# Character counter

> A character counter shows, as you type, the encoding a message will use, how many characters remain in the current segment and how many segments the message will cost.

A good counter does three things: it detects the encoding (GSM-7 or UCS-2) from the characters present, it counts extended GSM characters as two, and it computes the segment count with the correct per-part capacity. A counter that only reports "length" is how a 161-character message gets sent at double cost.

For personalised campaigns the counter has to run on the rendered rows, because a long first name or order reference can push one row into a second segment while the template looks safe.

At SMSMeteor: the composer's counter shows encoding, segments and the longest rendered row across the real list, and the API response carries `encoding` and `segments` for each message.

Related terms: [SMS segment](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/segment), [GSM-7](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/gsm-7), [GSM extended characters](https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/gsm-extended-characters)

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Source: https://smsmeteor.com/glossary/character-counter (HTML). Generated by SMSMeteor from the same data as the page. Summary of the whole site: https://smsmeteor.com/llms.txt