Character Counter — Tweet, SMS & Meta Tag Limits
Pick a platform and watch the progress ring fill up. Live counts for tweet (280), X Premium (4,000), SMS (160), LinkedIn (3,000), Instagram (2,200), meta title (60), meta description (155), Discord (2,000).
About this tool
Character limits are everywhere — tweets, SMS, meta tags, LinkedIn posts, Instagram captions, Discord messages, push notifications. Going over silently truncates your message in many places (search snippets, SMS gateways) and outright rejects in others (tweet, Instagram). A live counter with the right limit baked in saves you from drafting twice.
We use Unicode code points to count, which matches how Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram measure length. That means a heart emoji is 1, a flag emoji is 2, and a family-with-skin-tones emoji can be 7 — exactly what each platform will charge you. The progress ring at the top right is colour-coded so you can read it from across the room: green up to 80% of the limit, amber 80-100%, red over.
Below the ring you get a small breakdown — characters with spaces, characters without, words, lines, and characters remaining. The current platform tab is sticky on refresh, your draft auto-saves to localStorage, and Clear wipes both. All processing is in-browser.
How to use it (5 steps)
- Choose a platform tab. Tap Tweet (280), X Premium (4,000), SMS (160), LinkedIn (3,000), Insta (2,200), Meta title (60), Meta description (155) or Discord (2,000).
- Paste or type your text. Type into the big textarea. The character count and the progress ring update on every keystroke.
- Watch the ring colour. Green up to 80% of the limit, amber from 80-100%, red once you go over. Quick visual signal you can read at a glance.
- Read the breakdown. Below the ring, see characters with and without spaces, words, lines, and the count remaining (or how many over).
- Tweak and copy. Edit until the ring is green, then Copy to send to your platform. Everything stays in your browser.
Frequently asked questions
+−What are Twitter / X's character rules?
Standard tweets are 280 characters. URLs always count as 23 characters regardless of true length, because Twitter shortens them. Mentions and hashtags count normally. X Premium subscribers can post up to 4,000 characters per tweet, and DMs allow up to 10,000.
+−When does an SMS split into multiple messages?
GSM-7 SMS allows 160 characters per message. Past 160 it splits into 153-character segments (7 chars are stolen for header data). UCS-2 (used when you include any non-GSM characters like emoji or many Indian-script characters) drops the limit to 70 chars per segment, with 67 chars per segment in multi-part messages.
+−Why is the count slightly different from another tool?
Some tools count code units (UTF-16 length), others count code points, others count grapheme clusters. We count code points, which is what Twitter, LinkedIn and most platforms use. An emoji like 👨👩👧 looks like one character but is several code points; we report the platform-accurate number.
+−How do special characters and emoji count?
Most emoji are 1-2 code points each. Skin-toned and family emoji (joined with zero-width joiners) are 5-7 code points. Accented characters in NFC form are 1 code point; in NFD form they are 2. Paste your exact text — we count what you'll actually post.
+−Why is meta title capped at 60 characters?
Google typically displays the first 50-60 characters of a title in search results before truncating with an ellipsis. Mobile is closer to 50, desktop is closer to 60. The 60 cap gives you the highest chance of full display while leaving headroom for branding.
+−Do spaces count?
Yes — every character counts including spaces, line breaks, tabs and emoji. Twitter, LinkedIn, SMS and meta tags all count whitespace toward their limits. We show the count for the raw text you've typed, exactly as it would be posted.
+−Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
No. Counting is JavaScript in your browser. Your draft is autosaved to localStorage so a refresh doesn't lose work, and Clear wipes both the textarea and the saved copy. Nothing leaves your device.
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