Find out how using emojis in your text messages can impact character limits, message parts, and sending costs.
When you add an emoji or special character, your SMS switches from the standard GSM-7 format to Unicode, which has a much lower character limit.
Key differences:
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GSM-7 SMS: Up to 160 characters per message.
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Unicode SMS (includes emojis): Only 70 characters per message.
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If a Unicode message is longer than 70 characters, each part is limited to 67 characters.
What counts as Unicode?
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Emojis 😊
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Non-English letters (e.g. ñ, é, 漢字)
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Some symbols
Tip: Avoid emojis or special characters if you want to keep your message within 1 part.
How Unicode Changes Your SMS Character Count
In the example below, an emoji has been added to the message. While the message contains 149 characters, the use of the emoji switches it to Unicode. As a result, the message is split into 3 parts, meaning it will be billed as 3 SMS parts.
FAQs
What is a Unicode SMS Message?
Unicode SMS refers to SMS messages that are sent and/or received containing characters that are not found in the GSM-7 character set. (I.e. characters within the alphabet (A-Z), digits (0-9), plus a few special characters). As an emoji is not found in the GSM-7 character set, the character itself takes up more space than characters found within the GSM-7 binary code, resulting in an non-GSM-7 message.
Notifyre's SMS Message Unicode Specifications
Notifyre supports emojis for SMS sending and receiving. Emoji characters take up more than one character and therefore result in the message part having a maximum character limit of 70.
If sending a longer message (multi-part message) containing an emoji, each message part will have a maximum character limit of 67 characters, due to 3 characters being needed to facilitate re-joining of the message on delivery.
View SMS Character Limits for more information.
Does Notifyre have Multilanguage support?
Notifyre does support Multilanguage SMS text messages with non-GSM letters and characters. As with sending an SMS containing an emoji, sending a Multilanguage SMS containing non-GSM SMS message will result in a maximum character limit of 70 per message part.