SMS character counter

One SMS holds 160 characters from the standard GSM-7 set, which covers the English alphabet, numbers, everyday punctuation and a handful of accented letters such as é, è, ñ and ü. Go past 160 and the message is split. Each part then holds 153 characters, because a few are taken up by the information the phone needs to stitch the parts back in order.

If even one character in the message isn't in the standard set, the whole text is sent as Unicode instead. A Unicode part holds 70 characters, or 67 once the text is split, so an emoji in a 100 character message turns one part into two.

Emoji are the obvious ones. Less obvious are the curly quotes and long dashes that word processors and phones put in automatically, the single-character ellipsis, and accented letters outside the standard set, such as á, ê and ô. They look almost the same as the plain versions on screen, which is why texts so often cost more than people expect.

The counter names every character that caused the switch. For quotes, dashes and the ellipsis it can swap in the plain versions with one click.

A few characters are in the standard set but live in its extension table, so each one takes two places: € [ ] { } ~ | ^ and \. They keep the text in the cheaper standard set, but a message with lots of them reaches the part limit sooner.

A merge field such as {first_name} is replaced with each contact's own details when the text goes out, so the real length changes from person to person. A long surname can push one person's copy into a second part. Leave some room under the limit when you personalise, and the dashboard works out the true cost for each recipient when you send.

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