Free Character Counter
A character counter counts how many characters a text contains, with and without spaces. This free counter breaks the total into letters, digits, punctuation, whitespace and lines, and checks it against common limits: X posts, SMS, title tags, meta descriptions, Instagram captions and LinkedIn posts. It suits social media managers, SEO writers and anyone fitting copy into a box.
Character Counter
Text and Content
About this tool
Characters are counted the way a reader sees them, so an accented letter or an emoji with a skin tone counts as one. The breakdown below the total shows where the count comes from, which helps when a platform rejects text that looks short enough. Line breaks count as characters on most platforms, so a caption with many short lines is longer than it looks.
The limits table compares your text with each platform's published maximum, and two rows need care. X counts some characters double, including emoji and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters, and counts every link as 23 characters, so treat the X row as a close estimate. SMS depends on the characters you use: plain text fits 160 characters in one message, but a single emoji or non-Latin letter switches the whole message to Unicode, where the limit drops to 70. The tool detects which case applies.
Title tags and meta descriptions are not cut at an exact character count, because Google trims them by pixel width. The 60 and 155 character guides keep most snippets whole on desktop. Our team runs this check on every title and description we write for clients, and on ad copy, where one character too many means the ad platform will not accept the line.
Frequently asked questions
Do spaces and line breaks count as characters?
Yes, on almost every platform. X, Instagram, LinkedIn, SMS and search result snippets all count spaces, and line breaks count too. That is why this tool shows both totals: characters with spaces is the number platforms check, while characters without spaces suits the academic and translation briefs that price or limit text that way.
Why does my SMS count show a limit of 70 instead of 160?
Standard SMS uses a small character set that fits 160 characters in one message. If your text contains anything outside it, such as an emoji, curly quotes or Hindi or Arabic letters, the whole message is sent as Unicode and a single message holds only 70 characters. Replace those characters, or plan for the message splitting into more parts.
How many characters should a title tag and meta description have?
Aim for 50 to 60 characters for a title tag and 120 to 155 for a meta description. Google cuts both by pixel width rather than by count, so wide letters such as W and M use up space faster. Put the words that matter most at the start, so a trimmed snippet still makes sense.
How many characters can an X post or Instagram caption have?
An X post holds 280 characters for standard accounts, with links counted as 23 and some emoji and Asian characters counted twice. Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters, but only the first two lines or so show before "more". LinkedIn posts allow 3,000, with roughly the first 200 visible before the fold.