SMS character counter
for English, Sinhala and Tamil.
Type or paste a message to see how many characters it has, whether it goes as standard text or Unicode, how many parts it uses, and what it costs to send in Sri Lanka.
An estimate from our public rate card. Your rate is set on your account from your monthly volume, and failed messages are refunded. Larger or committed volumes: ask for a quote.
Start sendingHow the length of an SMS is counted.
An SMS is sent in parts. A message in English letters fits 160 characters in one part. A longer message is split into parts of 153 characters, which the phone joins back together so the customer sees a single message.
Sinhala and Tamil are sent as Unicode: 70 characters in one part, or 67 per part in a longer message. Anything outside the standard SMS alphabet, such as an emoji or a curly quotation mark pasted from a document, turns the whole message into Unicode.
A few symbols take two places in a standard message: ^ { } [ ] ~ | \ and the euro sign €.
| Parts | English (standard text) | Sinhala or Tamil (Unicode) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | up to 160 characters | up to 70 characters |
| 2 | up to 306 characters | up to 134 characters |
| 3 | up to 459 characters | up to 201 characters |
| 4 | up to 612 characters | up to 268 characters |
Keeping a message to one part.
- Put the important thing first. Say who you are and what the customer should do. Everything else is optional.
- Shorten long web addresses. A full address can use a third of the message. A short link does the same job.
- Check pasted text. Curly quotes, long dashes and emoji switch an English message to Unicode and cut the limit to 70.
- Write one clear sentence. In Sinhala or Tamil, seventy characters go quickly. One sentence and a phone number is usually enough.
How many characters are in one SMS?
Why did my English message become Unicode?
How are long messages charged?
Is this the count AVC SMS bills with?
More from AVC SMS
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