About this tool
Character counter, explained
This character counter checks your text against fifteen common limits at once, from X and LinkedIn posts to meta descriptions, ad headlines, SMS and push notifications. It counts the way each platform does, and gives words, sentences, reading and speaking time.
How to use it
- 1Type or paste your text into the box.
- 2Read Characters, Without spaces, Words, Sentences, Paragraphs, Reading time, Speaking time and X length under the text.
- 3Filter the limits by All, Social, Search, Ads or Messaging. Each bar shows how many characters are left, or how many are over.
- 4Adjust the text with the case buttons (upper case, lower case, Title Case, Sentence case, Tidy spaces), check Repeated words, then copy, download or share it.
How it works
How characters are counted
Most limits are compared with a count of graphemes, the characters as a person sees them: an emoji or an accented letter counts as one, even when it is stored as several code units. The limits are X post 280, Threads post 500, LinkedIn post 3,000, LinkedIn before see more 210, Instagram caption 2,200, Instagram before more 125, YouTube title 100, meta title 60, meta description 160, Google Ads headline 30 and description 90, Meta ad primary text 125, SMS 160, email subject 60 and push notification 110. The "before see more" and "before more" lines are where the feed usually cuts the preview, not hard limits.
The X line follows the public twitter-text rules: every link counts 23 characters, and an emoji or a Chinese, Japanese or Korean character counts 2. The SMS line checks whether every character is in the GSM-7 alphabet. If one is not, such as an emoji or a curly apostrophe, the whole message switches to UCS-2 and one SMS holds 70 units instead of 160; the line shows the encoding and the number of segments.
Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, an average silent reading speed for English, and speaking time 150. Repeated words lists the words used more than once, leaving out short common words. Platforms change their rules, so check a result close to a limit in the app itself.
When to use it
Ways people use it
Write one message for several networks
Draft once and see straight away which platforms need a shorter version, and which line is the easiest to fix.
Write titles and meta descriptions
Keep a page title near 60 characters and a description near 160 so they are less likely to be cut in search results.
Write ads
Fit a Google Ads headline into 30 characters, a description into 90 and Meta ad text into 125 without counting by hand.
Plan SMS campaigns
Spot the one character that switches a message to UCS-2 and splits it into more parts.
FAQ
Questions people ask
How many characters can a post on X have?
A standard X post allows 280 characters. Links count as 23 characters whatever their real length, and emoji and some characters count as 2. The X line in this counter applies those rules, while X's own counter remains the final reference.
What is the character limit for a LinkedIn post?
A LinkedIn post can be up to 3,000 characters. Only the opening shows before the "see more" link, about 210 characters in this counter, so the first lines of the post matter most.
How long should a meta description be?
About 160 characters is the commonly used guideline. Google decides the shown length by the width of the text on screen rather than an exact character count, and it sometimes writes its own description, so treat 160 as a target rather than a rule.
Do emojis count as one character?
In the main count, yes: each emoji counts as one character, as it appears on screen. The X line counts most emoji as 2, as X does, and in an SMS an emoji switches the whole message to a 70 character limit, with longer texts split into parts of 67.