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Free Character Counter | Text Length & Social Media Limit Checker

Count characters, including spaces and special characters. Ideal for social media posts and text limits.

Enter your text

Your Results

Total Characters

0

Without Spaces

0

Words

0

Lines

0

Platform-Specific Character Limits

SEO Character Limits

Meta Title (60)
URL Slug (50)
Image Alt Text (125)

Social Media Limits

Facebook Post (63,206)
Instagram Caption (2,200)
LinkedIn Post (3,000)
Pinterest Description (500)

Video Platform Limits

YouTube Title (100)
YouTube Description (5,000)
TikTok Description (2,200)

This character counter gives you a live count of characters with spaces, characters without spaces, words and lines as you type. It is built for the many places where the limit is measured in characters rather than words: social media posts, SMS messages, form fields, database columns and SEO tags.

Because different platforms count differently — some by visible characters, some by bytes, some treating an emoji as one unit and some as two — the counter shows the figures most tools actually use so you can stay safely inside a limit.

Useful character limits

  • X / Twitter post: 280 characters
  • SMS (single message): 160 characters, then 153 per segment
  • SEO meta title: about 60 characters before truncation
  • SEO meta description: about 155–160 characters
  • Instagram caption: 2,200 characters
  • LinkedIn post: 3,000 characters

Worked examples

"Hello, world!"

13 characters with spaces, 12 without, 2 words, 1 line.

A meta description at the limit

Aim for 155 characters with spaces. Google measures pixel width, but 155 characters is a safe proxy that rarely gets cut off on desktop.

An SMS that spills over

A 161-character message is sent as two segments and counts as 306 characters (153 + 153) for billing, even though you only added one character.

Text with an emoji

"Hi 👋" is 4 characters if an emoji counts as one, but some systems count the emoji as two units. The counter shows the straightforward character count so you can leave a small safety margin.

Common uses

  • Keeping a social post, bio or headline within a platform limit
  • Writing an SMS or push notification that fits in one segment
  • Trimming an SEO title and meta description to avoid truncation
  • Filling database or CSV fields that have a maximum length
  • Meeting exact-length requirements on government or banking forms
  • Checking password or username length rules

How to use the character counter

  1. Type or paste your text into the box.
  2. Read the two character figures: one including spaces, one excluding them.
  3. Compare against the limit you need to hit — most platforms count spaces.
  4. Edit until you are just under the limit, leaving a couple of characters of margin for emoji or links.

Frequently asked questions

Do spaces count as characters?

On most platforms, yes. X, SMS, and SEO snippets all include spaces. The counter shows both figures so you can use whichever your target requires.

Are line breaks counted?

Yes, a line break is one character (sometimes two on Windows-style text). It is included in the "with spaces" figure.

How are emoji counted?

This tool counts an emoji as the number of underlying text units it uses, which is one for simple emoji and more for combined ones like flags or skin-tone variants. Platforms vary, so leave a small margin.

Why does X say my post is too long when the counter shows under 280?

X counts every URL as 23 characters regardless of its real length, and counts some non-Latin characters as two. Allow for that when your post contains links.

What is the ideal meta description length?

Around 150–160 characters. Longer descriptions get cut off with an ellipsis in search results.

Is my text stored anywhere?

No. Everything is counted locally in your browser.

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