An SMS has a limited length. A longer text is split into several parts that the recipient's phone joins back into one message. **Each part, however, is charged as a separate SMS.**

## How many characters fit into a message

| number of parts | standard SMS | Unicode |
|:--|:--|:--|
| 1 | up to 160 characters | up to 70 characters |
| 2 | up to 306 characters (2 × 153) | up to 134 characters (2 × 67) |
| 3 | up to 459 characters (3 × 153) | up to 201 characters (3 × 67) |
| 4 | up to 612 characters (4 × 153) | up to 268 characters (4 × 67) |
| 5 | up to 765 characters (5 × 153) | up to 335 characters (5 × 67) |

As soon as the text exceeds the length of one SMS, the capacity of **each** part drops from 160 to 153 characters (in Unicode from 70 to 67). The rest is taken by a header the phone uses to put the parts back together. A message of 161 characters is therefore not "160 + 1", but two parts of 153.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> A message of 180 characters is shown to the recipient as one, but you pay for it as **2 SMS**. You will find the price of one SMS in the [price list](https://www.bulkgate.com/en/helpdesk/general-information/using-price-list/).

## Characters that count twice

In a standard SMS these characters take up two places: `€` `^` `{` `}` `[` `]` `~` `\` `|`. The text `100€` therefore has 5 characters, not 4. In Unicode they count once. A line break is one character.

## When a message is sent in Unicode

A standard SMS supports only the characters of the [GSM 7-bit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM_03.38) set: the basic Latin alphabet, digits, common punctuation and some accented characters such as `é`, `ä`, `ö` or `ü`. Characters like `á`, `č`, `ř`, `ž` or `ů` are not part of it.

The full set looks like this — the column is the high half of the character code, the row the low half (`SP` is a space, `LF` a line break, `CR` a carriage return, `ESC` the switch to the extended set):

|  | 0x | 1x | 2x | 3x | 4x | 5x | 6x | 7x |
|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|:--|
| **x0** | `@` | `Δ` | SP | `0` | `¡` | `P` | `¿` | `p` |
| **x1** | `£` | `_` | `!` | `1` | `A` | `Q` | `a` | `q` |
| **x2** | `$` | `Φ` | `"` | `2` | `B` | `R` | `b` | `r` |
| **x3** | `¥` | `Γ` | `#` | `3` | `C` | `S` | `c` | `s` |
| **x4** | `è` | `Λ` | `¤` | `4` | `D` | `T` | `d` | `t` |
| **x5** | `é` | `Ω` | `%` | `5` | `E` | `U` | `e` | `u` |
| **x6** | `ù` | `Π` | `&` | `6` | `F` | `V` | `f` | `v` |
| **x7** | `ì` | `Ψ` | `'` | `7` | `G` | `W` | `g` | `w` |
| **x8** | `ò` | `Σ` | `(` | `8` | `H` | `X` | `h` | `x` |
| **x9** | `Ç` | `Θ` | `)` | `9` | `I` | `Y` | `i` | `y` |
| **xA** | LF | `Ξ` | `*` | `:` | `J` | `Z` | `j` | `z` |
| **xB** | `Ø` | ESC | `+` | `;` | `K` | `Ä` | `k` | `ä` |
| **xC** | `ø` | `Æ` | `,` | `<` | `L` | `Ö` | `l` | `ö` |
| **xD** | CR | `æ` | `-` | `=` | `M` | `Ñ` | `m` | `ñ` |
| **xE** | `Å` | `ß` | `.` | `>` | `N` | `Ü` | `n` | `ü` |
| **xF** | `å` | `É` | `/` | `?` | `O` | `§` | `o` | `à` |

On top of that, `ESC` adds the extended set: `^` `{` `}` `\` `[` `~` `]` `\|` `€`. These characters take up **two places**.

Everything else — accented characters beyond the table, emoji, Cyrillic, typographic quotes `" "` or the em dash `—` — is outside the set and switches the message to Unicode.

- **With [Unicode](https://www.bulkgate.com/en/helpdesk/sms/unicode/) enabled**, the message is sent in Unicode only when the text actually contains a character outside GSM. A text without such characters is sent as a standard SMS with the 160-character limit.
- **Without Unicode**, characters outside GSM are replaced and emoji are removed.

## What the campaign warns you about

When checking an SMS campaign, the portal warns you when:

- the text exceeds a part boundary by at most 15 characters — a small cut saves a whole SMS. If only 1–3 characters force Unicode, it points them out too; replacing them gets you back to the longer limit;
- characters outside GSM would be replaced or emoji removed because Unicode is not enabled;
- the message has more than 5 parts.

## Message shortener

When you use the [message shortener](https://www.bulkgate.com/en/helpdesk/campaign/message-shortener/) in a campaign, the text is shortened and completed with a link so that the whole message fits into one SMS.