Paste your message. This tool counts the characters, detects whether it will be sent as GSM-7 or Unicode, works out how many segments you will be billed for, and shows the cost in Malaysian Ringgit. It also points out the exact character that pushed your message into Unicode — that is usually where the surprise bill comes from.
An SMS is not billed per message. It is billed per segment, and the number of characters that fit in one segment depends entirely on the encoding.
| Encoding | Single segment | Each segment when split | Triggered by |
|---|---|---|---|
| GSM-7 | 160 characters | 153 characters | Plain English letters, digits, and basic punctuation |
| Unicode (UCS-2) | 70 characters | 67 characters | Any single Chinese, Tamil, Jawi, accented or emoji character |
Two things surprise people, and both are visible in the calculator above:
One character can double your bill. Encoding is decided for the whole message, not per character. A 150-character English message costs one segment. Add one emoji and the entire message becomes Unicode — 151 characters against a 70-character budget, which is 3 segments. Your cost went up 3× because of one smiley.
Long messages lose capacity. Once a message needs more than one segment, each part carries a concatenation header so the recipient's phone can reassemble them in order. That header eats into the payload, so capacity drops from 160 to 153 (or 70 to 67). A 320-character English message is therefore 3 segments, not 2.
On our network, the upstream carrier prepends RM0 to every message before it
reaches the telco — four characters, including the trailing space. We did not add it and
we cannot remove it, but it consumes your character budget, so it has to count toward
segments. The calculator above already includes it, which is why a 160-character English
message shows as 2 segments rather than 1.
We mention this because most calculators do not, and the difference shows up on your invoice rather than on the screen. If you compare our numbers against a generic international SMS calculator, this is where the gap comes from.
' to ' and -- to —. Both are outside
GSM-7 and will flip your whole message to Unicode. Type directly into the box above
to see it happen.Reply STOP is enough; you do not need a
full sentence, and it still satisfies the requirement.160 if the message uses only GSM-7 characters. If even one character falls outside GSM-7, the whole message switches to Unicode and one segment holds only 70.
Either a non-GSM character forced Unicode encoding (check the warning above the
counter), or the upstream RM0 prefix pushed you past the boundary.
The calculator shows both.
No. Emoji force Unicode encoding, and most occupy two units of the 70-character budget. A single emoji can turn a one-segment message into three.
The 160/70 and 153/67 rules are the GSM standard and apply everywhere. The
RM0 prefix is specific to our upstream route. If you are comparing
providers, ask them whether they prepend anything to your message — it is a fair
question and the answer changes your cost.
No monthly fee, no contract, prepaid credit that never expires. Sign up, get free trial credit over WhatsApp, and send one real SMS to your own phone before paying anything.