Our platform’s real-time sendout cost transparency in the user cabinet turned an easy-to-miss encoding oversight into an immediate win. Jahonts saw 30 to 45% campaign savings on their very next campaign.
For retail brands running SMS campaigns in markets with non-Latin character sets, messaging costs can escalate quickly. A single diacritical mark can shift a message from standard GSM encoding to Unicode, doubling or tripling the number of segments and, with it, the total campaign cost at scale. In practice, the issue is not limited to language alone. When text is copied from other sources, even a single unintended character, such as a curved quotation mark, can trigger the same effect. A message that would normally be sent as one segment can expand to three, increasing the cost per SMS from around €0.03 to €0.09. At high volumes, these small changes can translate into tens of thousands of euros in additional spend. Most platforms will simply charge for this. Few explain why it happens or how to prevent it.
The Company
Founded in 1993, Jahonts is a leading Latvian jewellery company and retail chain across the Baltic region with a combined in-store and online retail, specialising in gold, silver and gemstone jewellery. Customers of all ages return to Jahonts for life’s big moments, from engagements to weddings and anniversaries, with demand peaking during seasonal gifting periods.
The Challenge
When one character doubles your campaign cost
The company runs regular SMS campaigns to drive sales and stay connected with customers, which means marketing messaging costs have a direct impact on marketing ROI. Engagement opportunities include lifecycle and event-triggered communications such as purchase reminders, anniversary messaging and targeted promotional campaigns aligned with seasonal events. The hybrid retail structure also supports both e-commerce conversion flows and geographically targeted SMS campaigns designed to drive traffic to physical stores.
Jahonts’ marketing team faced a challenge where campaign costs were difficult to forecast, with limited transparency into the variables influencing the final invoice. As a result, costs were perceived as inconsistent and hard to control. The goal was to improve visibility into the cost structure and optimise campaign spending.
In addition to Latvian diacritical marks, which force encoding from the standard GSM format (approximately 140 characters per segment) to Unicode (approximately 70 characters per segment), overall message composition also played a critical role. Factors such as total character count, link length, and dynamic variables (for example, customer names pulled from a database) all influenced how messages were segmented and, ultimately, priced.
Managing this balance is complex. It requires constant trade-offs between message clarity, personalisation, and length while staying within cost-efficient limits. In practice, this becomes a multi-variable equation that is neither practical nor necessary for a marketer to calculate manually when preparing a campaign.
To address this, we provide an interface that gives full visibility into message structure and cost drivers. It highlights in real time everything that affects segmentation and pricing, enabling teams to optimise messages before sending and avoid unexpected cost increases.
How we approached it and why the results hold
We addressed the problem with a combination of technology and market-specific expertise. On the platform side, we provided real-time visibility into message composition, segmentation, and cost, along with direct guidance on campaign optimisation. This ensured that issues affecting pricing could be identified and resolved before launch, not after.
At the infrastructure level, our approach is grounded in local expertise across the EU markets. We work with direct operator connections, which allows us to offer competitive pricing while maintaining consistent delivery performance. This is a critical distinction. While many providers report high delivery rates based on intermediary confirmations, these do not always reflect whether a message has actually reached the subscriber’s device. Our setup is designed to provide a more reliable view of real delivery, not just upstream status signals.
Combined with flexible routing and tailored solutions, this enables clients to optimise both cost efficiency and delivery outcomes at scale.
- Real-time cost feedback. Our platform displays the campaign cost as the message text is edited, showing the precise impact of encoding and character count. Jahonts’ team could immediately see how each character affected segment count and total spend.
- Expert copy optimisation. We enable Jahonts to reduce message length so each message fits into fewer SMS segments through refined copy and a custom URL shortener. The platform is designed for marketers, with real-time guidance on how each change affects cost and segmentation, and support available when needed.
- Self-service with guided support. The platform enables clients to optimise SMS costs in real time while highlighting the exact drivers of cost, including non-Latin characters, copied formatting, links, and variables. It also includes automated data cleansing that removes duplicates, filters invalid numbers, and standardises contact lists, which can reduce wasted spend significantly. For Jahonts, this contributed to an estimated cost reduction of up to 45%.
Results
| Figure | Metric |
|---|---|
| 30–45% | Reduction in SMS campaign cost |
| ~85-95% | SMS delivery rate |
| 100% | Full transparency into SMS character count, segmentation and cost |
| Same-day | Campaign launch, readiness and delivery control |
Why it works: What makes the difference
Most SMS providers compete on price per message. We compete on the total cost of the campaign. A distinction that produces measurably better outcomes for clients.
- The platform makes cost fully visible. The system shows exactly how encoding, character count and segment structure affect cost. There are no hidden multipliers.
- A focus on partnership, rather than just transactions. Our team actively advises on character count optimisation, not merely on delivery. Competitors may show a price, but they will not advise how to cut costs.
- Prioritising efficiency rather than a focus on discounts. The value proposition goes beyond pricing into operational cost reduction. Pricing itself is not the defining variable that allows our clients to reduce overall campaign costs.
Optimise your messaging campaigns
We combine a communication automation platform with hands-on expert advice. Whether your campaigns run across SMS, RCS or voice, the goal is the same. The result is lower total cost, better performance and full visibility into every factor driving spend.
Last updated: May 2026.
