SEGMENT CALCULATOR
Depending on your plan, you may be limited by the number of segments you’re able to send before incurring fees. Use the Segment Calculator to get a better idea of how much your marketing campaign will cost you, and adjust your message accordingly.
| Encoding | |
| Number of segments | |
| Characters used | |
| Max Segment Length |
What’s a Segment in a text message?
A “segment” refers to a part of a text message containing a maximum number of characters. Depending on the contents of the text message, or if the message is sent out in multiple parts, the maximum number of characters is different per segment.
If your message is over the maximum number of characters, it is broken down into multiple parts before being dispatched to the recipient's phone. Today, the majority of cell phone carriers join the multiple message parts to create a single message for the recipient to read. However, some phone carriers may send the messages separately, one after the other.
What’s the Difference Between 70 (UCS-2) and 160 (GSM-7)?
GSM-7
A text message containing text-only characters (regular letters and numbers) will be encoded using GSM-7 and will have a maximum of 160 characters. It does not contain special characters like emojis or letters with accents. If your text-only message goes over 160 characters, it will be broken down into multiple segments.
UCS-2
A text message containing emojis or special characters (even just one!), known as Unicode characters, (for example, ÀÂÃÄÇÈÉÊËÎÏÔÕÖÙÚÛÜ÷©) will be encoded using UCS-2 and will have a maximum of 70 characters per segment. If this type of message goes over 70 characters, it will be broken down into multiple segments.
| 0-160 caracters | 1 segment | 0-70 caracters |
| 161-306 caracters | 2 segments | 71-141 caracters |
| 307-459 caracters | 3 segments | 142-212 caracters |
| 460-612 caracters | 4 segments | 212-282 caracters |
| And so on... |
