How big is a text?

Carriers do not bill per message; they bill per segment, and the size of a segment depends on the characters in the whole message. This page is here because one emoji can quietly double what a text costs.

The two alphabets

• The basic alphabet (the industry calls it GSM-7) holds ordinary letters, digits, punctuation and a few accented characters. A message written entirely in it fits 160 characters in one text. Longer messages are split into parts of 153. Nine characters — ^ { } \ [ ~ ] | € — count double, and a double character is never split across two parts.
• The larger alphabet (UCS-2) is used the moment any character falls outside the basic one: an emoji, a curly quote (’ “ ”), an em dash (—), most non-Latin scripts. It applies to the whole message, and a text then holds 70 characters, or 67 per part when split. Most emoji count as two.

Primsy’s own texts use straight quotes and plain punctuation, curly quotes and long dashes in your names are sent as plain ones, and with an ordinary business and service name each text is one segment. Two of the examples below show how a message tips over: a long catering name with a long menu item runs to two, and the reminder with one sparkle added becomes two.

Why it matters to you

Carriers bill Primsy per segment. On your plan a text counts once however many segments it takes, so a long text costs you nothing extra — see Plans and pricing. During the alpha texts are switched off for everyone. Your business name goes into every text, and a service name into the booking, request and reminder texts, emoji included — so this box is also the place to check how long a name makes a text. Which number texts come from is your choice too: see Your texting number.