Why characters, not words
Anywhere a computer enforces a limit, it counts characters. X cuts you off at 280. Instagram truncates a bio at 150. SMS gateways split a message at 160. Word count is for humans; character count is for systems, and the system does not round in your favour.
How to use it
Pick what you are writing for at the top, then type or paste. The number beside it counts down, the bar fills, and both turn amber near the limit and red past it. Trim to fit cuts the text back to the limit at a word boundary, so you get a clean ending rather than a severed word.
Below the box, Where this fits checks the same text against every limit at once — useful when one caption has to go out on four platforms and you want to know which one it breaks first. Click any of those cards to make it the target.
The limits, and where they come from
These are checked against each platform’s own documentation and dated on the page. They are not all the same kind of thing, so the tool marks the difference:
- Hard limits — X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, SMS. Go over and the platform refuses the text or truncates it.
- Conventions, marked guide — page titles, meta descriptions, email subject lines. Nothing rejects a longer one; it is simply cut off in the listing or the inbox, and where it cuts depends on pixel width and the reader’s screen, not on a character count.
Two platforms count differently, and the tool follows them
X does not count what you typed. Every link is rewritten through its t.co shortener and costs a flat 23 characters however long it is — so a 90-character URL leaves you more room than you would expect, and a short one leaves you less. Characters outside the Latin and common-punctuation ranges cost two each, which means emoji, and Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic, Hindi and Russian text, all halve the real length of a post.
Bluesky counts graphemes — what a reader sees as one character. A flag or a family emoji is one character there, even though it is stored as several code points. Most other platforms count the stored length instead, which is why the same text can pass on one and fail on another.
What counts as a character
Everything: letters, digits, punctuation, spaces and line breaks. The no spaces figure removes spaces, tabs and newlines — the number most translation and academic work is priced by.
Line breaks matter more than people expect. A caption that looks like it fits can go over on the blank lines alone, and in SMS a single emoji or accented character switches the message to a different encoding and drops the limit from 160 to 70.
Common questions
Is my text uploaded?
No. Everything runs in your browser on this page. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is logged.
Why does the X count differ from the character count?
Because X’s own count is not a character count. The stat row shows the plain length; the readout at the top shows what X will actually charge you, links and all. When you are writing for X, trust the readout.
Are these limits current?
They were verified against each platform’s documentation on the date shown under the grid. Platforms change them without announcement, so if a post really matters, confirm it in the composer before you publish.
What if I need a word count too?
Words, sentences and lines are along the bottom of the box. For reading time, paragraph counts and keyword density, use the Word Counter.
