Character Counter
Updated Free mock REST & WebSocket APIs
Paste or type text to count characters with and without spaces. The table shows how many characters you have left on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Google results, and the SMS tab shows how many segments a text message will use.
| Platform | Limit | Left | Used |
|---|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post(weighted count) | 280 | 280 | |
| Threads post | 500 | 500 | |
| Bluesky post | 300 | 300 | |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | 2,200 | |
| Instagram bio | 150 | 150 | |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | 3,000 | |
| LinkedIn headline | 220 | 220 | |
| Facebook post | 63,206 | 63,206 | |
| TikTok caption | 4,000 | 4,000 | |
| YouTube title | 100 | 100 | |
| YouTube description | 5,000 | 5,000 | |
| Pinterest pin title | 100 | 100 | |
| Google title tag(β 600 px) | 60 | 60 | |
| Google meta description(β 920 px) | 155 | 155 | |
| SMS (single GSM-7) | 160 | 160 |
Counts are user-perceived characters (an emoji like ππ½ is one). X counts emoji and CJK characters as 2 and every link as 23.
π Runs in your browser and autosaves on this device only β your text is never uploaded.
How to count characters
- Type or paste your text. The character count updates as you type, with and without spaces.
- Check the Platform limits table. Green means you're within the limit, amber means close to it, and red shows how far over you are.
- Writing a text message? Open SMS to see the encoding, how many segments it will be billed as, and which characters push it to UCS-2.
Character limits by platform
| Where | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | Weighted: emoji and CJK count 2, links 23. Premium accounts can post up to 25,000. |
| Threads post | 500 | |
| Bluesky post | 300 | Counted in graphemes, so an emoji is 1 |
| Instagram caption / bio | 2,200 / 150 | Captions are cut off after about 125 characters in the feed |
| LinkedIn post / headline | 3,000 / 220 | Posts show ββ¦see moreβ after about 210 characters |
| TikTok caption | 4,000 | |
| YouTube title / description | 100 / 5,000 | Titles are cut off after about 70 characters in search |
| Google title tag | β 60 | Google cuts by pixel width (about 600 px), not characters |
| Google meta description | β 155 | About 920 px on desktop, shorter on mobile |
| SMS | 160 / 70 | GSM-7 / UCS-2, see below |
SMS length: GSM-7 vs UCS-2
A single SMS holds 140 bytes. With the standard GSM-7 alphabet (AβZ, digits, common punctuation and some accented letters), that is 160 characters. If your message contains even one character outside that alphabet, such as an emoji, a curly quote (β β β), an em dash or a Cyrillic letter, the whole message is sent as UCS-2 and holds only 70 characters.
Longer messages are split into parts. Each part gives up a few bytes to a header that tells the phone how to put the message back together, so it holds 153 GSM-7 characters or 67 UCS-2 characters. Carriers bill each part as a separate message. The characters β¬ [ ] { } ^ ~ | \ are in GSM-7 but take two slots each.
Tip: text pasted from Word or Google Docs often contains smart quotes and dashes. The SMS tab can swap them for plain ones so the message stays in GSM-7, which can make it less than half the cost.
With or without spaces?
Social networks and SMS count every character, including spaces and line breaks. Translators, some publishers and some school assignments count characters without spaces, so both numbers are shown. Each line break counts as one character.
Related tools
Embed this tool on your site
Browse all embeddable tools βFree for blogs, HR, payroll and contractor sites: copy one snippet β the widget sizes itself and matches your colors.
Get the embed code
Frequently asked questions
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. Everything runs in your browser, so your text never leaves your device. Nothing is logged or stored on a server.
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes, on almost every platform: X, Instagram, LinkedIn, SMS and Google all count spaces and line breaks. The 'no spaces' figure is for assignments or translation quotes that ask for it.
Why does an emoji count as 2 characters on X?
X weighs characters: Latin letters and most punctuation count 1, while emoji, Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters count 2. Links always count as 23 no matter how long they are. The X row in the table uses these weights.
Why does my text message say 70 characters instead of 160?
It contains a character outside the GSM-7 alphabet, often an emoji or a curly apostrophe pasted from a document. The SMS tab lists exactly which characters caused it.
How are emoji and accented letters counted here?
As you see them: ππ½, π¨βπ©βπ§ and Γ© each count as 1 character. Some programming languages report more because they count UTF-16 code units, and the Details tab shows the UTF-8 byte size as well.
Your business here? Sponsor this tool from $16/week. See placements