Character Counter
How many characters is this text? Paste below for an instant count.
Statistics
Characters to words
How many characters is this text? Paste below for an instant count.
What Is a Character Counter?
A character counter is a tool that tallies every letter, number, punctuation mark, and space in a body of text as you type. The stats panel on the right shows characters with spaces, characters without spaces, words, lines, sentences, and paragraphs at the same time. The platform pill bar at the top lights up green, amber, or red so you can see at a glance whether your draft fits inside the active limit (Meta description 155, Twitter 280, SMS 160, and so on).
Most word processors count words. Most online platforms cap characters. When you write for social media, push notifications, SEO snippets, or SMS, the character count is the constraint that decides whether the message ships intact or gets cut off mid-sentence. This page is built for that case: paste, read the count, edit, ship. Paired with our Word Counter and Essay Word Counter, you get a complete view of every metric your text editor leaves out.
Character limits by platform
Quick reference for the platforms people ask about most. Values reflect the public limits as of 2026.
| Platform / surface | Character limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Twitter / X post | 280 | 25,000 on Premium accounts. |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | First 125 characters show before "more". |
| Instagram bio | 150 | Counts emoji as multiple characters. |
| TikTok caption | 2,200 | Hashtags count toward the limit. |
| TikTok bio | 80 | Tight, plan for it. |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | Engagement peaks around 1,300. |
| LinkedIn headline | 220 | Per the 2024 expansion from 120. |
| Facebook post | 63,206 | Anything over ~500 collapses to "see more". |
| YouTube video title | 100 | Search results truncate around 70. |
| YouTube description | 5,000 | First 125 show above "show more". |
| Bluesky post | 300 | Includes URLs (no shortener). |
| Threads post | 500 | Links count as characters. |
| Mastodon post | 500 | Some instances raise this to 1,000+. |
| Discord message | 2,000 | 4,000 with Nitro. |
| WhatsApp message | 65,536 | Effectively unlimited for normal use. |
| SMS (single) | 160 | 70 if any emoji or non-Latin character. |
| Email subject line | 78 | Mobile clients clip around 35. |
| Meta title (SEO) | 60 | Pixel-based, so target ~580px. |
| Meta description (SEO) | 155 | Indexed up to 320; visible ≤155. |
Character counter vs word counter vs sentence counter
The three counters answer different questions about the same text. Use a character counter when a platform caps you by characters (most social posts, SMS, SEO snippets, push notifications). Use a word counter when an assignment, brief, or word-target sets the rule (essays, articles, descriptions sized at "300 words"). Use a sentence counter when you want to check readability: short sentences read fast, long ones lose people.
All three numbers shift independently. A 280-character tweet can be one long sentence or six short ones. A 500-word blog intro can be 2,800 characters or 3,400, depending on word length. This page shows every count side by side so you do not have to guess which one matters for the surface you are writing for.
Sentence counter and paragraph counter pages are (coming soon). Until then, the stats panel above gives you the same numbers without leaving this page.
Why character limits matter
Social media engagement
Each platform clips, hides, or truncates posts that overshoot its limit. On Instagram, anything past 125 characters folds behind "more" and most readers never tap it. On LinkedIn, "see more" lands around 210 characters on desktop and shorter on mobile. The first line you write is the only line guaranteed to render. Treating the character limit as the budget for the hook, not a ceiling for the full post, lifts read-through rate without changing the message.
SEO titles and meta descriptions
Google truncates meta titles at roughly 580 pixels (about 60 characters in most fonts) and meta descriptions around 155 to 160. Anything past the cutoff still gets indexed but does not show in the SERP snippet. Worse, Google rewrites titles in 60% of cases and descriptions in over 80% when the original looks padded or off-intent. Tight, scannable, intent-matching copy under the cap survives the rewrite filter and gets clicked.
SMS encoding and carrier billing
A standard SMS holds 160 characters using GSM-7 encoding. The moment you add a single emoji, accented vowel, or curly quote, the message switches to UCS-2 (16-bit Unicode) and the limit drops to 70 characters per segment. Long messages get split into 153-character or 67-character chunks and concatenated, which costs more on most carrier plans. Stripping smart quotes and emoji with our text cleaner before sending keeps a transactional message in one segment.
Email subject lines and open rates
Most desktop mail clients display the first 60 characters of a subject line; iOS Mail cuts at 78; Gmail mobile clips around 35. Subject lines past these thresholds either truncate mid-word or get hidden behind the preview pane. Open-rate analyses from Mailchimp and Campaign Monitor consistently show that subject lines of 41-50 characters land in the top quartile for opens. Treat 78 as the hard ceiling, 50 as the engagement-optimal target, and front-load the value proposition so it survives every client's truncation point.
How to use the character counter
1. Paste or type your text
Drop the text into the textarea. The stats panel and the platform pills update on every keystroke. Nothing leaves your browser; the count runs locally in JavaScript.
2. Pick a target platform
Click a platform pill (Meta description is selected by default). The count badge on each pill shows current / limit. When you cross 90% of the limit, the badge turns amber. When you cross 100%, it turns red with a ⚠ icon so you can see the overflow at a glance.
3. Trim or extend
If you are over: prune adjectives, drop hashtags, swap long words for short ones. If you are under and want to use the space: add a CTA, a benefit, or a contextual link. The conversion card below the stats helps when a brief says "300 words" but the platform caps characters: punch a number in and see the rough equivalent in your genre.
4. Copy out
Once the active pill goes green and the stats look right, copy the text out of the textarea. Your draft persists in browser localStorage so coming back to the tab keeps your work.
Frequently asked questions
How many characters is this text?
Paste the text into the textarea above. The Statistics panel shows characters with spaces, characters without spaces, words, sentences, paragraphs, and lines. The platform pill bar tells you whether the count fits inside common social, SEO, and SMS limits.
Does the character counter include spaces?
It counts both. The Statistics panel shows "Characters (with spaces)" and "Characters (no spaces)" as separate stats. Twitter, Instagram, SMS, and most platforms count with spaces. Some word-processor counters and academic length rules count without. You get both numbers without switching modes.
What's the Twitter character limit?
280 characters on a standard account. 25,000 on Premium (formerly Twitter Blue). URLs always count as 23 characters, no matter their actual length, because Twitter shortens them through t.co. The pill bar uses 280 by default; you can ignore the overflow warning if you know you are on Premium.
What's the Instagram caption limit?
2,200 characters for the caption, 150 for the bio, 30 for the username. Anything past the first 125 caption characters collapses behind "more" and most readers do not expand it. Front-load the hook.
What's the meta description character limit?
Google indexes up to about 320 characters but truncates the visible snippet at roughly 155 to 160 on desktop and ~120 on mobile. Aim for 150 to 155 with the key intent phrase inside the first 120. Anything past the cutoff is wasted real estate in the SERP, though it still helps Google understand the page.
Why does my SMS count differently on different phones?
SMS uses two encodings. GSM-7 (the default) packs 160 characters into one segment. UCS-2 (used when your message contains any emoji, smart quote, accented vowel, or other non-Latin character) drops the limit to 70 per segment. A 161-character GSM-7 message splits into two 153-character segments; a 71-character UCS-2 message splits into two 67-character segments. Different phones report the count using the encoding they detect, which is why a 159-character draft on one phone shows as "71/2" on another.
How is character count different from word count?
Character count counts every letter, number, space, and punctuation mark. Word count counts strings of characters separated by whitespace. The same text gives wildly different ratios: "OK" is 2 characters and 1 word; "antidisestablishmentarianism" is 28 characters and also 1 word. For platform limits, character count is what matters. For length targets in a brief or essay, word count is what matters. If you want word count as the primary view, the word counter is the same engine with the readout reordered.
Is the character counter free?
Yes. No signup, no paywall, no character cap on input. The count runs in your browser; the text never gets sent anywhere. Your draft is saved to local browser storage so coming back to the page keeps your work.
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