What is the character limit for SMS messages?

Depending on the message content (plain text, emojis, special characters etc), ChiroSpring will use either GSM-7 or UCS-2 encoding to send the messages. Each encoding has limitations to the number of characters that can be sent this is an industry standard. The limitations for a single segment are -

• 160 characters for GSM-7 (e.g. plain text).
• 70 characters for UCS-2 (e.g. messages with emojis, special characters or unicode)

When you send a message that is longer than the maximum number of characters per segment, ChiroSpring will automatically split the message for you, add a special header (User Data Header), and send multiple SMS to carriers.

What is a User Data Header?

The User Data Header (UDH) instructs the receiving device how to reassemble the segments so that your whole message will be shown as one SMS on the receiving handset.