SMS Cost Calculator & Segment Counter
This calculator counts your SMS message segments, estimates per-send cost across major carrier pricing tiers, and projects total campaign spend for a given list size. It is built for CRM managers, e-commerce marketers, and agency planners who need to forecast SMS costs accurately before a campaign goes live. The tool handles GSM-7 and Unicode character sets separately, since Unicode messages segment at a lower character limit and significantly change cost projections.
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Frequently asked questions
How many characters fit in one SMS segment?
A standard SMS using the GSM-7 character set fits 160 characters in a single segment. If your message uses Unicode characters — including emoji, accented letters outside the GSM-7 set, or non-Latin scripts — the per-segment limit drops to 70 characters. Multi-part messages above these limits are reassembled by the recipient's phone but billed as multiple segments by your SMS provider.
How much does SMS marketing cost per message?
SMS costs vary by provider and volume tier. Most US SMS providers charge between $0.007 and $0.015 per outbound message segment for standard A2P 10DLC traffic. MMS messages, which include images or longer content, typically cost two to three times more per send. International SMS is priced by destination country and can range from $0.02 to $0.08 or more per segment.
What is SMS A2P 10DLC and why does it affect cost?
A2P 10DLC is the US carrier-mandated registration system for Application-to-Person SMS traffic sent over standard 10-digit long code numbers. Registered traffic carries lower per-message fees and significantly higher throughput limits than unregistered traffic. Brands sending marketing SMS in the US are required to register their use case, and most providers charge a monthly brand and campaign registration fee in addition to per-message costs.