Pick Australia on SMSOTPS, choose the service, and check the price before you order. You get a private Australian number, paste it into the sign-up form, and request the code once. It appears next to your number on your dashboard. One code completes the order; the number stays active for up to 20 minutes.
What do people actually verify with an Australian number?
A messaging app, a social account, a marketplace - the same kinds of sign-ups as anywhere else. The Australian part matters in two cases.
First, the service itself asks for an Australian number. Some forms ask for +61 specifically, and anything else can be refused at the form, before any code is sent.
Second, you are outside Australia and the account still wants one - Australians abroad with local services, or people elsewhere signing up for something that expects +61. You do not need to be in Australia. The number is ordered online and the code shows on your dashboard.
Then the case where a temporary number is the wrong tool. myGov offers a 6-digit sign-in code sent by SMS to the mobile number registered to the account, and its own help pages explain what to do when your number changes (my.gov.au help). A number that closes after one code cannot receive the next sign-in, so do not verify a myGov account - or any government or bank account - with a one-time number. Use a number you control long-term.
The FAQ explains what a one-time activation covers.
Will the service accept it? Nobody can promise that
Say it plainly: acceptance is the receiving service's decision. No number gets a code past a service that refuses it.
What the decision turns on is one of four things. Wrong format - the form got a number it cannot read. Wrong country - the service wanted an Australian number and got something else. Refused number type - some services will not take a number they call temporary or virtual. Or a rate limit - too many requests in a short time, and the service stops sending.
This page lists Telstra, Optus and Vodafone as carriers. That is the whole carrier story: a familiar name does not make a service accept the number. If a service refuses the number, the error on the screen is the first clue - the sections below work through the reasons.
Decide this before you order: is this an account you keep, or one you throw away?
A one-time activation receives one code, once. The code arrives, the order is complete, the session closes. That is a good deal for a sign-up you will never need to get back into.
It is a bad deal for anything else. The next login asks for a code. A new phone asks for a code. A password reset asks for a code. Every one of those goes to the number registered to the account - the temporary one, closed weeks ago. There is no way back through a number you no longer hold.
So ask before you pay: will this account ever ask me for a code again? If the answer is yes, or even maybe, do not verify it with a one-time number. Use a number you control for the long term, and set up the service's recovery method at sign-up, while you still have access.
How ordering works, and what happens when the code never arrives
Pick the service and the country, check the price, get the number. Paste it into the sign-up form and request the code once. When it arrives it shows next to your number on your dashboard - type it in promptly and exactly as shown, and if more than one code was requested, use only the newest.
The number stays active for up to 20 minutes. If no code arrives, cancel between 2 and 20 minutes after purchase, as long as no code has arrived - or do nothing and it is refunded automatically when the number expires. Once a code arrives, the order is complete and non-refundable: the code is the product. The FAQ has the full refund rules.
If nothing arrives, do not hammer resend. Read the screen first. A format error means the number went in wrong - see the +61 note below. "Try again later" can mean a cooldown; stop requesting codes, wait out the period shown, then request once. Silence with no error can mean the service is not sending to that number - cancel inside the window and start again with a fresh activation.
One format check first: Australian mobiles are written locally as 04XX XXX XXX. Internationally, drop the leading 0 and add +61, so 0412 345 678 becomes +61 412 345 678. Some forms want Australia picked from a dropdown and the digits without the country code; others want the full +61 number. Paste the wrong version and the code goes nowhere.
Stuck on an order? Contact support@smsotps.com or Telegram @sms_otpsbot. The how-to-buy guide walks through ordering, and the services page lists what you can pick.