What is a segment, and why does my message cost double?

An SMS is charged in segments, not in messages.

• Up to 160 characters is one segment.
• If the message gets longer, it is split, and each part costs. A split message only has room for 153 characters per part, because the rest goes to a header saying "part 2 of 3".
• If the message contains a single character outside the standard character set, the limit drops to 70 characters.

The last one is what catches people out. The character is rarely one anybody typed on purpose: it is a long dash inserted by Word, a curly quotation mark copied from a website, or a non-breaking space. You cannot see the difference on screen.

Danish æ, ø and å are in the standard character set. Danish is not the problem — autocorrect is.

The counter in the template editor shows the number of characters and parts as you type.

Where to see it

SMS → Flow → edit the message. Below the text field it says how many characters and how many segments the message takes up as you write.

If the counter suddenly jumps from 1 to 2 segments without the text getting longer, it is a character outside the standard set. Delete the last sentence and type it again by hand.