SMS character counter and segment calculator

Type or paste your text message and the SMS character counter shows how many characters it uses, whether it needs GSM-7 or Unicode, and how many segments it will be billed as, links included.

Counted in your browser; shortening sends the link to SendURL.

Your message

Type or paste the text. The counts update as you type.

Characters: 0
Encoding: GSM-7; 160 per segment
Segments: 0
Left in this segment: 160; of 160

How much would a short link save?

Long link

Paste a long link, or put one in your message.

Paste a long link to see how many characters a short link saves.

Sending bulk business texts to US numbers? Read the note on shared shorteners first. More in WhatsApp and SMS link tracking.

Limits checked against Twilio's and Bird's documentation on 15 October 2026

How many characters fit in one SMS

A standard text holds 160 characters; a longer one is split into segments of 153 characters each. One emoji or other character outside the basic GSM-7 set switches the whole message to UCS-2, which holds 70 characters, or 67 per segment (Twilio, updated 16 September 2026). Each segment of a long message gives up a few characters to a header that lets the phone join the segments back together, which is why 160 becomes 153.

SMS characters per segment, by encoding
Encoding	Used when the text has	One SMS	Per segment, when split
GSM-7	Only characters from the GSM-7 set	160	153
UCS-2 (Unicode)	Any character outside it: an emoji, a curly quote, most accented letters	70	67

Segments are what you pay for: Twilio, for one, "bills SMS per message segment sent". Sent from your own phone, the text still travels as segments that the receiving phone joins back into one message.

Characters that count as two

GSM-7 has an extension table for a few common symbols: € [ ] { } \ ~ ^ |. Each one "costs 2 septets instead of 1, so they count double against the segment limit" (Bird, opened 15 October 2026; Twilio says the same in its GSM-7 guide). A ~ in a link costs two as well. The counter adds them up that way and never splits one across two segments.

In a Unicode text the counter counts 16-bit units, which is what UCS-2 sends. Bird notes that "many emoji outside the Basic Multilingual Plane use two UTF-16 code units", so most emoji take two of the 70, and a flag, made of two such characters, takes four.

Why a text switches to Unicode

Usually it is a character you didn't type on purpose. Phones and word processors turn ' into ’, " into “ ”, a hyphen into a dash and three dots into …, and text copied from a web page can carry non-breaking spaces. None of them is in GSM-7, and "if any single character falls outside GSM-7, the entire message switches to UCS-2" (Bird), so one of them takes every segment from 160 characters to 70. Replace smart quotes and dashes puts the plain ones back.

Accented letters are mixed: GSM-7 has é, è, ü, ñ and a few others, but not á, í, ó, ú or ç. Emoji always need Unicode. The counter names the first character that forced the switch and marks every one in your text, so you can decide whether it is worth the shorter segments.

How many characters a link takes

A link counts character for character. A SendURL short link written with https:// is 20 characters (snu.to/ and a 5-character slug is 12), and the guide on how to track link clicks in SMS uses this pair to show the difference:

Acme Running: 30% off all trail shoes until Sun 19 Oct. https://snu.to/oct-sale-sms-a
→ 85 characters, 1 segment

Acme Running: 30% off all trail shoes until Sun 19 Oct. https://example.com/sale/trail-shoes?utm_source=sms&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=2026-10-autumn-sale&utm_content=list-a
→ 174 characters, 2 segments

Write the link with https:// in front, so phones turn it into a tappable link. Put UTM parameters on the destination, not on the short link: utm_source=sms&utm_medium=sms is what GA4 files as SMS, and the UTM builder makes the tagged link. Expect a click or two you didn't get from a reader, too: see why the first click arrives before anyone reads it.

Limits

The counter follows the standard GSM-7 alphabet and its extension table. It doesn't model the national language tables some carriers use (for Turkish, Spanish, Portuguese and several other languages, in 3GPP TS 23.038), or a provider that swaps characters for you before sending, so your provider's own count is the one you're billed on.

In the US, CTIA's Messaging Principles and Best Practices (May 2023 edition) say that where a URL shortener is used in business messaging, senders "should use a shortener with a web address and IP address(es) dedicated to the exclusive use of the Message Sender" (CTIA, section 5.3.2). snu.to is shared by every SendURL user, and SendURL doesn't offer custom domains. So for bulk business texts to US numbers through an SMS provider, ask your provider before using any shared shortener, ours included. For WhatsApp, Telegram and texts you send from your own phone, that guidance doesn't apply.

Frequently asked questions

How many characters can a text message have?

160 characters when every character is in the GSM-7 set, or 70 when the message needs Unicode (UCS-2). A longer message is split into segments of 153 or 67 characters each.

Why is my message 2 segments when it's under 160 characters?

Usually one character outside GSM-7, like a curly apostrophe, a dash or an emoji, has switched the whole message to Unicode, which holds 70 per segment. Characters from GSM-7's extension table (€ [ ] { } \ ~ ^ |) also count as two each. The counter names the character, and Replace smart quotes and dashes fixes the look-alikes.

Do emojis use more characters in SMS?

Yes, twice over. One emoji switches the message to Unicode, which holds 70 characters per segment instead of 160, and most emoji take two of those 70; a flag takes four.

Do links count toward the SMS character limit?

Yes, every character of the link counts. A tagged link can run past 100 characters, while a SendURL short link written with https:// is 20. In the SMS guide's example, that takes a text from 174 characters and 2 segments to 85 and 1.

How do I make a link shorter for SMS?

Paste it in the counter's link box and press Shorten it, or shorten a link on the SendURL home page; neither needs an account. For bulk business texts to US numbers, ask your SMS provider first, because snu.to is a domain every SendURL user shares.