> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.orbit.devotel.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Free Tool: SMS Segment & Cost Calculator

> A free, no-sign-up calculator on orbit.devotel.io that shows how a message splits into billable SMS segments, whether it encodes as GSM-7 or Unicode (UCS-2), and the estimated cost per recipient in each destination country.

# Free Tool: SMS Segment & Cost Calculator

The [SMS segment & cost calculator](https://orbit.devotel.io/en/tools#sms-calculator)
is a free, browser-side utility on the [developer tools
hub](https://orbit.devotel.io/en/tools). Paste a message, pick a destination
country, set a recipient count, and the panel shows how many billable segments
the body consumes and what it costs at the published per-segment rate — no
account required.

Everything runs in your browser; the text you paste is never sent anywhere.

## What the tool returns

For whatever message you paste, the calculator reports:

* **Characters** — the total character count of the body.
* **Encoding** — `GSM-7` when every character fits the GSM alphabet, or
  `Unicode (UCS-2)` when any character falls outside it.
* **Segments** — the number of billable SMS segments the body splits into.
* **Chars left in segment** — how many more characters fit before another
  segment is added.

Below the analysis, pick a destination country and a recipient count to see a
per-segment rate and a total estimate. The rate comes from the same published
table the [pricing page](https://orbit.devotel.io/en/pricing) renders, and the
segment count comes from the same counter the send path bills against, so the
figure the tool quotes is the figure a real send would produce. Where a
destination has no published SMS rate, the tool shows "Contact sales" instead of
a number.

## Why segment math matters

Carriers bill per segment, not per message, so the number of segments decides
the cost of every send:

* A **GSM-7** message fits 160 characters in one segment; longer bodies split
  into 153-character segments (the shortfall is the concatenation header
  carriers use to reassemble multi-part messages).
* A **UCS-2** message fits 70 characters in one segment and 67 per segment once
  it splits.

One stray character flips the entire message. An emoji, a curly quote pasted
from a word processor, or many accented letters pushes the body out of the GSM
alphabet, and every segment limit drops from 160/153 to 70/67 — so a message
that looked like one segment becomes two, and the cost roughly doubles.

A few characters enter through places you did not expect:

* **Smart quotes and em/en dashes** — editors autocorrect straight quotes to
  curly ones (" ", ' ', —), and each of those is outside GSM-7.
* **Emoji** — any emoji forces UCS-2.
* **Headers and signatures** — a sender name, opt-out footer, or legal suffix
  appended automatically at send time counts toward the segment once rendered.
  Check the shape before launch, not after.

## Pre-flight a template before launch

Paste your template — including the variable placeholders — before the campaign
goes live. Substituting a rendered sample value (`{{name}}` weighed against
"Alexandra") is more honest than counting the placeholder, and it catches the
long-`{{name}}`-value-tips-you-into-two-segments case while you can still trim.

Safe defaults per destination live in the [best practices
guide](/guides/best-practices); run the calculator as the cost half of that
checklist before every send.

## How this differs from the in-dashboard preview

The compose window in the dashboard shows the same live encoding and segment
count while you type, against the rendered template. It does not do the
per-country cost lookup — the free tool is the place to compare destinations and
recipient counts at published rates before you sign in.

## Worked example

Paste this 130-character body:

```
Hi Alex! Your Orbit verification code is 481920. It expires in 10 minutes.
```

The calculator reports 130 characters, GSM-7, **1 segment**.

Now paste an emoji into the body (or paste the message from an editor that
swapped in smart quotes). The encoding flips to UCS-2, and since UCS-2 fits 70
characters per segment the same body now costs **2 segments** — the per-message
cost doubles. Add a signature of similar size and watch the segment count move
again; that is the shape to pre-flight.

## Tools and pricing

* Open the [SMS segment & cost calculator](https://orbit.devotel.io/en/tools#sms-calculator)
  directly, or the [full pricing table](https://orbit.devotel.io/en/pricing) —
  linked from the page header — for every channel and destination.
* The dashboard's [best practices guide](/guides/best-practices) covers the
  pre-send checks that pair with this calculator.

> **Note**: the estimate uses public starter rates for the selected country.
> Rates can vary by destination and carrier — signed-in accounts see their live
> per-tenant rates in the dashboard billing section.