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📱 SMS Character Limits: Why Your Segment Count Changes

SMS messages are sent in “segments,” and the character limit depends on the type of characters used.

Sarah Hassler avatar
Written by Sarah Hassler
Updated this week

SMS messages are sent in “segments,” and the character limit depends on the type of characters used.

Standard characters (GSM / basic English text)

  • Letters, numbers, and simple punctuation

  • Up to 160 characters per segment

Special characters (Unicode)

  • Emojis 😄

  • Curly quotes “ ”

  • Apostrophes ’

  • Long dashes —

  • Accented characters (é, ñ, ü, etc.)

  • If any Unicode character is included, the limit typically drops to 70 characters per segment

This can increase the number of segments your message uses.

✅ How to Check Your True SMS Length

Before sending, paste your message into this SMS segment calculator:
👉 https://voipl.co/segment.html

It will show you:

  • Whether your message is GSM or Unicode

  • How many segments it will send as

  • How many characters you have remaining

💡 Pro Tip

To stay within 160 characters per segment:

  • Replace curly quotes with straight quotes (" ")

  • Replace apostrophes (’) with (')

  • Replace long dashes (—) with (-)

  • Remove emojis if possible

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