How to use the Character Counter
- Paste or type your text.
- See the total with and without spaces, plus letters, digits and punctuation.
- Watch the limit bars — each turns red when your text is too long for that platform.
- Trim until the bar you care about is green, then copy.
Character limits worth knowing
| Where | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | Links count as 23 characters each regardless of length. |
| SEO title tag | ~60 | Google truncates by pixel width (about 600px), so 50–60 characters is the safe range. |
| Meta description | ~155–160 | Longer text is cut with an ellipsis in results. |
| Instagram bio | 150 | |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | Only the first ~125 characters show before “more”. |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | About 210 characters show before “see more”. |
| SMS | 160 | Using any emoji switches the message to UCS-2 encoding, which cuts the limit to 70. |
| YouTube title | 100 |
Why an emoji counts as one character here
Many simple counters report 👍🏽 as 4 characters, because that is how many UTF-16 code units JavaScript stores. We count user-perceived characters (grapheme clusters), so an emoji with a skin tone, a flag, or a letter with an accent counts once — which is what you see on screen. Some platforms, including X, apply their own weighting to emoji; treat limits near the edge with a little margin.
Frequently asked questions
Does a space count as a character?
On almost every social platform and in SMS, yes. That is the main “Characters” number. The “No spaces” number excludes spaces, tabs and line breaks, which some essay and form limits ask for.
Do line breaks count as characters?
Yes — each line break counts as one character in the total, just like a space. It is excluded from the no-spaces count.
How many characters is 100 words?
In typical English prose, about 500–600 characters including spaces (roughly 4.7 letters per word plus a space). Technical writing with longer words runs higher.
Is my text private?
Yes. Everything is counted in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded or logged.