Free SMS tool · South Africa
Free SMS Cost & Character Calculator for South Africa
See how many SMS parts your message uses, check it’s GSM-7 safe, and work out the ZAR cost of your campaign — at WinSMS’s standard pricing. No sign-up needed to use the calculator below.
Pricing shown is WinSMS’s standard published rate, excl. VAT (with VAT-inclusive totals shown too). Sign in with a verified WinSMS account to apply your own pricing tier.
WinSMS offers volume-based pricing — buying more credits per purchase means a lower rate per credit. Select the tier you intend to buy credits on, or choose Custom rate if you’re using a different SMS provider.
Enter a message, a recipient count, and a pricing tier to see your cost estimate.
How SMS length and cost work
One SMS is 160 characters. Longer messages are split into linked parts of 153 characters each, billed separately, up to six parts / 918 characters — so a 200-character message is two credits, not one.
WinSMS sends GSM-7 only: characters outside that set (smart quotes, em/en dashes, ellipses, many accented letters, and emoji) are substituted to a plain character at the gateway before sending and can garble; emoji can’t be sent at all. Keep copy in plain GSM-7 and what you write is what arrives.
Some providers escalate non-GSM-7 messages to UCS-2, which drops the limit to 70 characters per part and costs more for the same text — WinSMS never does this, which keeps your cost predictable. Want to be sure your copy is compliant as well as affordable? Run it through the free checker.
Calculate with your own pricing
Anyone can use the calculator above. Sign in with a verified WinSMS account to save a calculation to a campaign, export your results, and have your account’s own pricing applied automatically. It’s free.
Frequently asked questions
How many characters is one SMS?
One SMS is 160 characters using the standard GSM-7 set. Longer messages are split into linked parts of 153 characters each, billed separately, up to a maximum of six parts (918 characters). The calculator above shows your exact part count live as you type.
How much does an SMS cost in South Africa?
SMS is priced per credit — one credit sends one 160-character part to one recipient. WinSMS's standard published rate runs from R0.29 per credit at low volumes down to R0.18 per credit at the highest volume tier, quoted excl. VAT (the way WinSMS and other South African providers publish it), with VAT at 15% added on top. Buying more credits per purchase means a lower rate per credit. Use the calculator above to price your exact campaign, or sign in free with a verified WinSMS account to apply your account's own rate automatically.
Why is my message counted as 2 (or more) SMS?
Anything over 160 characters splits into 153-character parts, and each part is billed as a separate credit — so a 200-character message is two credits, not one. Keeping your message under 160 characters keeps it to a single credit.
Does WinSMS charge more for emoji or special characters?
There is no UCS-2 surcharge — WinSMS is GSM-7 only and never escalates the encoding the way some providers do (which would halve the limit to 70 characters per part and cost more). But emoji and non-GSM-7 characters (smart quotes, em/en dashes, ellipses, many accented letters) are substituted at the gateway before sending and can garble, and emoji can’t be sent at all — so keep your copy in plain GSM-7.
How many credits will my campaign use?
Multiply the number of parts in your message by the number of recipients — that’s your total credits. A two-part message to 5,000 people is 10,000 credits. Use the calculator above to work it out and see the ZAR cost.
Built by the team behind WinSMS. Need to check your message is compliant too? Run it through the free compliance checker.