Abstract Non-Gaussian upper and lower bounds are obtained for the transition probabilities of the simple random walk on the Sierpinski graph, the pre-fractal associated with the Sierpinski gasket. They are of the same form as bounds previously obtained for the transition density of Brownian motion on the Sierpinski gasket, subject to a scale restriction. A comparison with transition density bounds for random walks on general graphs demonstrates that this restriction represents the scale at which the pre-fractal graph starts to look like the fractal gasket.