Character Counter
Count characters, letters, spaces, emoji and bytes as you type — and see instantly whether your text fits Google, X (Twitter), SMS, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube limits, or your own custom limit.
Why Character Counts Differ
“How long is this text?” has more than one right answer.
Characters here means what you see on screen (grapheme clusters). The emoji 👩💻 is one character, though it is built from three Unicode code points and takes 11 bytes. This matches how phones and most social networks count.
UTF-16 units is JavaScript's string.length and what many databases and APIs measure. Emoji and some rare characters count as 2 here. UTF-8 bytes is the storage size on disk or over the network — essential for database column limits and HTTP headers.
SMS is special: messages using only the GSM-7 alphabet fit 160 characters per message, but a single character outside it — an emoji, a curly quote or most non-Latin letters — switches the whole message to Unicode, which fits only 70. Long messages are split into segments of 153 or 67 characters. The tool tells you which characters forced Unicode.
X (Twitter) uses its own weighting: links count as 23 characters and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters count double. The X bar here uses that rule for CJK characters and links.
Character Limits by Platform
The numbers behind the meters (2026).
| Where | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google title tag | ~50–60 characters | Truncated by pixel width (~580 px) in results. |
| Meta description | ~120–160 characters | Longer descriptions are cut off with “…”. |
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | Links = 23, CJK characters count as 2. Premium accounts allow more. |
| SMS (GSM-7) | 160 per message | 153 per segment when split. |
| SMS (Unicode) | 70 per message | 67 per segment when split. Triggered by emoji and non-GSM characters. |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | Only the first ~125 show before “more”. |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | ~210 characters show before “see more”. |
| YouTube title / description | 100 / 5,000 | ~70 characters of a title show in search. |
How to Use the Character Counter
Get your result in under ten seconds.
Paste your text
Type or paste a title, description, post, SMS or any other text.
Check the limits
Coloured meters show how much room is left on each platform — green, amber near the limit, red when over.
Set your own
Enter a custom limit for forms, database fields or assignments and watch the remaining count.
Why Use the Character Counter on Developers Web Tools
Fast, accurate and private — built for developers.
Emoji-accurate
Counts emoji, flags and accented letters as single characters, like your phone does.
SMS segments
See GSM-7 vs Unicode encoding, segment count and exactly which characters cost you.
Many limits at once
Google, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and SMS limits in one view.
Bytes & code units
UTF-8 bytes and UTF-16 length for developers working with databases and APIs.
Fast on any size
Large text is counted in a background thread so typing never lags.
Private
Your text stays on your device — nothing is uploaded or stored.
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes — spaces, line breaks and punctuation are characters, and almost every platform counts them. The “No spaces” number is shown separately for assignments that exclude them.
Some tools count UTF-16 code units (JavaScript's length), where most emoji take two units. This counter shows that number as “UTF-16 units” and uses visible characters for the main count.
A character outside the GSM-7 alphabet — like an emoji, “ ” curly quotes, — dashes or letters such as ć or अ — forces Unicode (UCS-2) encoding for the whole message. The tool lists the characters responsible so you can replace them.
The extension characters ^ { } \ [ ] ~ | € each take two of the 160 slots because they need an escape code.
Aim for 50–60 characters for titles and 120–160 for descriptions. Google truncates by pixel width, so wide letters (W, M) use more room — use the Meta Tag Generator for a pixel-accurate preview.
No. Counting happens in your browser and nothing is stored or uploaded.