carry Clickatell's own qualifications, and they matter more than the card itself. Clickatell calls them estimates only, excludes tax from them, and describes them as country averages, because the actual price paid is the price per operator. Its rates are also in US cents rather than Australian cents.

Clickatell bills in USD, EUR, INR, GBP or ZAR, so AUD is not a billing option and your Australian cost floats with the exchange rate and any card fee. A free account with unlimited testing is available, and no message cap or duration is published. What those rates actually buy is the subject of the next section.

Clickatell features for Australian senders

Clickatell publishes an API for HTTP and REST sending, and it publishes SMPP for high throughput, high volume messages. Alphanumeric sender ID is published as supported, and its Australia page states that dynamic alpha is supported for Australia.

Two-way SMS is marked not available at every Australian tier, so replies are off the table for your Australian sends.

Its web app takes recipient files, with CSV and Excel both accepted, and columns can go into the message as merge fields. In Broadcast Messenger, contacts are imported for every campaign by uploading a .xlsx, .txt or .csv file with a required MSISDN column, plus a column for each variable in the message. Its Australia page lists supported networks including Telstra, YES Optus, Vodafone and TPG. The same list carries names that are not Australian carriers and brands that no longer operate here.

Clickatell publishes nothing either way about email to SMS, MMS to Australian mobiles, RCS to Australian mobiles, dedicated numbers or shared numbers, so treat those as unknowns rather than absences. Your sender name raises a separate question, which the next section covers.

Clickatell sender ID and the ACMA register

Clickatell is not listed under its own name on ACMA's approved list for the SMS Sender ID Register.

It may register sender IDs through a listed partner, and the list cannot show whether it does. You would need to confirm any partner arrangement with Clickatell before you rely on it for registration. A provider that appears on the list itself can register your sender ID directly, and Clickatell cannot match that.

That gap matters when a registered sender name is part of your sending plan. Support and reputation weigh on the same decision, so the next section sets them out.

Clickatell support and reputation

Clickatell claims round the clock support through a contact form and a help centre. No Australian phone number is published, and there is no Australian entity.

No Australian phone line exists at all, so you are left with written channels in Australian business hours and overnight. Its security page states ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2 Type II and PCI DSS. The company was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California. Its Trustpilot profile sits at 1.3 from 92 public reviews.

Those strengths and weaknesses frame the fit, which the final section sets out.

Clickatell and who it suits

Clickatell suits a business that sends one-way SMS at volume through an API or SMPP and wants a free account with unlimited testing before it commits. It also suits a sender comfortable with US dollar billing and a rate card that moves with monthly volume.

Look elsewhere when replies matter. Two-way SMS is not available at any Australian tier, so appointment confirmations and inbound queries are not possible through it. Look elsewhere too when you want an Australian entity, a local support number, or a provider listed on ACMA's approved list under its own name.