Is there a character limit for SMS messages?

Yes. Most SMS messages have a limit of 160 characters. If an agent types a message that is more than 160 characters, then Genesys Cloud automatically breaks it into multiple SMS messages.

In this situation, Genesys Cloud reduces the character limit per message to 153 characters to make room for a header to reassemble the messages at the receiving end. Unicode characters require more space, and therefore have a lower character limit. For more information, see How does Genesys Cloud handle messages with unicode characters?

The agent interface shows the remaining character count and how many messages will be sent. A single message entered by the agent can be split into a maximum of 10 messages for non-unicode characters, and 5 messages for unicode characters.

Examples:

160 characters = 1 message (160/160)
170 characters = 2 messages (170/153 – only 153 characters available per message to account for extra header information)
310 characters = 3 messages (310/153 – only 153 characters available per message to account for extra header information)

Note: The API and UI limitations are set to 153 characters per split message, up to 5 split messages totaling 765 characters from the Genesys platform, while the carrier upper limitation can be split up to 10 messages but keeping with the 765 character limitation.