What does SMS cost in Australia? A plain English guide

Business SMS pricing in Australia looks simple, a few cents a message, until you send a long one and find you paid for three. The confusion is almost always about how texts are counted, not about the headline rate. Once you understand message segments and the couple of add-ons that carry a real cost, budgeting for SMS becomes straightforward. This is a plain guide to what you actually pay and why.

The per-message rate, and what a "message" is

You pay per message sent, and in Australia that lands somewhere around 10c per SMS for most small business platforms, SMS365 included. Prices vary with volume and plan, so treat that as a guide and check the pricing page for the current figures.

The catch is what counts as one message. A single SMS is not "one text" the way you think of it, it is a fixed number of characters. Go over that and the message is split into segments, and you pay per segment. The limits:

• 160 characters for a plain text using the standard GSM character set. That is one segment.
• Longer messages are split, and when a message is split the per-segment limit drops to about 153 characters each, because some space is used to stitch the parts back together on the phone.
• Use an emoji or certain special characters and the message switches to a different encoding, where a single segment is only 70 characters (about 67 per part once split).

So a chatty 320-character message is three segments, and you pay roughly three times the per-message rate for it. That single emoji can turn a 70-character message from one segment into two. This is the number one reason an SMS bill surprises people.

Hi Sam, invoice #204 for $1,150 from Mackay Plumbing is now due. Pay here: pay.sms365.com.au/k9Wm . Thanks, Rob.

That message is well under 160 characters, so it is one segment, one charge. Written with an emoji and a long signature it could easily have been two. Tight writing is not just good style, it is literally cheaper.

The other things that cost money

Beyond the per-message rate, there are a few line items worth knowing about so nothing catches you out.

• A dedicated number is a monthly cost, around $10 a month on SMS365. This is your own two-way Australian number that customers can reply to and that STOP and START run on. For most businesses it is worth every cent, because a number you own and can have a conversation on is the whole point.
• Registered alphanumeric sender IDs can carry a setup or registration cost, because Australian alphanumeric sender IDs must be registered on the ACMA register before use. That is covered in alphanumeric sender IDs and the ACMA register explained.
• Inbound messages may or may not be charged depending on the platform. Two-way conversation is a feature you want, so check how replies are counted.
• International sends cost more than domestic, sometimes a lot more. If your list has stray overseas numbers, they can quietly inflate a bill. A country allowlist, which SMS365 applies to every send, stops you paying for destinations you never meant to text.

What you should not be paying for is a lock-in contract or a monthly minimum you cannot meet. SMS365 is prepaid with no lock-in, so you buy credit and draw it down, and a quiet month costs you nothing beyond the dedicated number.

How to budget without guessing

You can estimate your monthly SMS cost with three numbers: how many messages, how long they are, and whether you need a number.

Take a real example. A cafe with 400 loyalty subscribers sends two offers a month. Each offer is one segment. That is 400 times 2, so 800 messages, at roughly 10c that is about $80 a month in messages, plus around $10 for the dedicated number. Call it $90 a month to reach 400 regulars twice, tax those numbers as approximate and add GST. One extra table a week more than covers it.

A tradie sending job confirmations and invoice reminders might send 150 messages a month, so around $15 in messages plus the number. The volume is low, the value per message is high, and prepaid means the slow months cost almost nothing.

Three habits keep the bill predictable:

• Write to fit one segment. Aim under 160 characters. Drop the emoji unless it earns its place. A link shortener helps here too, and SMS365 rewrites links to short tracked ones inside the sending pipeline, so a long URL does not eat your character count or your budget.
• Set a spend cap. SMS365 gives every workspace a daily spend cap, so a mistake or a runaway automation cannot empty your credit. A cap is the cheapest insurance you will ever buy.
• Keep your list clean. You pay to send to a wrong number the same as a right one. Honour opt-outs and prune dead numbers, and every dollar goes to someone who might actually buy.

Is it worth it?

The honest way to judge SMS cost is against what it returns, not in isolation. A 10c text that recovers a $1,150 invoice a fortnight early, or fills a $400 table on a dead Tuesday, or saves a no-show appointment, has paid for itself hundreds of times over. The cost only looks meaningful if the message does nothing, and a message that does nothing is a writing problem, not a pricing one.

One last point on honesty. When SMS365 shows a message as "sent" it means it was handed to the carrier, and "delivered" only when a real receipt comes back. You are paying to send, and you are told the truth about what happened after. Anyone quoting you a rate alongside a guaranteed-delivery promise is selling you a number they cannot stand behind. For the current rates and what a dedicated number and any sender ID cost, the pricing page has the detail, and if you are deciding between a number and a sender ID, dedicated numbers versus shared numbers versus sender IDs compares them on cost and capability.