Bulk SMS lets a business send one text message to hundreds or thousands of Australian mobiles at once from a web browser. 160.com.au is a Sydney-based bulk SMS service and provider, operating since 2000, with Australian phone support, no monthly fees, two-way replies and free trial credits.
TRUSTED BY AUSTRALIAN BUSINESSES SINCE 2000
We Use Australian Carriers And Your Data Stays In Australia
Send SMS In Four Easy Steps
Paste the numbers, pick a sender, type your message and click Send, whether it goes to ten people or ten thousand. Save contacts and groups in the contact book if you want to.
0423 456 789
0434 567 890
0445 678 901
- Your own mobile number
- A free shared number
- A virtual number
- Your sender ID
Replies Come Straight Back To You
When a customer replies, it appears in your two-way chat as a conversation you can answer straight away, so questions, confirmations and opt-outs stay in one place. Prefer replies on your phone? Send from your own mobile number and they come straight to your handset.
Send
Our SMS Service Supports
Standard Features & Benefits Included With Bulk SMS
SMS Solutions
SMS is used in virtually every industry to communicate with teams and customers. See how it works for retail, restaurants, education, HR, clubs, health, banking and real estate, or browse every use in business SMS.
Why Choose 160 As Your Bulk SMS Provider?
Easy To Use Service
Enterprise-Level Security
Frequently Asked Questions
Check five things. Delivery routes: the provider should send through the Australian carriers (Telstra, Optus and Vodafone) rather than cheap overseas routes, so messages arrive quickly and each one shows a delivery report. Sender ID: from 1 July 2026 a business name used as a sender ID must be on the ACMA SMS Sender ID Register, so pick a provider that registers it for you. Support: an Australian phone number you can call, not only a ticket queue. Pricing: pay as you go with no monthly fee and no contract, so you pay only for the messages you send. Two-way replies: customers should be able to reply, and you should be able to read and answer those replies from your account. 160.com.au meets all five, and you can test it with free trial credits before buying a pack.
160.com.au pricing is pay as you go: you buy a prepaid pack of SMS credits, and one credit sends one standard 160-character message to an Australian mobile. There is no monthly fee and no contract, the price per message falls as the pack size grows, and credits stay valid as long as you send one message every 180 days. Current packs are on the pricing page.
Messages leave the platform the moment you click Send and are normally on the recipient’s phone within seconds, subject to the mobile network, and for Australian mobiles a delivery report shows the status of each message in the campaign. Large lists are sent in a single batch rather than one at a time, and you can schedule a campaign to go out at a set date and time.
Yes. Replies come back to your 160.com.au account, where you can read and answer them in a two-way SMS chat view, and they can also be forwarded to your email or mobile. Two-way replies work on the shared number included with every account, or on a dedicated virtual SMS number of your own if you want a number customers can save.
Yes, provided you follow the Spam Act 2003, which the ACMA enforces. Commercial messages need the recipient’s consent, must identify who sent them and must include a working way to opt out, such as replying STOP. From 1 July 2026 a business name used as the sender ID must also be registered on the ACMA SMS Sender ID Register, which 160.com.au can arrange for you through our sender ID registration service.
You can ensure compliance when using bulk SMS by following the guidelines set by ACMA. The main things to consider are:
- Obtaining consent from recipients
- Providing an opt-out option
- Avoiding sending spam messages
Under the Spam Act 2003, every commercial SMS sent to an Australian number must have the recipient’s consent, identify the sender and include a working unsubscribe option (ACMA, acma.gov.au/scams-spam-and-telemarketing).
From 1 July 2026, alphanumeric sender IDs used to text Australian numbers must be registered on the ACMA SMS Sender ID Register, and messages from unregistered sender IDs are labelled “Unverified” on the recipient’s phone (ACMA, acma.gov.au/sms-sender-id-register).
Open an account with an Australian SMS platform, paste in the mobile numbers, write the message, and click Send. With 160.com.au this is done from any web browser, or from your inbox using email to SMS, or from your own software through the SMS API. There is a step-by-step guide in our how to send bulk SMS online post.
An SMS service can be used for a number of different purposes, both personal and business. At a personal level, people may use them to send en masse messages to friends and family, particularly if they’re organising a large-scale event or simply need to provide updates to a large number of people. Businesses, on the other hand, often use SMS for internal communications and also for external marketing.
All of these forms of communication can be very effective — but if you’re just doing them from your phone and don’t have a virtual SMS number, it can be pretty expensive. Here at 160.com.au, we can provide you with all the tools you need to send bulk SMS nationwide or to send SMS to a global audience, including an SMS online program. You can browse our help guides to learn more about our messaging service.
No, an individual SMS doesn’t consume data for the sender or the recipient. However, an SMS that is longer than the standard 160 characters or incorporates emojis, photos or web links will use data for both the sender and the recipient. These are commonly known as an MMS or “Multimedia Message Service”.
At 160.com.au, we use a text-based SMS service rather than an MMS one for our bulk services; it’s easier to guarantee that your message will actually be received by your intended audience, without concerns around data usage. However, we can offer email to SMS services, thanks to our SMS gateway. When you’re sending mass text messages, you use our SMS online program, which allows you to easily personalise, customise and keep track of the messages that you send.
To get started with bulk SMS marketing, you need to choose a reliable bulk SMS provider. You can sign up for free with 160.com.au, where you get access to all of our features, and your account comes with a few free text messages so you can see how easy it is to use an online text messaging platform.