# MSG-015 — A message must not render as ten or more segments

> No sample message may be long enough to render as 10 or more SMS segments.

- **Rule ID:** MSG-015
- **Layer:** Message content (`MESSAGE_CONTENT`)
- **Checks:** `campaign.sample[]`
- **Severity:** MEDIUM — Usually survives review, but lowers your trust score or invites manual review.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** Deterministic (settled in code from the submitted values)
- **Fix type:** Fix the field — a better value in the form clears it
- **Required by:** CTIA, TCR, Twilio
- **Applies:** Applies to every 10DLC registration.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/message-content/msg-015/

## Why this rule exists

Every segment is billed and delivered separately, and long concatenated messages are reassembled unreliably across carriers — so a ten-segment message costs ten times as much and is the most likely thing in your programme to arrive broken. Reviewers read extreme length as a sender who does not understand the channel.

## How to fix it

Shorten the message and move detail behind a link on your own domain. Aim for one or two segments — 160 GSM characters per segment, or 70 if the message contains any non-GSM character.

## Example of a compliant value

```text
Acme Coffee: your order is ready. Details: https://acmecoffee.com/o/4471 Reply STOP to opt out.
```