SMS

This page explains how SMS works within Evergiving, including character limits, pricing, consent, and rate limiting.

Pricing

Single-part Welcome SMS messages are free. All other SMS messages are charged.

Consent

Ensure that SMS messages are either transactional or that you have obtained proper consent before sending marketing messages. Consent can be recorded during phone calls. Welcome SMS messages are always transactional, as they confirm a donor's action.

Maximum Attempts and Rate Limiting

You can control how often the same SMS template is sent to a donor:

• Maximum times a template can be sent to the same donor (default: twice)
• Minimum time between sending the same SMS (default: 20 seconds)

SMS Length and Pricing

You can send SMS messages of any length, but character limits affect how messages are counted and charged.

• Single-part SMS: Up to 160 characters using the GSM-7 character set, or 70 characters if the message contains Unicode.
• Multipart SMS: Messages that exceed these limits are split into parts. Each part allows 153 GSM-7 characters or 67 Unicode characters, with some characters reserved to stitch the parts together.

GSM-7 Characters

The GSM-7 character set includes common Latin letters, numbers, and symbols (e.g., !@#$%). Some accented characters are included but not all. See the GSM-7 character table on Wikipedia for the full list.

Warning

Some GSM-7 characters, such as {, count as two character spaces.

Unicode Characters

If your message includes characters outside the GSM-7 set — such as non-Latin scripts or emojis — the entire message is sent as Unicode. This reduces the characters available per part and increases cost.

Warning

A single Unicode character (e.g., a name like Nguyễn) will switch the entire message to Unicode encoding. Check your templates carefully if you use personalisation fields that may contain non-Latin characters.