---
title: SMS letters, symbols, and how they affect your messaging
description: So we know that not all text characters are created equal. But what does that mean?
---

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# SMS letters, symbols, and how they affect your messaging

## So we know that not all text characters are created equal. But what does that mean?

### Let us explain 🤓

There's a lot of different terms in the SMS language, so let's break those down for you first. 

- **Characters **  
  Each symbol, letter, and number in a text is called a character and has a specific count associated with it. For most characters, the count will be one.
- **GSM7 Alphabet **  
  GSM7 is just the standard alphabet used for SMS messages.
- **GSM7 Characters**  
  Basic letters, numbers, and symbols in a text message. Spaces are also considered a character.  
    - **Example:**
      
       ![](https://help.joinsubtext.com/hs-fs/hubfs/image-png-Aug-23-2024-06-00-13-6643-PM.png?width=278&height=150&name=image-png-Aug-23-2024-06-00-13-6643-PM.png)
    
  Each character in this message is one character so there are 61 characters total.   
  (Remember spaces count!)
- **GSM7 Extensive Characters**    
  These characters require an "escape character" within the text which means these characters count as two characters in a message.  
  The following characters are considered GSM7 Extension characters:  
   **|    ^    {    }    \[    \]    ~    \\   €  **
- **Emojis** or **Unicode. **Standard emojis count as two characters when writing a message. Including an emoji will make all GSM7 Extension Characters count as one character, not two. 
    - **Example:** 
  ![](https://help.joinsubtext.com/hs-fs/hubfs/image-png-Aug-23-2024-06-03-11-6944-PM.png?width=354&height=150&name=image-png-Aug-23-2024-06-03-11-6944-PM.png)
  
  Each character, including both "|" characters, would count as one character while the emoji would count as two characters for a total of 67 characters. 

#### Do I need to remember all this when writing a text? 🤔

Of course not! 

Simply plug your copy into our **[Message Segment Calculator](https://twiliodeved.github.io/message-segment-calculator/)** and it'll tell you the number of characters as well as segments in your message. ➕➖

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