Character Counter: Characters, Words and Every Platform Limit
Type or paste, and every count updates: characters with and without spaces, words, sentences, lines, paragraphs, reading time, and the three other ways a computer might count the same text. Below, each platform limit fills as you approach it.
Character counter
Type or paste; every count and every platform bar updates as you go. Nothing leaves the page.
- Characters
- 120
- Without spaces
- 99
- Words
- 22
- Sentences
- 1
- Lines
- 1
- Paragraphs
- 1
- Graphemes
- 116
- UTF-16 units
- 123
- UTF-8 bytes
- 133
- X weighted
- 123
Reading time 6 sec at 238 words a minute. Hover a count for what it measures.
Why a character counter can give four different answers
A character is not one thing. To Unicode it is a code point, and that is what this counter calls a character and what nearly every app, form and platform counts: é is one, 日 is one, 😀 is one. To JavaScript and to some form validators a character is a UTF-16 code unit, and anything outside the first 65,536 code points, which includes every emoji, takes two; a field validated that way lets you type fewer emoji than its limit suggests. To a person it is a grapheme, what looks like one character: a family emoji 👨👩👧 is one grapheme, five code points and ten UTF-16 units, and a flag 🇬🇧 is one grapheme and two code points. To a database or an SMS gateway it is bytes, and in UTF-8 a letter is one byte, an accented letter two, a CJK character three and an emoji four. The counter shows all four so that when a platform says "too long" and you have counted under the limit, you can see which count it used.
X has its own arithmetic on top: it weighs most Latin, Greek and Cyrillic characters as 1 and everything else, CJK, emoji, most symbols, as 2, and every link as 23 regardless of length, which is why a 200-character tweet full of emoji does not fit. The X bar here applies that weighting. Bluesky counts graphemes. Everyone else counts code points.
Character counter for Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, SMS and more
The bars below the counts are the published limits: X posts (280, weighted) and bios (160); Instagram captions (2,200, with up to 30 hashtags), bios (150) and usernames (30); TikTok captions (2,200) and bios (80); Threads posts (500); Bluesky posts (300 graphemes); Facebook posts (63,206); LinkedIn posts (3,000) and headlines (220); YouTube titles (100) and descriptions (5,000); Discord messages (2,000, or 4,000 with Nitro); Reddit titles (300); Pinterest descriptions (500); a single SMS (160, or 70 as soon as it contains a character outside the old GSM alphabet, which most emoji and accented letters are); and the two Google search snippets, where the limit is pixel width and about 60 characters of title and 155 to 160 of description survive. Each bar names the count it uses. Limits that depend on a paid tier show the base tier.
Words are split on whitespace, so a hyphenated word counts as one and an emoji standing alone counts as one word. Sentences end at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark, and an unterminated last line counts as one. Reading time uses 238 words a minute, the average silent-reading speed for adults measured across the largest study of it. Nothing you type leaves the page.
Character counter questions
Does the character count include spaces?
The main count does, because every platform limit includes them. The count without spaces is shown beside it for the cases (some essay and application forms) that exclude them. Line breaks count as characters on every platform.
Why does X say my post is too long when it is under 280 characters?
X weighs characters: emoji, CJK and most symbols count as 2, and any link counts as 23 however long it is. The X post bar here uses that weighting, so if it fits there it fits on X. Premium accounts have a higher limit.
Why does an emoji count as more than one character?
It depends who is counting. Unicode counts one emoji as one code point, but a skin-tone or family emoji is several code points joined, and JavaScript counts every emoji as two units. The counter shows characters, graphemes (what you see) and UTF-16 units side by side so the difference is visible.
How many characters is an SMS?
160 if every character is in the GSM-7 alphabet (plain Latin letters, digits and common punctuation). One character outside it, an emoji, a curly quote, most accented letters, switches the whole message to UCS-2 and the limit drops to 70; longer texts are split into segments of 153 or 67.
Is this a word counter too?
Yes. Words, sentences, lines, paragraphs and an estimated reading time are all shown with the character counts. Words are whitespace-separated, so "well-known" is one word.
Is my text stored or sent anywhere?
No. Counting happens in your browser as you type; the page makes no request. Reload and the box is empty again.
Related tools
- Instagram FontsAll 32 styles for your Instagram bio, captions and name, with a live profile preview and the 150-character bio count.
- Case ConverterSwitch text between UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, Sentence case, camelCase and more.
- Hashtag GeneratorTurn a list of words into hashtags in any case or style, checked against every platform limit.
- Font generatorAll 32 Unicode styles, modifiers and the social preview, on the homepage.