How do credits work?

Here’s how message credits work:

1 credit = 1 sent SMS text (a plain text message with or without emojis) delivered in 1 segment (block of text).

3 credits = 1 sent MMS message (a message with any media, like a video, image, or GIF)

Messages broken up into more than 1 segment cost 1 additional credit per segment.

The total credits you are about to use before sending or scheduling messages is indicated at the bottom of the message box (examples below).

What is a message segment?

SMS segments are the blocks of characters (letters, numbers, spaces, punctuation, etc) that an individual SMS message is broken into. Segments are usually 160 characters for the GSM-7 format and 70 characters for the UCS-2 format. GSM-7 is the standard format, but UCS-2 is almost always used if your message contains emojis.

Messages over the character limit will be sent in multiple segments.

These rules are set by wireless carriers, not TextSpot.

Examples of credit calculations:

One message to 1 contact is 1 credit:



One message with 2 segments sent to one person is 2 credits:


One list message (that contains 1,653 contacts) with 1 segment will be sent individually to the 1,653 contacts in the list for 1,653 credits:


One list message (that contains 1,653 contacts) with 2 segments will be sent individually to the 1,653 contacts in the list for 3,306 credits:


One message to 1 contact containing an image is 3 credits:


One list message to 1,653 contacts containing an image is 4,959 credits:

More Quick Examples:

Send a 2 segment SMS message to 1 contact and it will cost 2 credits.
Send a 1 segment SMS message to a list of 10 contacts and it will cost 10 credits.
Send a 1 segment MMS message to 1 contact and it will cost 3 credits.
Send a 1 segment MMS message to a list of 10 contacts and it will cost 30 credits.

To determine your total estimated credits used for any sent message, follow this simple equation:

Total Contacts x Total Segments x Message Type (MMS or SMS) = Total Credits Used

Updated on: 28/04/2023