The short answer is 306 characters. To note, when it comes to texting, not all characters play by the same rules. Emojis and other special characters can count as two characters! Let's dig into why that is.
SMS uses a special alphabet when sending messages. That alphabet is called GSM-7. When sending SMS messages with Workshop, we will automatically send messages in the most compact way.
What are the various characters (GSM-7 and non GSM-7) and what are their character counts?
GSM-7
If your text message contains no special characters/only GSM-7 safe characters, each character will count as 1 character toward the 306 limit. These characters include:
- Numbers: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
- Uppercase letters: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
- Lowercase letters: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
- Symbols & punctuation: " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / : ; < = > ? @ [ \ \ ] ^ _ { } | ~ \n \r !\
- Special characters: £ ¥ è é ù ì ò Ø ø Å å Æ æ ß É ¡ Ä Ö Ñ Ü ¿ ä ö ñ ü à
Non GSM-7, replaceable
These are characters that are not GSM-7 safe characters but semantically can be replaced with GSM-7 safe characters. If your text message contains these type of characters, Workshop will automatically replace them to ensure they can be sent within your text message.
An example of this type of character is ¼
and it will be replaced with 1/4
Non GSM-7, non-replaceable
These are characters (think emojis!) that are not GSM-7 safe characters and cannot be replaced. With the presence of these characters, your text will be encoded as UTF16 and all characters will count as 2-5 characters towards your character limit.