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SMS Character Limits

LoopSpark SMS Character Limit

The standard limit for a single SMS message is 160 characters; however, most modern phones and networks use “message concatenation”: large messages are divided into individual SMS messages (called “units”) and then re-created at the receiving end.

To ensure higher SMS delivery rates and better customer experience, LoopSpark has placed limits on SMS character length to:

  • Automations: 2 units
  • SMS sent through event rosters: 2 units
  • SMS sent through client profile: 3 units

Depending on the content of your SMS, the message can be encoded in 2 ways, which will impact the total character count per unit:

GSM:

GSM 03.38 is the original character set designed for SMS is limited to 160 7-bit characters, i.e., 1120 bits, or 140 bytes, and can only encompass 128 different characters, thanks to that 7-bit limit. So if you want to include characters including emojis, extended Latin or non-Latin scripts, you’ll need to use UCS-2. GSM messages also require 7 characters per unit for encoding on the network side, providing a total of 153 characters per unit.

  • Automation Limit: 306 characters (2 GSM units)
  • Client profile limit: 459 characters (3 GSM units)
  • Event roster limit: 306 characters (2 GSM units)

UCS-2:

Unicode character including emojis, special characters and paragraph spacing will cause your message to be encoded as USC-2, which limits the total unit character count to 70. UCS-2 messages also require 7 characters per unit for encoding on the network side, providing a total of 63 characters per unit:

  • Automation Limit: 126 characters (2 UCS-2 units)
  • Client profile limit: 189 characters (3 UCS-2 units)
  • Event roster limit: 126 characters (2 UCS-2 units)

Tips for maximizing SMS character length

If you have a message with 306 characters and only one or two of the characters are UCS-2, you can avoid the message becoming UCS-2 (reducing your character limit) by removing those special characters.

Emojis - We all love emojis; however including even one of these characters in automated SMS messages will reduce your character limit from 306 characters to 134 characters. If emojis are not 100% necessary, remove them. If emojis are necessary, you will need to reword your automated message to fit within the 134 character limit.

Paragraph Spacing - Blank lines (paragraph spacing) will also be included in your character count, further reducing your character limit. Remove any unnecessary blank lines to maximize your character count.

Special Characters - Special characters such as ¬ , ⇥ , and ă will cause your message to become UCS-2 (reducing your character limit). If these characters are not necessary in your message, removing them will allow your message to be encoded as GSM, providing a higher character count for your message.