SMS message
Any phoneYYour brand
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Any phone · Text message
SMS segment calculator & character counter
One SMS holds 160 plain characters, or only 70 if any character is outside the GSM alphabet — a curly apostrophe or an emoji is enough. Longer messages are split into parts of 153 (or 67) and each part is billed.
Too long
The SMS message limit at a glance
- Limit
- 160 characters (70 with Unicode) per part
- How it’s counted
- GSM-7 characters count 1 (a few count 2); any other character switches the whole message to Unicode.
- What happens when it’s too long
- Rejected or rewritten by the platform
- Where the number comes from
- Official limit
How to write for it
- Swap curly quotes and long dashes for plain ones to stay on the cheap alphabet.
- € [ ] { } ^ ~ | and \ each count as two characters.
FAQ
SMS message: questions
What is the SMS message limit?
160 characters (70 with Unicode) per part. One SMS holds 160 plain characters, or only 70 if any character is outside the GSM alphabet — a curly apostrophe or an emoji is enough. Longer messages are split into parts of 153 (or 67) and each part is billed.
What happens if my text message is too long?
It’s split into parts of 153 characters (67 with Unicode) and each part is billed separately.
Can I check many at once?
Yes — upload a CSV or Excel file on the Bulk page and Truncly checks and fixes every row, then gives the file back with fixes added.