How does SMS billing work?

Learn how SMS segments are determined for billing purposes.

Text messaging is a valuable tool to help streamline communication with customers in an easily accessible and engaging format. The information below will help explain SMS segments and how these are counted for billing purposes. 

The Basics

When you send a text message, it gets broken down into small parts called segments. Each segment can hold a certain number of characters. The first part of a text message can fit up to 160 characters, and if your message is longer, each extra part can hold 153 characters. Most regular letters and numbers count as one character, but some special symbols or characters take up more space and count as two.

Getting Fancy

When you use fancy characters or emojis like ✌️💚😊 in your text messages, they take up more space because the phone needs extra data to show them correctly. Because of this, each part of your message can only hold up to 70 characters for the first part and 63 characters for any extra parts. So, using emojis or special characters makes your messages shorter in each segment.

Example Segment Lengths

Hi, thank you for your interest. Someone from our team will reach out soon to schedule a free in-home consultation. Let us know if you have any questions!
154 characters, 1 segment

Good morning, Molly! Just a friendly reminder that your appointment is in one hour 😊. See you soon!
100 characters, 2 segments

Hi John, thank you for making the time for us to come out to take a look at your project. We look forward to hearing your thoughts regarding the proposal. When you're ready to take the next steps, please check your email and sign the contract. Have a great rest of the day!
273 characters, 2 segments

Hi John, thank you for making the time for us to come out to take a look at your project. We look forward to hearing your thoughts regarding the proposal. When you're ready to take the next steps, please check your email and sign the contract. Have a great rest of the day! 😎
276 characters, 5 segments

Which Segments Count Towards Billing?

Each segment sent and received counts towards the total segments each month. The number of segments each billing cycle can be reviewed under Admin > My Account.

To learn more about using SMS with Builder Prime, please check out this article here.