SMS Length Calculator
Determine character count in your message, calculate sending costs, and preview
text messages on different mobile devices.
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How Your Customers Will See It
Detailed View
- Unicode
Transcoding possible
- Unicode
No transcoding
- Space
- Normal Text
GSM 7
- New line
- New message
How To Use The SMS Length Calculator
The text message length calculator serves as a straightforward tool that provides information about a text message, including the character count, types of characters employed, text message expenses, and additional details. Here’s a guide on how to utilize it:
Step #1: Copy and paste or write in your text message. Alternatively, you can opt for one of the
Step #2:Â Choose the destination country for where the SMS message will be sent so you can calculate the cost of the campaign.
Step #3:Â Preview the message on different types of phones, including the iPhone, an Android phone, and a feature phone.
How To Use The SMS Length Calculator
There are several reasons why you should use our text message character counter tool:
- Count the number of characters in your text message.
While it may seem repetitive, considering the tool’s name, it’s important to note that not all characters carry the same weight. As you’re aware, the conventional text message length is 160 characters, but utilizing the Unicode charset reduces this limit to 70 characters. Moreover, specific characters from the GSM 03.38 charset necessitate ‘escape characters,’ each requiring two characters (14 bits) for encoding. Consequently, even if your message comprises 160 GSM characters, it might still be split if it contains one of these symbols. - Estimate text message cost.
On the right side of the screen, you’ll also encounter a ‘text message cost’ tool enabling you to designate the country to which the SMS will be sent. This tool will automatically compute the cost of your text message. - See a preview of your text message on different mobile devices.
The character counter tool includes a preview option, allowing you to see how the text message will be presented on Apple devices, Android devices, and standard cellular phones. - Examine the ‘detailed view’ of your text message.
Utilize the detailed view to examine the characteristics of the characters employed. Standard GSM characters are presented in grey, non-GSM characters that compel the text into Unicode encoding are emphasized in red, and GSM characters encoded as Unicode symbols are highlighted in yellow. The detailed view provides greater control over text messages, offering the option to modify or edit symbols contributing to your character count.
Pros Of Utilizing The SMS Length Calculator Tool
The SMS character count tool provides enhanced control over your text messages. Below are the primary advantages of utilizing our tool:
- Swiftly determine the character count in your text messages.
- Discover how many segments a text message will be divided into.
- Recognize GSM characters, Unicode characters, and GSM characters utilizing Unicode encoding.
- Preview how your text message will appear on Apple, Android, and standard mobile devices.
- Estimate the cost of sending a text message to various countries.
- Edit characters that occupy space to prevent SMS segmentation.
What Methods Can I Use To Shorten My Text Message?
By utilizing the detailed view of our online character count tool, you can pinpoint symbols that are occupying excessive space in your text message. The most effective way to trim the length of an SMS message is to substitute such characters (typically Unicode characters, GSM characters necessitating Unicode encoding, or escape characters) with a corresponding GSM equivalent.
Glossary
GSM Charset: The GSM 03.38 charset is the standard character set for text messaging on GSM-based cell phones. All GSM handsets and network elements support the GSM 7-bit alphabet. The basic GSM charset contains the letters A to Z (uppercase and lowercase), numbers, special symbols and several symbols from the Greek alphabet.
Escape Characters: Certain characters in the GSM 03.38 extension table can only be employed at the expense of two characters. While the GSM charset utilizes a 7-bit alphabet encoding, the escape characters demand 14 bits for encoding, consequently occupying two characters. These symbols are:  |, ^, {, }, €, [, ~, ] and \.
Unicode Symbols: Unicode is a standard used for encoding, managing, and representing text across a wide array of the world’s writing systems. The current Unicode symbol list encompasses over 120,000 characters derived from various symbol sets and includes 129 historic and modern scripts.
Unicode Encoding: In contrast to the GSM charset, Unicode encoding accommodates an extensive variety of languages and symbols. Nonetheless, if your text message incorporates a symbol not found in the 7-bit alphabet, UCS-2 encoding becomes necessary. This encoding type occupies significant space, thereby limiting the number of characters allowed in a message to 70.
