How will I be charged for concatenated SMS?
- By Dan
- February 6th, 2023
Question
How are users charged when sending concatenated SMS?
Applicability
- Concatenated SMS
- Billing
- SMS API
Answer
When you send a text message longer than the maximum number of characters per SMS, we will automatically split the message for you and send multiple concatenated SMS, so that the message displays as a single message on the destination mobile phone.
Our rates are per SMS message (in the same way as our carriers charge us), and not per API call, so if your message is long enough to need 5 text messages to send it to the recipient you will be charged you for each of these text messages individually, that is, for 5 text/sms messages.
The maximum number of characters per message varies depending on the encoding:
- 160 characters for 7-bit encoding (e.g., latin-1/9 and GSM8).
- 140 characters for 8-bit encoding (binary).
- 70 characters for 16-bit encoding (Unicode).
The maximum number of characters per concatenated message is reduced because of the concatenation that takes place (so that the 5 messages sent are concatenated on the destination phone into a single message):
- 153 characters for 7-bit encoding (e.g., latin-1/9 and GSM8).
- 134 characters for 8-bit encoding (binary).
- 67 characters for 16-bit encoding (Unicode).
