Skip to main content
Set max SMS segments

Never go over your max segments and protect your SMS send budget.

Gareth Burroughes avatar
Written by Gareth Burroughes
Updated over a week ago

This feature is currently in public preview.

To help ensure you do not exceed your SMS send budget, you can set the maximum number of segments allowed in your SMS campaign. If your SMS campaign's segments exceed the max then the campaign is not sent and you are not charged.

Learn more in SMS report.


Before you start

Things you need to know:

  • By default, the Max SMS Segment is Not set. When it is not set, a top limit of 2000 characters for an SMS message is used instead.

  • The number of characters you can include as part of 1 segment depends on whether or not you use Unicode characters in your message. Learn more in SMS message length and Unicode.

  • When the segment limit is exceeded for a contact, for example, due to personalisation if they have a long first name, the campaign send gets skipped for that contact. You can view which contacts have been skipped in the SMS report.

Character count and SMS segment count

Data fields and Liquid markup inside personalisation markers are not accounted for in the character count and SMS segment count that displays below the SMS message text box. When your SMS message is sent, the output of the personalisation is added on top of the character count below the SMS message text box. The length of this output can vary depending on the contact.


Also, personalisation markers may output results that contain Unicode characters, for example, names with Latin characters. This can create additional SMS segments and might increase the cost of your SMS campaign send.


Set max SMS segments

To set the max number of SMS segments in your SMS campaign:

  1. Create a new SMS campaign or edit an existing one.

  2. For Max SMS segments, expand the drop-down menu and select the max number of segments.

That’s it! If your SMS campaign segments exceed the max then the campaign is not sent.

Did this answer your question?