Character counter

Type or paste text to count characters, words, sentences and lines as you go, and see how it fits common limits. Runs in your browser; nothing is uploaded.

Your text

Characters: 0
Without spaces: 0
Words: 0
Sentences: 0
Paragraphs: 0
Lines: 0
Bytes (UTF-8): 0
Reading time: 0

Platform limits

X (Twitter) post 0 / 280

Counted the way X counts: links are 23, emoji and CJK characters are 2.
Instagram caption 0 / 2,200

About the first 125 characters show before "more".
LinkedIn post 0 / 3,000

Roughly the first 140-210 characters show before "see more".
Meta description 0 / 155

A guideline, not a limit: Google cuts snippets to fit the screen.
Text message (SMS) 0 segments

GSM-7: 160 characters in one message, 153 per segment after that. UCS-2: 70, then 67.

How to use the character counter

Type in the box or paste text from anywhere. The counts update with every keystroke.
Check the platform bars. Green means you are comfortably inside the limit, amber means you are within 10% of it, and red means you are over.
For text messages, watch the encoding line: one emoji or curly quote can cut a message's capacity from 160 to 70 characters.
Edit in place, then copy the text back out with the Copy button.

Your text never leaves the page: nothing is uploaded or saved, and it is gone when you close the tab.

What each count means

Count	How it is measured
Characters	Every visible character, space, punctuation mark and line break. An emoji, a flag or a letter with an accent counts as one, as you would count them by eye.
Without spaces	The same, leaving out spaces, tabs and line breaks.
Words	Pieces of text between spaces that contain a letter or digit. "Well-known" is one word; a lone dash is none.
Sentences	Text ending in a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or ellipsis, plus any final sentence without one. Abbreviations such as "e.g." can add extra sentences.
Paragraphs	Blocks of text separated by a blank line.
Lines	Every line, including empty ones, as split by line breaks.
Bytes (UTF-8)	The size of the text when saved as UTF-8, the usual encoding on the web. English letters are 1 byte, accented letters 2, most Asian characters 3 and emoji 4 or more.
Reading time	Words divided by 238 words per minute, the average silent reading speed for non-fiction. The reading time calculator explains the source.

Character limits by platform

Checked October 2026. Platforms change these from time to time, so treat them as a guide.

Where	Limit	Source
X (Twitter) post	280, weighted; links count as 23	X developer docs: counting characters
Instagram caption	2,200	Meta: Instagram media API reference
LinkedIn post	3,000	Widely reported, e.g. AuthoredUp
Meta description	No fixed limit; about 150-160 is the usual guideline	Google Search Central: snippets
SMS	160 GSM-7 or 70 UCS-2 per message; 153 or 67 per segment when split	Twilio: SMS character limit

How X counts characters

X does not simply count characters. According to its developer documentation, every link is shortened and counts as 23 characters whatever its real length, most Latin letters, punctuation and symbols count as 1, and emoji and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters count as 2. So a post full of emoji reaches the limit sooner than it looks. The bar above follows those rules; its link detection is close to X's but not identical for unusual domain endings.

How text messages are split

An SMS can carry 140 bytes. With the standard GSM-7 character set (English letters, digits, common punctuation and some accented letters) that fits 160 characters. If the message contains any character outside that set, such as an emoji, a curly quote or most non-Latin letters, the whole message switches to UCS-2 and fits only 70. Messages longer than that are split into segments, and a small header in each one leaves room for 153 GSM-7 or 67 UCS-2 characters per segment. A few GSM characters (^ { } \ [ ~ ] | and the euro sign) take two spaces each. The counter shows which characters forced UCS-2, so you can swap them for plain ones.

Tips for writing to a limit

Front-load the point. Instagram, LinkedIn and Google all cut text off with "more" or an ellipsis, so put the important words first.
Watch smart quotes in texts. Word processors turn straight quotes into curly ones, which forces UCS-2 and can double the number of SMS segments.
Clean up pasted text. Text copied from PDFs often has a line break at the end of every line; remove line breaks fixes it before you count.
Fix the capitals. The case converter turns text into sentence case, title case and more without retyping it.
Timing a script? The words to minutes converter turns a word count into speaking time.

Frequently asked questions

Do spaces count as characters? +

Yes. Spaces, line breaks and punctuation all count as characters on X, Instagram, LinkedIn and in text messages, so the character count with spaces is the one to check against a limit. The count without spaces is mostly used for translation and some school or publishing guidelines.

How many characters is a tweet? +

Up to 280 for most accounts. X counts every link as 23 characters whatever its length, and counts emoji and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters as 2 each, so a post can hit the limit before it looks 280 characters long. Paid X Premium accounts can post longer text.

How many characters are in a text message? +

A single SMS holds 160 characters if every character is in the standard GSM-7 set, or 70 if it contains anything else, such as an emoji or a curly quote. Longer messages are split into segments of 153 or 67 characters, and each segment is usually billed as one message.

How long should a meta description be? +

Google does not set a maximum. It cuts the snippet to fit the width of the screen, so most SEO guides suggest keeping descriptions to about 150 to 160 characters with the important part first. Google also rewrites the snippet when it thinks the page text answers the search better.

Why does my character count differ from other tools? +

Tools count emoji and accented letters differently. This counter counts what you see: a family emoji or a flag is one character. Some programs count the hidden code units instead, so the same emoji might be 2, 4 or even 11 there. Platform limits like X and SMS have their own rules, which the bars on this page follow.