A smarter way to save when a message runs past two SMS segments

In this article:

• What to do when an SMS message runs too long
• The crossover point between text and image

Have you ever tried to push an important message by SMS only to find the character count needs three to five segments to fit? If you want to know what a character means here, take a look at How many characters does an SMS actually allow?

We once had a retail client running a redemption campaign whose content took four SMS segments. In another case, a corporate client had to send an important notice to users because COVID-19 had disrupted their business, and the volume of information took eight segments to carry. Every additional segment raises the cost, and when a corporate client is facing thousands or tens of thousands of users, small numbers add up fast.

There is a smarter way to solve this: use MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) instead of SMS.

SMS is limited by characters; MMS is measured in KB, and each MMS supports 300KB. For example, if an image takes 250KB, the remaining 50KB converts to at most 25,000 double-byte (Chinese) characters or 50,000 ASCII characters. In other words, once your message reaches three SMS segments or more, MMS is more cost-effective than SMS.

Does MMS work better than SMS?

In our experience, more and more retail brands are leaning toward MMS for promotions. In an age this visual, users like looking at pictures — fine food and drink, beautifully presented gifts. Beyond the better cost position, MMS can embed the image directly, and an eye-catching, interesting picture stimulates and engages users more than plain SMS text.

Sending MMS and SMS looks broadly the same in the interface. Log into our system, enter the message content, upload the image and the recipient numbers — quick and straightforward. For every message we provide statistics, including send records, send progress and status tracking.

To find out more about the differences between MMS and SMS, their formats and their applications, see The difference between MMS and SMS, and what each is for.