What a text costs, in segments or as a picture

A message is what you write. A segment is what carriers deliver and what Statxt bills for a plain text. A short plain-text message is one segment and one credit. The same idea with an emoji, a long footer, or a long first name can be two. A picture is the exception: it is not billed per segment at all.

Two limits, and one character flips them

Standard letters, numbers, and common punctuation use GSM-7: 160 characters in the first segment, then 153-character parts. Emoji and other characters outside that set switch the whole message to Unicode: 70 characters, then parts of 67. Most emoji count as two characters on their own, so a text that was comfortably one segment can become two the moment a single emoji is added. Across a large list, that doubles the credits.

A few plain-text symbols still count as two characters: the caret, braces, backslash, square brackets, tilde, pipe, and the euro sign.

Pasted text gets cleaned up

Copy from a document often brings curly quotes, em dashes, and an ellipsis character. Those would force Unicode. Statxt swaps them for straight quotes, hyphens, and three dots before it counts and sends. The ellipsis swap adds two characters, which is the one cleanup that can make a draft longer.

The footer and the names are part of the text

In Text Blaster, the segment count is the final message. With Append Opt-Out Footer on, "Reply STOP to opt out." sits on its own line and adds 24 characters. A draft under 160 can still be two segments after that line is attached.

Lock to 160 reserves room for the footer inside the limit. With the default footer, your own words have 136 characters. The lock applies to the template, not to the filled-in names. {first_name}, {sender_first_name}, and {brand_name} still expand per person. Preview all is how you see the long ones. Statxt asks you to confirm when merge fields or Lock to 160 are in play.

In a one-to-one reply, the counter under the composer shows "160 limit" or "70 w/ emoji limit", and it turns amber at two or more segments. Settings, Profile, Messaging has Stop at 160 characters. With that on, a manual send over 160 is refused. Emoji and footers can still add segments even when the stop is on. Merge fields are not filled in on that reply. {first_name} would be sent as those characters, so type the name.

A link can add a segment. A picture does not.

Track clicks replaces your URL with a short link at send time, and that short link can be longer than the original. The Tracking Links guide is how those links are built. The billing consequence is here: the longer link can push the text into another segment, and that extra segment is another credit per recipient.

A text with an image goes out as MMS. Each picture message is 1.5 credits on every plan, no matter how many images it carries and no matter how long the caption is. A two-segment SMS is 2 credits, so a long plain text can cost more than the same words with a photo attached. That is the whole price difference. There is not a second formula.

Where the picture is attached

In Messages, the image button beside the composer takes JPEG, PNG, GIF, and WebP, up to 10 MB each. Other types are rejected. Thumbnails sit above the box, and each has an × to remove it. GIF inside the composer searches for an animated GIF and adds it the same way. You can mix a GIF with your own images. The message is still one picture message and still 1.5 credits. Text is optional. You can send the image alone. You will see "Uploading attachment…" while it uploads. If the wallet cannot cover it, the message is not sent.

Text Blaster has a Media attachments (MMS) panel under the message. Add image takes one or more pictures, up to the limit shown for your sending line, and that limit tops out at 10. Every recipient gets the same images. Merge fields in the caption still personalize each send on a campaign. Budget it as recipients times 1.5 before you launch. Statxt will not start a campaign your credits cannot cover.

Consent, the opt-out line, and the DNC list apply to picture messages the same way they apply to texts. A campaign caption should still include a way to opt out. Smaller files are worth the extra export step. Ten megabytes is the ceiling, not a target.

The click-by-click version lives in the Characters & Segments guide. The click-by-click version lives in the Picture Messages guide.