How many characters are in a text message?
One SMS holds 160 characters, or 70 if the message contains even one character outside the standard SMS alphabet. That alphabet, called GSM-7, covers English letters, digits, common punctuation and a few accented letters like é, ü and ñ. An emoji, a curly apostrophe, a Hindi letter or a styled letter from a font generator is outside it, and one of them is enough to switch the whole message to Unicode.
The reason is space. An SMS carries 140 bytes. GSM-7 packs each character into 7 bits, so 160 fit. Unicode uses 16 bits a character, so only 70 do. The counter above tells you which of the two your message is and how much room is left.
Why is my text limited to 70 characters?
Because something in it isn't in the standard SMS alphabet, and often it's a character you didn't type on purpose. Phones swap a straight apostrophe for a curly one as you type (on iPhone it's a setting called Smart Punctuation), and a message pasted from a document tends to bring curly quotes and long dashes with it. They look almost the same, but each one is a Unicode character.
Take the sample in the box. It's 106 characters with one curly apostrophe and a cake emoji at the end, so it sends as Unicode in 2 parts. Swap the apostrophe for a straight one and drop the emoji, and the same message is 104 characters: one standard SMS, with 56 to spare. Replace look-alikes does the first half for you. The emoji is your call.
What happens when a text is longer than 160 characters?
It's sent in parts that the other phone puts back together, so it still arrives as one message. Each part gives up a little room for a header that says how to join them, so the parts hold 153 characters each instead of 160, or 67 instead of 70 for Unicode. That's why a 161-character message is two parts, not "160 plus 1".
Whether that matters depends on how you're sending. On most phone plans, texts are included and nobody notices. It matters when each part costs money: bulk and business SMS, prepaid plans that charge per message, and sending abroad. It also matters for a message that has to fit one SMS, like a one-time code or an alert.
iMessage, WhatsApp and RCS chats send over mobile data, not as SMS, so none of these limits apply to them.
Does an emoji count as one character?
To you it's one. To an SMS it's at least two, and some count far more. The cake emoji 🎂 counts as 2. A flag counts as 4, because it's two letters that combine. A family emoji like 👨👩👧 counts as 8, because it's three people joined by invisible glue characters. And any emoji switches the message to Unicode, so the first one costs you 90 characters of room before it costs its own 2.
Styled text works the same way. The fancy letters the font generator makes are symbols, not a font, and each one counts as 2. A name like 𝓐𝓻𝓲𝔂𝓪 is 5 characters that count as 10. Fine for a bio, expensive in a long SMS.
How do Hindi messages count in an SMS?
A message in Devanagari is always Unicode, so it gets 70 per SMS, and it counts longer than it looks. Vowel signs and half letters are separate characters to an SMS. जन्मदिन मुबारक हो reads as 11 characters but counts as 17. The same wish in Hinglish, "Janamdin mubarak ho", is 19 characters in a standard SMS, which leaves 141 to spare. For a long wish sent as plain SMS, Hinglish fits more than twice as much into each text.
How do you fit more into one SMS?
- Replace the look-alikes. Curly quotes, long dashes and non-breaking spaces are the most common reason a short text goes Unicode. The button above fixes them and nothing else.
- Decide on the emoji. One emoji costs more room than any sentence. If the message is close to a limit, it's the first thing to cut.
- Write long ones in Hinglish. When it has to go as plain SMS, Roman letters get 160 per text against 70 for Devanagari.
- Watch the extra characters. € [ ] { } ~ \ ^ and | are in the standard alphabet but count as 2 each.
- Cut the greeting, keep the point. "Hi, hope you're well, just wanted to say" is 40 characters that the reader skips.
What are the character limits on other apps?
The rows under the counter compare your message with the limits people check most: a TikTok bio (80), a YouTube title (100), an Instagram bio (150), a post on X (280), a Discord message (2,000) and an Instagram caption (2,200). Each app counts a little differently. X, for example, counts an emoji as two. So treat anything within a few characters of a limit as tight, and check in the app itself.
Nothing you paste here is sent anywhere or saved. The counting happens in your browser.