Social Media Character Counter
Count characters against every platform limit at once — X/Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and SMS.
About the Social Media Character Counter
This free social media character counter checks your text against the limits of every major platform simultaneously. Type or paste your post once and a live table shows, for each platform, the maximum length, how many characters you have used, how many remain, and a clear OK or over-limit status badge.
Covered limits include X/Twitter posts (280), Instagram captions (2,200) and bios (150), TikTok captions (2,200), YouTube titles (100) and descriptions (5,000), Facebook posts (63,206), LinkedIn posts (3,000), WhatsApp status (139) and SMS (160). For SMS it goes further, showing how many message parts a long text will be split into — carriers segment anything over 160 characters into 153-character chunks.
Social media managers use it to write one piece of copy and instantly see where it fits and where it needs trimming before cross-posting.
How to Use the Social Media Character Counter
- 1Type or paste your post, caption or bio into the box.
- 2Watch the table update live with used and remaining characters per platform.
- 3Red badges show where your text exceeds the limit; trim until they turn green.
- 4For SMS, check the parts count to see how many messages you will be billed for.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the character limit for a tweet on X in 2026?
The standard limit is 280 characters for free accounts. Premium (paid) subscribers can write posts up to 25,000 characters, though only the first portion shows before a "Show more" cut. Links are shortened to about 23 characters regardless of their real length, and emoji generally count as two characters each on X.
How long can an Instagram caption be?
Instagram captions can hold up to 2,200 characters including hashtags, emoji and line breaks, while the bio is limited to 150 characters. Note that feeds truncate captions after roughly 125 characters behind a "more" link, so put your hook in the first sentence even though you have plenty of room overall.
Why does my SMS get split into multiple messages?
A single SMS carries 160 characters in the standard GSM-7 encoding. Anything longer becomes a concatenated message: each part reserves 7 characters for a stitching header, leaving 153 characters per segment, and carriers bill per segment. Watch out for emoji or special characters — they force UCS-2 encoding, dropping the limit to 70 characters per single message.
Do emoji count as one character or more?
It depends on the platform. This counter uses JavaScript string length, matching how X counts most emoji as two characters. Many emoji are technically multiple Unicode code units — some flag and family emoji are 4 to 11 units long. If your post is emoji-heavy and sitting near a limit, leave a safety margin of a few characters.
What is the ideal post length, as opposed to the maximum?
Shorter than the maximum, almost always. Engagement studies repeatedly find X posts under 100 characters, Facebook posts under 80 and LinkedIn posts that hook within the first 200 characters (before the "see more" fold) perform best. Use the limits in this table as hard ceilings, and the first line of your text as the real battleground for attention.