SMS Character Counter
Count SMS characters, detect GSM-7 vs Unicode encoding, and calculate message segments in real-time.
Segment Count
1SMS segment
120 characters used (40 characters remaining before next segment).
- Total characters
- 120
- Encoding
- GSM 7-bit
- Remaining in segment
- 40
- Limit per segment
- 160 chars
How do SMS character limits and segments work?
Standard SMS messages use GSM-7 encoding with a limit of 160 characters per single message. When your text exceeds 160 characters, carriers split it into multi-part segments of 153 characters each to reserve header space (UDH) for reassembling the message on the recipient's phone.
If your message contains emojis, special symbols, or non-Latin characters, the encoding automatically changes to UCS-2 (Unicode). Under Unicode, a single SMS is limited to 70 characters (or 67 characters per segment for multi-part messages). This tool helps you keep texts within your desired segment count to minimize carrier messaging costs.
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