SMS character counter and segment calculator
Type a text message to see its encoding and how many segments it will take. One curly quote can drop the room from 160 characters to 70; the counter points it out and offers to replace it.
Segments
GSM-70
- Septets used
- 0
- Left in this segment
- 160
- Per segment
- 160
- Extended (count 2)
- 0
One message holds 160 GSM-7 or 70 UCS-2 characters. Longer texts are split into parts of 153 or 67, because each part carries a header.
Source: 3GPP: TS 23.038: Alphabets and language-specific information; 3GPP: TS 23.040: Technical realization of the Short Message Service.
How many characters fit in 1, 2, 3 or more messages
| Segments | GSM-7 | UCS-2 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 160 | 70 |
| 2 | 306 | 134 |
| 3 | 459 | 201 |
| 4 | 612 | 268 |
| 5 | 765 | 335 |
| 6 | 918 | 402 |
Totals for plain characters. Each extension character (€ [ ] { } \ ^ ~ |) takes two places in GSM-7, and most emoji take two in UCS-2, so those messages hold fewer characters.
Check this: National language shift tables, which some providers use for Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese and Indian scripts, are not modelled here. With them, more of those letters fit in GSM-7.
How many characters fit in one text message?
160 characters when every character is in the GSM 7-bit alphabet, or 70 when any character is not. A message carries 140 bytes of text: in GSM-7 each character takes 7 bits, so 160 fit; in UCS-2 each takes 16 bits, so 70 fit. Both numbers come from the 3GPP specifications that define SMS.
Why do long messages get 153 or 67 characters per part?
A longer message is sent as several parts that the phone joins back together. Each part spends 6 bytes on a header that says which message it belongs to and in what order, which leaves 153 GSM-7 characters or 67 UCS-2 characters per part. So a 161-character message is two parts, and a 307-character one is three.
Which characters push a message into UCS-2?
Anything outside the GSM 7-bit alphabet: emoji, curly quotes and apostrophes, long dashes, the ellipsis character, the backtick, and most letters outside Western European languages. Text pasted from a word processor often brings curly quotes with it. The counter lists every such character it finds, with its Unicode number, and can swap curly quotes, dashes and the ellipsis for plain ones.
Why do some characters count as two?
The GSM alphabet keeps a few characters in an extension table reached through an escape code: the euro sign, square and curly brackets, the backslash, the caret, the tilde and the vertical bar. Each one takes two places. The counter never splits one of them, or an emoji, across two parts, because a phone cannot join half a character.
Questions about the sms counter
Do emoji work in SMS?
Yes, but they switch the message to UCS-2, so it holds 70 characters instead of 160, and most emoji take two of those 70.
Are accented letters a problem?
Some are in the GSM alphabet (é, è, ü, ñ, à and a few others) and cost nothing extra. Others, such as á, ç in lowercase, or ã, switch the message to UCS-2. The counter lists exactly which ones did.
Does my carrier or SMS provider count the same way?
The sizes come from the 3GPP standard that every network follows. Some providers use national shift tables for languages such as Turkish, Spanish or Portuguese, which fit more of those letters in GSM-7; this counter does not model them, so it may show more segments than such a provider would bill.
Is there a maximum number of segments?
Providers and phones set their own caps on how many parts they send or join. Check your provider’s documentation for the limit it applies.
Is the message I type stored?
No. It is counted in your browser and is gone when you close the page.
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Sources and limits
- TS 23.038: Alphabets and language-specific information
The GSM 7-bit default alphabet and its extension table (^ { } \ [ ~ ] | € and page break), reached through an escape code. Read in the v19.0.0 text mirrored at whatthespec.net.
3GPP. Opened on .
- TS 23.040: Technical realization of the Short Message Service
Up to 140 octets of text per message (clause 3.1, read in a mirror of v19.0.0): 160 GSM-7 or 70 UCS-2 characters. The 153 and 67 per part of a concatenated message, after its header, are the values commonly given; we did not reach that clause.
3GPP. Cited reference: we could not open the full text, so the value is the one commonly reproduced from it.
Platforms change their limits without notice and some count emoji or links in ways they do not document. Treat every meter as a check before you post; the platform’s own editor has the last word. Nothing you type leaves your browser.