diff --git a/beaver/transports/sqs_transport.py b/beaver/transports/sqs_transport.py
index 055f3ea0..c97a07b5 100644
--- a/beaver/transports/sqs_transport.py
+++ b/beaver/transports/sqs_transport.py
@@ -41,15 +41,18 @@ def callback(self, filename, lines, **kwargs):
             del kwargs['timestamp']
 
         message_batch = []
+        message_batch_length = 0
         for line in lines:
+            message_batch_length = message_batch_length+len(line)
             message_batch.append((uuid.uuid4(), self.format(filename, line, timestamp, **kwargs), 0))
-            if len(message_batch) == 10:  # SQS can only handle up to 10 messages in batch send
-                self._logger.debug('Flushing 10 messages to SQS queue')
+            if (len(message_batch) == 10) or (message_batch_length >= 250000):  # SQS can only handle up to 10 messages in batch send and it can not exceed 256KiB (leave a little headroom)
+                self._logger.debug('Flushing last {0} messages to SQS queue {1} bytes'.format(len(message_batch),message_batch_length))
                 self._send_message_batch(message_batch)
                 message_batch = []
+                message_batch_length = 0
 
         if len(message_batch) > 0:
-            self._logger.debug('Flushing last {0} messages to SQS queue'.format(len(message_batch)))
+            self._logger.debug('Flushing last {0} messages to SQS queue {1} bytes'.format(len(message_batch),message_batch_length))
             self._send_message_batch(message_batch)
         return True