SMS message parts

Mobile phones send and receive messages in small chunks called parts. You’re charged per part, not per message.

When a message is too long it’s split into parts and each part is sent separately. The receiving phone joins the parts back together and shows a single message.

How long is too long? That depends on the character set the message uses.

Basic character set

A message of up to 160 characters is sent as one part. Over that, it’s split into parts of up to 153 characters each.

This message is exactly 160 characters, so it’s sent as one part:

So here is a message that uses the standard character set for SMS text messaging. It is exactly 160 characters long so it will not need to be broken in to parts

Add a full stop at the end and it becomes 161 characters, so it’s sent in two parts. The first holds the first 153 characters and the second holds the rest.

Part one

So here is a message that uses the standard character set for SMS text messaging. It is exactly 160 characters long so it will not need to be broken in t

Part two

o parts.

Unicode character set

If a message contains an emoji or another character outside the basic set, the whole message is sent as Unicode, and the limits are much lower. A message of up to 70 characters is sent as one part. Over that, it’s split into parts of up to 67 characters each.

This message is 70 characters, so it’s sent as one part:

This text uses the advanced character set and is 70 characters long 🙂

Add a full stop and it becomes 71 characters, so it’s sent in two parts:

Part one

This text uses the advanced character set and is 70 characters lon

Part two

g 🙂.

One emoji can triple the cost

The 160-character message above is one part in the basic set. Add a single 🙂 and the whole message switches to Unicode. It now needs three parts, costing three times as much.

Related

• Sending from the web portal
• Send SMS by email
• Credit and billing