# SMS message length limits

Lightpost uses 3rd party providers to send different types of communication to your groups.

These 3rd party providers do their billing based on the 160 character [limitation of the SMS](https://www.twilio.com/docs/glossary/what-is-an-sms-short-message-service) (hence the name "Short Messaging Service").

Lightpost limits each SMS message sent to this same limitation to avoid unexpected "double message" charges.

#### My other provider had a 300 character limit

Some text service providers provide a "larger limit" -- however, they are still bound to this same [technical limitation](https://www.twilio.com/docs/glossary/what-sms-character-limit).

Often, other services pricing per SMS message is high enough to cover the cost of a 300 character message using two SMS credits.  This provider can then average the cost of other messages that stay below the 160 character limit.

#### But longer messages appear as one SMS from other providers

The SMS protocol does allow for "[message concatenation](https://support.plivo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041742091-How-does-SMS-concatenation-work)", which adds special information to a series of SMS messages to make it appear as one long message on the phone for the recipient.  However, the whole message is still sent using **153** character **segments** using this method, [each billed separately](https://help.twilio.com/articles/223133407-How-much-does-it-cost-to-send-a-message-with-more-than-160-characters-).

#### Why doesn't Lightpost allow message segmentation?

In the interest of transparency around billing, there is one text field for creating and sending [one text message](https://support.plivo.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041298072-What-is-the-character-limit-for-SMS-text-messages).  

This means that one message sent equals one message billed.

You are free to send multiple messages one after the other, to send longer messages.

Also check out [sending with MMS](https://docs.lightpost.app/core-concepts/groups/sms-1) for longer messages.