What is that text message really costing you?

Carriers bill per segment, not per message. A plain text fits 160 characters in one segment. One curly quote or emoji drops that to 70, and a message you thought was one segment quietly becomes three.

Characters

134

Segments

Encoding

GSM-7

Messages per monthYour cost per segment

This message, at that volume$7.90

LeadCoda shows this while you write, not after you are billed.

The same meter runs live in the template editor, so nobody sends a three-segment text they meant to be one. Free for 7 days, no card.

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How this works

GSM-7 is the basic alphabet carriers encode cheaply: 160 characters in one segment, 153 each once a message runs long enough to be split.
A single character outside that set switches the whole message to Unicode, at 70 characters per segment and 67 once split. Smart quotes from a word processor do this as readily as an emoji.
The rate is yours to set because it varies by carrier, country and volume. Check the per-segment price on your own account rather than trusting a default.

While you are here

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Checks the one field that decides most rejections, and writes it for you. Runs in your browser.

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All free tools