SMS Calculator
| Encoding | 7bit |
|---|---|
| SMS parts | 0 |
| Chars used | 0 |
| Chars remaining | 0 |
| Chars in SMS | 160 |
How to Use the SMS Length Calculator
The SMS character counter is a free useful tool that can provide insights about a text message, such as the number of characters, encoding of characters used, estimate SMS message cost and more. How to use the character counter to find how many characters are in a text message
Basic and Extended GSM Alphabets
The basic GSM 03.38 alphabet uses 7 bits per character, comprising in total of 128 different characters with hexadecimal values from 0x00 to 0x7F. There is also an extension of the GSM alphabet that defines an additional 10 characters along with the original 128. These characters are sent as two 7-bit encoded characters, starting with the 7-bit encoded escape character (0x1B) from the standard alphabet, followed by the extended caracter. That is why the characters within the extended GSM alphabet are counted as two characters.
What is GSM-7 and UCS-2 Encoding?
SMS messages can be encoded with either GSM-7 or UCS-2 character encoding. English alphabet, numbers, some latin and greek characters are all supported by GSM-7 encoding. You can check the full list of GSM-7 supported characters. SMS messages that contain international languages or characters such as emojis, are sent using UCS-2 encoding.
SMS Length
When sending SMS messages, the length of the message can vary depending on the encoding used. Here's a description of SMS length by encoding:
7-bit GSM Encoding:
In 7-bit GSM encoding, each character is represented by 7 bits, allowing for a maximum of 160 characters per SMS message.
This encoding is commonly used for Latin-based alphabets, such as English, Spanish, French, German, etc.
8-bit Encoding:
8-bit encoding allows for characters from different character sets, including extended Latin characters and some non-Latin characters.
However, using 8-bit encoding reduces the maximum length of an SMS message to 140 characters.
UCS-2 Encoding:
UCS-2 encoding is used for encoding characters from the Unicode character set, allowing for a wide range of languages and characters.
Each character is represented by 16 bits, resulting in a maximum of 70 characters per SMS message.
Since each character occupies more space, UCS-2 encoding is less efficient in terms of message length compared to 7-bit encoding.