What is a Message Segment

SMS standards have barely changed since the days of the brick phone. Messages are still sent in 140-byte chunks known as message segments. When Noterro sends out SMS messages, they are sent to carriers one segment at a time. Message segments are how Noterro (and the SMS industry as a whole) counts SMS messages.  Clinic SMS sending capacity is based on the number of message segments sent on a rolling 30-day period.

Calculating segments is based on length and types of characters used so we simply show you how many segments your SMS message is consuming, or estimated to consume if variables are used in your message.

How to optimize your message for fewer segments?

• Write shorter messages.
• Avoid special characters and emojis, these cause the message to be encoded in a less-optimized way and results in fewer characters per segment.
• Don't copy/paste your message into your Noterro notifications, this could inadvertently place special characters that appear as non-special characters into your message.  Just type it in from scratch.