---
title: "Why is my SMS billed as more than one message?"
url: "https://enfonica.com/help/sms/message-segments"
summary: "SMS is billed per segment. Up to 160 standard characters fit in one segment, and longer messages split into segments of 153 characters. A single emoji or special character drops the limit to 70."
type: explainer
audience: everyone
products: ["Cloud SMS", "SMS Marketing"]
---

# Why is my SMS billed as more than one message?

**Short answer:** SMS is billed per segment. Up to 160 standard characters fit in one segment, and longer messages split into segments of 153 characters. A single emoji or special character drops the limit to 70.

**Applies to:** Cloud SMS, SMS Marketing

## How many characters fit in one SMS?

It depends on the characters in the message. A message that uses only standard characters uses GSM-7 encoding. If it contains even one character outside that set, such as an emoji, the whole message switches to UCS-2 encoding, which fits fewer characters.

| Encoding | Fits in one segment | Each segment of a longer message |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GSM-7 (standard characters) | 160 characters | 153 characters |
| UCS-2 (emoji and other characters) | 70 characters | 67 characters |

In a longer message, each segment loses a few characters to a small header. The header tells the phone how to join the segments back together. The recipient still sees one message.

## Check your message

Count the characters in your message. With standard characters only, a message of 160 characters or fewer is one segment. A longer message needs one segment for every 153 characters. With any emoji or other special character, a message of 70 characters or fewer is one segment. A longer message needs one segment for every 67 characters.

[Use the interactive SMS segment calculator](https://enfonica.com/help/sms/message-segments#segment-calculator)

## Which characters switch a message to UCS-2?

Any character that isn't in the GSM-7 set. These are the ones that catch people out:

- Emoji
- Curly quotes and apostrophes (“ ” ‘ ’), which word processors and phones often add automatically
- Long dashes (– and —) and the ellipsis character (…)
- Letters with accents that GSM-7 doesn't include, and non-Latin scripts

> **Note:** A few GSM-7 characters count as two: `€ [ ] { } ^ ~ | \`. They don't switch the message to UCS-2, but each one uses two of the 160 characters.

Most emoji also count as two characters, because of the way UCS-2 stores them. A message with one emoji has room for 68 more characters in a single segment, not 69.

## What's the longest message I can send?

Ten segments. That's up to 1,530 standard characters, or 670 characters in UCS-2. Cloud SMS cuts off a longer message at that point, so the end of it never arrives. If you're close to the limit, shorten the message or send a link to the rest.

## How do I keep a message to one segment?

Use standard characters, and check the length before you send:

- Use straight quotes and apostrophes (" and '), and a plain hyphen instead of long dashes.
- Leave out emoji unless they're worth the extra segments.
- Paste copy into a plain text editor first, to remove characters added by a word processor.
- Before you send to a large list, check the message in [Check your message](https://enfonica.com/help/sms/message-segments#segment-calculator).

## How do I see how many segments a message used?

In SMS Marketing, the campaign editor shows the character count and number of segments as you write. Before you send, the campaign summary shows the total SMS segments.

For any message, go to **Cloud SMS > Messages** in the Enfonica Console, and open the message. Its details show the **Encoding** and the number of **Segments**.

When you send with the Cloud SMS API, each message's details include its `segmentCount` and `encoding`. Delivery webhooks include the same details. For the full message fields, see the [Cloud SMS documentation](https://enfonica.com/docs/cloud-sms/overview/).

## What to send us

Include these and we can trace the message.

- The number or sender ID you sent from, and the number you sent to.
- The date and time you sent it, with your timezone.
- The message ID, if you sent it with the API.
- What you expected and what happened instead.

[Contact support](https://enfonica.com/contact-support?article=%2Fhelp%2Fsms%2Fmessage-segments&topic=sms)

## Related

- [Cloud SMS overview (docs)](https://enfonica.com/docs/cloud-sms/overview/)
- [Cloud SMS](https://enfonica.com/products/cloud-sms)
- [Pricing](https://enfonica.com/pricing)

---

Web version: https://enfonica.com/help/sms/message-segments