Free tool
SMS savings calculator
SMS is billed per segment, not per message. Paste your text, and see how many segments it takes now and what a short link changes.
Used to measure the replacement link, for example go.acme.com/sale
GSM-7 — 160 characters in a single segment, 153 in each part of a longer message.
| As written | With a short link | |
|---|---|---|
| Characters | 213 | 111 |
| Segments per message | 2 | 1 |
| Cost of the send | $1,500.00 | $750.00 |
Detected link: https://example.com/collections/summer-sale?utm_source=vip_list&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=flash_sale_0813&utm_content=segment_a (129 characters)
Saved per send: $750.00
Where the characters go
A compliant marketing message carries four things: who is writing, the offer, the opt-out line, and the link. Three of them compress by writing better copy. The link does not, and a fully tagged campaign URL is routinely the largest single block in the message — often larger than every other word combined.
Moving the parameters behind a redirect keeps them intact for your analytics while removing them from the message body. The arithmetic, and the deliverability reasons that matter more than the money, are in our SMS cost guide.
The part that is not about money
Carriers filter on the reputation of the domain in the message, not only on the sender. Public shared shortener domains are used heavily in fraudulent messaging, so a link on one carries the behaviour of thousands of unrelated senders. A domain used only by your campaigns carries only your own history.
That is the argument for a branded short domain even when the segment count does not change: the same message on your own domain is measurably more likely to be delivered. See custom domains for how a domain is connected.
Frequently asked questions
Why is a 161-character message twice the price?
Because billing counts segments, and a message longer than one segment is split into parts that each carry a joining header. That header costs the space of seven characters, so each part holds 153 characters instead of 160. A 161-character message therefore needs two segments, and you pay for both regardless of how much of the second one you use.
Does one emoji really double my costs?
It can. A single character outside the GSM-7 alphabet moves the entire message to a 16-bit encoding, dropping capacity from 160 characters to 70. Most emoji also occupy two units rather than one. A 108-character message that fitted in one segment becomes two the moment a smiley is added, for the whole audience.
What price per segment should I enter?
Your own contracted rate, taken from your provider's invoice. Rates vary by country, route, volume tier and surcharges, so a single published figure is rarely accurate for a given sender. The field defaults to a modest United States list rate purely so the calculator has something to work with.
Should every recipient get a unique link?
Only when you need per-person attribution — tying a purchase back to an individual, or delivering personalised content. Unique links cost more to generate and store, put personal data into your link records, and lengthen slugs slightly. For broadcast campaigns, one link per audience segment answers the same questions.
Send from your own short domain
Branded links, per-campaign analytics and the deliverability that comes with owning the domain.
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