Skip to main content

đŸ“± 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.

Written by Sarah Appfront

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 (Ă©, ñ, ĂŒ, 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, check your message with our SMS segment calculator.

It will show you:

  • How many segments it will send as

  • How many characters you have remaining

Here are some examples of unicode in messages:

In this example ^^ we see that even though it's only 102 characters, it counts as two text messaging segments.

Let's remove the emoji and try again:

99 Characters, but still two segments! This is because of the em-dash between 2 and 5. Let's remove that and take a look:

Ahah! Here we go! 103 characters, no unicode, 1 text messaging segment.

💡 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

Did this answer your question?