Understanding SMS numbers and costs in WeGuide

Planning to send some SMSs out? Read this article first.

When planning to send SMS messages, it’s important to be aware of the cost of each message you are sending, especially when using emojis and special characters. This following article explains how WeGuide calculates SMS costs. 

SMS Costs and Message Segments

SMS costs are based on the number of message segments your message uses and the types of characters you use. Below is an explanation of how SMS segment lengths are calculated:

• Standard Characters (GSM-7):

  • These include most Latin characters and certain special characters.
  • Each segment can hold up to 160 characters.
  • If your message exceeds 160 characters, it splits into multiple segments, each up to 153 characters long.
  • The full list of GSM-7 characters can be found here
  • Please be aware that certain well-known characters are not part of the standard character set. For example, there is a difference straight apostrophes (''), which are part of the standard character set and curly apostrophes (“), which are counted as special characters

• Special Characters (Unicode):

  • This category includes emojis, Arabic, and other non-Latin scripts.
  • Each segment can hold up to 70 characters.
  • If your message exceeds 70 characters, it splits into multiple segments, each up to 67 characters long.
  • All messages by default are encoded with GSM-7. But when there is a character added that is not part of the GSM-7 character list (such as an Emoji or Arabic letter), then Unicode encoding is used for the whole SMS. 

When using special characters (such as Arabic or emjois) it's important to be aware that they can have a higher per SMS cost

In case your content has at least 1 special characters, the message will be encoded with Unicode and each segment can be a maximum of 70 characters long, instead of 160. 

Tip: to see if your SMS is going to be encoded in GSM-7 or in Unicode, use this handy calculcator. It will tell you how your SMS is going to be encoded and how many segments it consists of.

Practical Examples

Underneath some practical examples:

Example 1: Standard GSM-7 Characters

Message: "Hello, this is a test message."

• Characters: 29
• Segments: 1
• Cost: Cost for 1 segment

Example 2: Including Emojis

Message: "Hello ?, this is a test message."

• Characters: 31 (including 1 emoji)
• Segments: 1 (since the total characters are less than 70)
• Cost: Cost for 1 segment

Example 3: Arabic Language

Message: "مرحبا، هذه رسالة اختبار."

• Characters: 24
• Segments: 1 (since the total characters are less than 70)
• Cost: Cost for 1 segment

Example 4: Longer Message with Emoji and Arabic 

Message: "Hello ?, مرحبا، هذه رسالة اختبار تفصيلية أكثر لتوضيح التكلفة."

• Characters: 69 (including 1 emoji and Arabic text)
• Segments: 1 (since the total characters are less than 70)
• Cost: Cost for 1 segment

Example 5: Exceeding One Segment with Unicode

Message: "Hello ?, مرحبا، هذه رسالة اختبار تفصيلية أكثر لتوضيح التكلفة بالتفصيل."

• Characters: 79
• Segments: 2 (as the total characters exceed 70)
• Cost: Cost for 2 segments

Was the article missing some information or unclear? Please click on the thumbs down below and let us know how we can improve. Your feedback is always appreciated.