SMS length calculator
How am I charged when sending longer messages than 160 characters?
Number of SMS | Character amount* | Character amount (Unicode) |
1 | 160 | 70 |
2 | 306 | 134 |
3 | 459 | 459 |
*Characters like : ^ { } [ ] ~ \ | € are counted double (as two characters).
You can always check the SMS length by typing in your SMS text to SMS length calculator - this will display you the actual length of the SMS message.
What to look out for:
Special characters like: í Ó é â will force the message to Unicode.
They are sometimes easy to miss. As a precaution, it is good to use "Auto replace" in your account API settings which will replace special characters with regular GSM alphabet characters.
Even more difficult to spot is a "Non-Breaking Space" or whitespace which is not represented in GSM alphabet which is why using SMS length calculator is a simple way to prevent any inconveniences.