Understanding SMS Character Limits with Enrollio
When sending text messages through Enrollio, it's essential to understand how character limits work to ensure your messages are delivered efficiently and cost-effectively.
A single SMS can hold up to 160 characters in standard GSM-7 encoding. However, this limit reduces to 70 characters if you include emojis or other non-Latin characters, as these require UCS-2 encoding.
Character Limits Explained
160 Characters: This is the maximum length for standard SMS messages encoded in GSM-7. This encoding supports most Latin characters and some special characters.
70 Characters: When your message includes special characters, such as emojis, or is written in languages that require UCS-2 encoding (e.g., Arabic, Chinese), the character limit drops to 70 per SMS.
How It Works
Standard Messages (GSM-7):
If your message exceeds 160 characters, it will be split into multiple segments. Each segment can hold up to 153 characters to accommodate the metadata used for reassembling the message on the recipient's device.
For example, a 320-character message will be split into three segments: the first two segments will contain 153 characters each, and the third segment will contain the remaining 14 characters.
Messages with Special Characters (UCS-2):
When using special characters or emojis, each SMS segment can hold up to 67 characters instead of 70 due to the additional data required for message reassembly.
For example, a 150-character message with emojis will be split into three segments: the first two segments will contain 67 characters each, and the third segment will contain the remaining 16 characters.
Quick Tip:
Check Before You Send Use our Message Segment Calculator to flag characters that might increase costs. Text editors may replace standard characters with special ones, so always double-check to avoid extra costs!
For more information, check out these references:
