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AT&T Office@Hand

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Character Limits for AT&T Office@Hand Text Messages

When you send a text message, your mobile carrier may break it up into chunks, known as SMS segments, depending on the number of characters it contains. Carriers consider each SMS segment an individual message and bill their customers accordingly.
There are three types of text messages:

  • SMS (Short Message Service): Text-only messages
  • MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service): Messages that include texts with attached files like audio/video and images.
  • Group SMS/texting: SMS sent to a closed group, typically as MMS.

Depending on your message’s content, it may require special encoding, which counts against your character limits. Additionally, certain characters such as
– | ^ € { } [ ] ~ \ —
and carriage returns (new lines) count as two characters.

Text messages (SMS)

Alphanumeric messages (GSM-7 encoding)

The most common text message format uses standard alphanumeric and symbol characters. A single-segment alphanumeric message is limited to 160 characters. Multiple-segment alphanumeric messages are limited to 153 characters.

  • If you send one message that contains 160 characters or fewer, you’ll be billed for one message segment.
  • If you send a message between 161 and 306 characters, you’ll be billed for two segments.
  • If you send a message of between 307 and 459 characters in length, you’ll be billed for three segments.

We recommend shortening your text messages whenever possible. Doing so significantly reduces costs.

Emojis, Unicode, and special characters (UCS-2 encoding)

Messages that contain emojis (😀👻😞💯) or other special characters (✓, », ➤) require different encoding. Such messages are limited to 70 characters for single-segment messages and 67 characters for multiple-segment messages.

  • If a message with emojis and/or other special characters contains 70 characters or fewer, you’ll be billed for one message.
  • If a message with emojis and/or other special characters is between 71 and 134 characters in length, you’ll be billed for two messages.
  • If your message is between 134 and 201 characters in length, you’ll be billed for three messages.

To reduce your messaging costs, consider avoiding special characters.

 

The chart below shows the maximum number of characters that will be sent as one SMS segment to carriers.

Sample Message Type Encoding Max characters allowed per segment
Hi, how are you doing? Alphanumeric  GSM-7 160
Hi, how are you doing 😀? Emoji UCS-2 70
Hola, cómo estás? Unicode UCS-2 70

 
Multimedia messages (MMS) or Group Texts

Messages that contain attachments, such as photos, videos, or audio files, are billed differently. These multimedia (MMS) messages have a per-message character limit of 1,600.
MMS messages are billed at higher rates than SMS messages but may save money in the long run. Sending a few longer multimedia messages may cost less than sending many text-only messages.

 

Billing segments by message type

Message type  Character limit Billed segments
SMS alphanumeric 1 to 160 1
SMS alphanumeric (additional segment) 161 – 306 2
MMS with attachment (image, vcard, audio file) 1,600 1
Group Text with alphanumeric text to a three-recipient closed group 1,600 1 group of recipients
SMS that includes emojis or special characters 1 to 70 1
SMS that includes emojis or special characters (additional segment) 71 to 134 2
MMS that includes emojis or special characters and attached media (image, vcard, audio file) 1,600 1
Group Text with emojis or special characters to a three-recipient closed group 1,600 1 group of recipients

 

Additional resources

TCR registration fees
Business SMS: sending links