Free Online Character Counter
Count characters and check platform limits
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About this tool
Count characters in your text and track limits for Twitter, Instagram, meta descriptions, and more. Our free online character counter gives you real-time progress tracking with built-in platform presets for Twitter (280 characters), SMS messages (160 characters), and meta descriptions (155 characters). Instantly see how many characters you have remaining before hitting a platform limit, with clear visual feedback that changes from green to yellow to red as you approach the maximum. Perfect for crafting social media posts, writing SEO metadata, composing SMS campaigns, or working with any text that has a strict character cap. The tool also shows your character count with and without spaces, plus a word count for quick reference. All processing happens entirely in your browser — your text is never sent to a server or stored anywhere. Whether you are writing a tweet, optimizing a page title, or checking the length of a bio, this character counter helps you stay within the limit every time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Twitter/X posts allow 280 characters, Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters, Instagram bios allow 150, YouTube titles allow 100, TikTok captions allow 2,200, and LinkedIn posts allow around 3,000 characters. These limits can change, so always check the platform's current guidelines.
Yes. On virtually all platforms, spaces are counted as characters toward your limit. This includes Twitter, Instagram, and meta descriptions. Our tool shows both the total character count and a count without spaces so you can see both numbers.
Most emojis count as 2 or more characters due to how Unicode encoding works. Some complex emojis (like flags or family emojis) can count as 4-7 characters. This tool uses Unicode-aware counting to give you an accurate count that reflects how platforms measure your text.
Google typically displays 150-160 characters of a meta description in search results. Aim for 150-155 characters to ensure your full description is visible. Going over doesn't hurt SEO directly, but the extra text will be truncated with an ellipsis in search results.
Yes. A line break counts as one character (or two on some systems that use carriage return + line feed). When pasting text from a word processor, be aware that hidden formatting characters may add to your count. Our tool counts all characters including line breaks and other whitespace.
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