Character Counter
Paste or type your text to count characters, words, sentences and bytes instantly, and check it against common limits for posts, SMS and meta descriptions. Everything is counted in your browser; your text is not sent to a server.
Start typing and the counts appear here.
- Lines0
- Paragraphs (separated by a blank line)0
- UTF-8 bytes0
- SMS 0
Against common limits (characters with spaces)
| Where | Limit | Remaining |
|---|---|---|
| Page title (search results) | ~60 | - |
| Meta description | ~155–160 | - |
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | - |
| Bluesky post | 300 | - |
| Threads post | 500 | - |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | - |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | - |
What gets counted
- Characters with spaces counts every visible character plus spaces, tabs and line breaks. This is what most forms, essay portals and social networks mean by “characters”.
- Characters without spaces removes spaces, tabs and line breaks first. Some translation and publishing quotes are based on it.
- Words are runs of text separated by whitespace, so “state-of-the-art” is one word and “e.g.” is one word. Word processors may differ slightly on dashes and numbers.
- Sentences are detected by your browser’s built-in sentence rules (ending punctuation such as . ! ?). Abbreviations like “Dr.” can occasionally split a sentence, so treat it as an estimate.
Characters are counted the way you see them on screen. An emoji with a skin tone (👍🏽) or a family emoji (👨👩👧) counts as one character here, even though it is built from several Unicode code points. Some platforms count these as 2 or more, so leave a small margin near a hard limit.
Common character limits
Limits change from time to time and some platforms count in their own way, so use these as typical figures and check the platform’s help page if you are right at the edge.
| Text | Typical limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | Links count as 23 characters whatever their length; many emoji and CJK characters count as 2. Paid tiers allow longer posts. |
| Meta description | ~155–160 | Search engines cut snippets by pixel width, not a fixed count. Put the key point in the first 120 characters. |
| Page title | ~50–60 | Longer titles are usually truncated with an ellipsis in search results. |
| SMS text message | 160 / 70 | 160 characters with the basic GSM-7 alphabet, 70 if the message contains any other character (emoji, accented letters outside GSM-7, CJK). |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | Only the first line or two show before “more”. |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | Roughly the first 200 characters show before “see more”. |
How long SMS messages are split
A message longer than one SMS is sent as several linked parts. Each part loses a few characters to the header that joins them, so long GSM-7 messages carry 153 characters per part and Unicode (UCS-2) messages 67 per part. A single emoji switches the whole message to UCS-2, which is why adding one emoji can turn a 1-part message into 3 parts. Carriers and phones may handle this slightly differently.
Bytes and character encoding
Databases, APIs and some form fields limit length in bytes, not characters. This counter reports UTF-8 bytes, the encoding used by almost every website today.
| Character | UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|
| English letters, digits, space, basic punctuation | 1 |
| Accented Latin letters (é, ñ, ü), Greek, Cyrillic | 2 |
| Most CJK characters, curly quotes (“ ”), em dash (—) | 3 |
| Emoji (😀) | 4 or more |
Line breaks count as 1 byte (\n). Some systems convert them to Windows line endings (\r\n, 2 bytes) when you submit, so allow some room if your text has many lines.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text uploaded or saved?
No. The counting runs entirely in your browser with JavaScript. Your text is not sent to a server and is not stored.
Why does another tool give a different number?
Tools differ in how they treat emoji, line breaks (1 or 2 characters) and what counts as a word. This counter counts what you see on screen; platforms such as X apply their own weighting, so their in-app counter is the final word for a post.
How many words fit in 280 or 2,200 characters?
English averages about 5 to 6 characters per word including the space, so 280 characters is roughly 45 to 55 words and 2,200 characters about 350 to 400 words. Need to count days to a launch date as well? Use the days between dates calculator.