Understanding SMS Campaigns Pricing

• How Pricing Works?
  • What is a "segment"? 
• Encoding Types: GSM-7 vs. UCS-2
  • GSM-7 Encoding Rules and Examples
  • UCS-2 Encoding Rules and Examples
• Using Placeholders (Personalized Messages)
• Daily Message Limit
• Segments Calculation Summary
• Tips to Optimize Your SMS Campaign

Our SMS Campaigns feature allows you to quickly and easily send personalized messages to a list of recipients. To help you manage your costs and craft effective messages, it's important to understand how campaign pricing is calculated.

How Pricing Works?

Messages are charged depending on the number of segments. Each segment costs $0.0135.

What is a "segment"? 

A segment is a portion of your message, based on its length and type of characters used. Depending on these factors, your message might be split into one or multiple segments.

  The following rules describing how segments are calculated are valid in most cases. However, there may be exceptions depending on certain recipient carriers or device-specific behavior, which may result in a message being counted as more segments than expected. 

Encoding Types: GSM-7 vs. UCS-2

SMS messages are sent using one of two encoding types:

1. GSM-7 (For Standard Characters and Basic Symbols)

Used when your message contains only characters supported by the GSM-7 character set. This includes:

• Standard Latin letters (A-Z, a-z).
• Numbers (0-9).
• Basic punctuation (!, ?, ., etc.)
• A limited set of symbols.
  
  

Segment Rules:

• Up to 160 characters = 1 segment.
• More than 160 characters = 153 characters per segment.

Special Notes:

Some GSM-7 characters use 2 character slots because they are encoded with an escape character. These include ^, {, }, \, [, ], ~, |, and €.

For example, the message Total: €5 counts as 10 characters, not 9.

Examples (GSM-7):

• Hello! Your appointment is set for tomorrow at 3 PM.
  
  52 characters (GSM-7).
  1 segment → 1.35 cents.
  
  
• Reminder: your code is {1234}. Use it within 10 minutes.
  
  Characters like { and } count as 2 characters each so actual length = 56 + 2 characters (for {}) = 58 characters.
  Still 1 segment → 1.35 cents.
  
  
• Hello! This is a reminder that your appointment is tomorrow at 3 PM. Please reply YES to confirm or NO to reschedule (we can accept rescheduling requests up to 2 hours before the appointment time.)
  
  197 characters (GSM-7).
  2 segments → 2.70 cents (197 ÷ 153 = 1.28 → 2 segments).
  
  

2. UCS-2 (For Special or Non-Latin Characters)

Used when your message contains any character not supported by GSM-7, such as:

• Emojis  
• Accented letters: é, ñ, ü.
• Non-Latin scripts: Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, etc.

Segment Rules:

• Up to 70 characters = 1 segment.
• More than 70 characters = 67 characters per segment.

Special Notes:

Like GSM 7,  the ^, {, }, \, [, ], ~, |, and € characters count as 2 characters because they are encoded with an escape character. Emojis are also counted as 2 characters in UCS-2. For example,   counts as 2 characters, not 1.

Hebrew characters automatically switch your message to UCS-2.

Examples (UCS-2):

• Hello
  
  "Hello" = 5 characters. = 2 characters. Space = 1 character.
  Total = 8 UCS-2 characters.
  1 segment → 1.35 cents.
  
  
• שלום וברכה
  
  Hebrew = UCS-2 required.
  TotaL = 10 UCS-2 characters.
  1 segment → 1.35 cents.

Using Placeholders (Personalized Messages)

If you use placeholders like {{FirstName}} to personalize your message, the number of segments can only be calculated after replacing the placeholder for each recipient.

Note that if any recipient's name includes special characters, your message for that recipient will use UCS-2 encoding and may cost more if it has more segments.

Examples with this template: Hi {{FirstName}}, your order has shipped!

• If {{FirstName}} is "Amy":
  
  GSM-7 encoding.
  Message length = 31 characters.
  1 segment → 1.35 cents.
  
  
• If {{FirstName}} is "José":
  
  The letter é triggers UCS-2 encoding.
  Message length = 32 UCS-2 characters.
  1 segment → 1.35 cents.

Daily Limit

You can send up to 5,000 messages per day by default. If you need more, feel free to contact support to request an increased limit.

Segments Calculation Summary

Tips to Optimize Your SMS Campaign

• Avoid emojis, accented letters, or non-Latin scripts unless necessary – this keeps encoding in GSM-7 and your costs lower.
  
  
• Special GSM-7 characters (^, {, }, etc.) – are counted as 2 characters.
  
  
• Keep messages concise to avoid crossing into multi-segment pricing.
  
  
• Be mindful of placeholders – the number of segments your message will use is calculated after placeholders are filled in.

Need help checking your message length or encoding? Contact us anytime – we're happy to help you optimize your campaigns!