SMS Credits Charging Pattern
By default, the SMS is supposed to be called as Short Messaging Service and the character count to be limited to 160 characters for a normal/standard message and 70 characters for a Unicode/vernacular message.
The credit charging for the multipart messages is as below –
1. Standard GSM 03.38 Character Set
Single text messages are limited to 160 characters including spaces. The maximum length of two-part or three-part multipart text messages is 306 (2 x 153) and 459 (3 x 153) characters respectively. You could send up to 4000 characters as multipart message which will be split into 27 messages internally. This refers only to messages that contain the standard GSM 03.38 character set. Each multipart text message is limited to 153 characters rather than 160 due to the need for user-data headers (UDHs) information. Mobile phones use UDH information to enable them to link long messages together so that they appear as single SMS messages in recipient’s phone inbox.
| SMS Credits | Character Count | SMS Credits | Character Count | SMS Credits | Character Count | ||
| 1 | 160 | 11 | 1683 | 21 | 3213 | ||
| 2 | 306 | 12 | 1836 | 22 | 3366 | ||
| 3 | 459 | 13 | 1989 | 23 | 3519 | ||
| 4 | 612 | 14 | 2142 | 24 | 3672 | ||
| 5 | 765 | 15 | 2295 | 25 | 3825 | ||
| 6 | 918 | 16 | 2448 | 26 | 3978 | ||
| 7 | 1071 | 17 | 2601 | 27 | 4000 | ||
| 8 | 1224 | 18 | 2754 | ||||
| 9 | 1377 | 19 | 2907 | ||||
| 10 | 1530 | 20 | 3060 |
Each SMS credits shown in the table above shall have a maximum character value shown in line with the SMS credits. For example, you would be charged 1 SMS credit upto 160 characters, 2 credits for 153 characters upto 306 characters and so on.
2. Unicode Character Set
Using Unicode, for languages such as Hindi, Malayalam, Arabic restricts your message to a maximum
of 70 characters per SMS. You can however send longer text messages, with our system splitting
WWW.UNIFIEDBUZZ.COM 2
them into two or at the three separate text messages. The maximum lengths of two-part and three part multipart Unicode text messages are 134 (2 x 67) and 201 (3 x 67) characters respectively. You
could send up to 500 characters as multipart message which will be split into 8 messages internally.
| SMS Credits | Character Count |
| 1 | 70 |
| 2 | 134 |
| 3 | 201 |
| 4 | 268 |
| 5 | 335 |
| 6 | 402 |
| 7 | 469 |
| 8 | 500 |
Each SMS credits shown in the table above shall have a maximum character value shown in
line with the SMS credits. For example, you would be charged 1 SMS credit upto 70
characters, 2 credits for 70 characters upto 134 characters and so on.