SMS parts and message length

Standard SMS messages have a character limit of 160 characters (Unicode message of 70 characters) . If that limit is exceeded, your message is split into multiple parts to deliver to the recipient's phone. This is called message concatenation and may affect your spending (a long message will be billed as many times as its parts).

SMS can be sent out using different charsets or character sets. For SMS, we use the charsets GSM-7 and Unicode. This may affect the maximum length of a message part and the number of parts your message will require. Below, we will explain each charset and what this means for your SMS.

SMS are typically sent out with the GSM-7 charset covering most characters. When SMS is sent in the GSM-7 charset, each character is seen as just one character in an SMS message.

In the table below, you will find the standard characters under the GSM-7 charset. The characters in the table are considered standard but may not show on the receiver's phone, depending on the handset's capabilities.

The following characters are part of the GSM-7 charset but equate to two characters in a text message:

\ ^ ~ [ ] { } | ~ €

When using the Unicode charset, each character is seen as two characters. This decreases the number of characters you can put in your SMS from 160 to 70 (or 67 for multiparts messages with longer heathers). Message encoding is updated to Unicode automatically when you use any non-GSM-7 characters.

The maximum amount of parts a single message can be broken into is limited. Too long messages will not be delivered as the receiving carrier network cannot handle them. Bird advises users to limit the maximum length to 1377 characters for GSM-7 messages and 603 for Unicode ones. Longer messages delivery will only offer on best effort basis.

Using the table below, you can check the amount of SMS you will be sending based on your character count: