Free Character Counter
Paste or type your text below to instantly count characters — with and without spaces. The Social Media Character Guide below updates live to show whether your text fits the optimal length for every major platform.
Social Media Character Guide
| Platform | Status | Optimal range | Hard limit |
|---|
Why Character Count Matters
Characters are the fundamental unit of digital text. Unlike word count, character count is the measure that actually determines whether your content fits — whether that is a tweet, a meta description, an SMS, or a product title on an e-commerce platform. Most publishing systems, social networks, and advertising tools enforce hard character limits, not word limits.
Social media
Every platform has its own character limit, and exceeding it means your content is either cut off, hidden behind a "see more" prompt, or rejected entirely. The limits vary widely: X (Twitter) allows 280 characters, Snapchat 250, Pinterest 500, LinkedIn 3,000, and Facebook up to 63,206 — though the algorithm heavily penalises long posts on most platforms. The Social Media Character Guide above tracks your current text against all of these in real time.
SEO meta descriptions and titles
Search engines display a limited number of characters in search results. Page titles are typically truncated at around 60 characters; meta descriptions at approximately 155–160 characters. Going over these limits means your carefully crafted text gets cut mid-sentence in search results, harming your click-through rate. Staying within them is one of the most straightforward on-page SEO optimisations available.
SMS and text messaging
Standard GSM text messages support a maximum of 160 characters per segment. Go over 160 and the message is split into multiple parts, each costed separately by mobile carriers. Unicode messages (for emoji, accented characters, or non-Latin scripts) drop to just 70 characters per segment. If you are sending bulk SMS campaigns, character count directly affects your costs.
Advertising copy
Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and most other digital advertising platforms have strict character limits for headlines and descriptions. Google Search Ads allow 30 characters per headline and 90 characters per description. Facebook Ads primary text is limited to 125 characters before the "see more" truncation. Exceeding these limits means your ad creative is rejected or truncated.
Character Limit Quick Reference
A consolidated reference for the most common character limits across platforms and use cases.
| Platform / Use Case | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 chars | URLs count as 23 chars regardless of length |
| Snapchat caption | 250 chars | Captions overlay the image/video |
| Threads post | 500 chars | Conversational; favours shorter posts |
| Pinterest description | 500 chars | Keyword-rich descriptions improve search rank |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 chars | Feed truncates at ~125 chars |
| TikTok caption | 2,200 chars | 100–300 chars optimal for discoverability |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 chars | Feed truncates at ~210 chars |
| Facebook post | 63,206 chars | Algorithm favours posts under 80 chars |
| YouTube description | 5,000 chars | First 100–150 chars shown in search |
| SMS (GSM) | 160 chars | 70 chars if using Unicode (emoji, etc.) |
| Google Ads headline | 30 chars | Up to 15 headlines per responsive ad |
| Google Ads description | 90 chars | Up to 4 descriptions per responsive ad |
| SEO page title | ~60 chars | Approx. — Google measures in pixels |
| SEO meta description | ~155 chars | Longer descriptions get truncated in SERPs |
| Email subject line | ~60 chars | Display length varies by email client |