The way SMS characters are calculated depends on the type of characters you're using in your send out. SMS messages can be up to 160 characters when you use basic characters. But, if you're using any emojis, special characters, links, or data fields in your SMS, the count changes.
Examples of How Characters are Calculated
Here are some examples of basic characters, characters that count as two characters, or Unicode format. Not all characters are present in the table.
| Basic characters - max. 160 per SMS | |||||||
| A | a | B | b | C | c | D | d |
| E | e | F | f | G | g | H | h |
| I | i | J | j | K | k | L | l |
| M | m | N | n | O | o | P | p |
| Q | q | R | r | S | s | T | t |
| V | v | X | x | Y | y | Z | z |
| Æ | æ | Ø | ø | Å | å | Ä | ä |
| Ö | ö | É | è | é | ü | Ü | à |
| Ñ | ñ | ò | ù | Ç | ß | Φ | Ω |
| ¡ | £ | ¥ | Σ | Λ | ¤ | Π | Δ |
| W | w | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 0 | @ | _ | ! | ? |
| ( | ) | / | $ | # | % | & | * |
| : | ; | + | . | , | < | > | = |
| - | ' | " | § | Ψ | Γ | Ξ | ¿ |
| ì | |||||||
| Basic characters that count as two characters - max. 160 per SMS | |||||||
| ^ | \ | ~ | [ | ] | { | } | € |
| | | |||||||
| Unicode characters - max. 70 per SMS | |||||||
| « | » | “ | ” | ’ | – | ||
Examples of character counts
If you send a message where all the characters you include are basic, the maximum length of the SMS is 160 characters. If you use any of the characters from the Unicode character set, the whole SMS is re-encoded and the maximum length goes down to 70 characters.
| Number of SMS Parts | Total Number of Characters when only using basic SMS Characters | Total Number of Characters when including Unicode characters |
| 1 | 160 | 70 |
| 2 | 306 | 134 |
| 3 | 459 | 201 |
| 4 | 612 | 268 |
The number of characters that make up an SMS part
If you use emojis, the character count varies. Using Person Data, such as the recipient's first name, will vary the character count too.
It's important to remember to never copy text directly from a text editing program such as Word. There may be hidden formatting which uses Unicode characters instead of GSM 7-bit characters. Therefore, we recommend using Notepad or similar text editing software with no formatting.
Before a send out, it's good practice to test how many message parts your SMS is divided into.
Comments
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2 comments
Hi when was this article published first time?
Hi Bjørn
This article was published the first time on the 18th of October 2018.
Kind Regards
Alexia
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