[440 characters / 3 messages]

I can’t speak for Chinese but with Japanese at least it’s quite variable, depending on how formal/informal you are will have a big effect. So a text to friend could be quite short but a text to your boss or a senior co-worker might be a lot longer while saying essentially the same thing. I also wonder if this limit is why emoji became so popular, there are icons for many common actions, places and expressions as well as the usual smilies.