Text segments and what a text costs

Carriers bill texts in segments. One segment holds 160 standard characters. If a text has an emoji or a special character, the whole text switches to Unicode and a segment holds 70.

Longer texts

A text longer than one segment is split and rejoined on the phone. Each part holds a little less (153 standard or 67 Unicode characters), and each part is billed.

Keep costs down

• Keep texts short and to the point.
• Avoid emoji and curly quotes if you are near a limit. The counter tells you when you switch to Unicode.
• Check the cost estimate in the composer and the Usage tab in Phone for what you have spent this month.