Social Media Character Counter
Count your post against every social platform limit at once. Live remaining-character counts for X/Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, YouTube and more — with the correct URL, emoji and CJK handling that a plain character count gets wrong.
Whether you call it twitter character counter or X character counter, this free tool handles it instantly in your browser.
Options
Example usage
Example input
Shipping something small today and it feels good.
Example output
COUNTS ------ Visible characters 49 Without spaces 42 Words 8 Code points 49 JavaScript .length 49 X weighted length 49 LIMITS ------ X / Twitter post 49 / 280 231 left X / Twitter bio 49 / 160 111 left Bluesky post 49 / 300 251 left Threads post 49 / 500 451 left Mastodon post 49 / 500 451 left Instagram caption 49 / 2200 2151 left Instagram bio 49 / 150 101 left Facebook post 49 / 63206 63157 left LinkedIn post 49 / 3000 2951 left LinkedIn headline 49 / 220 171 left LinkedIn about 49 / 2600 2551 left YouTube title 49 / 100 51 left YouTube description 49 / 5000 4951 left TikTok caption 49 / 2200 2151 left Pinterest description 49 / 500 451 left Reddit title 49 / 300 251 left WORTH KNOWING ------------- - X / Twitter post: URLs count as 23; CJK counts double - Mastodon post: server-configurable; 500 is the default - Instagram caption: only ~125 chars show before "more" - Facebook post: only ~250 chars show before "See more" - LinkedIn post: only ~210 chars show before "see more" - YouTube title: truncates around 70 in most layouts - YouTube description: only ~157 chars show above the fold
Batch Processing
Enter multiple inputs, one per line. Each line will be processed separately.
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How it works
- Characters are counted as grapheme clusters — what a reader sees as one character — so an emoji with a skin tone or a family emoji counts as one, not as the four or seven code points it is built from.
- X is counted using its own weighted-length rules rather than a plain character count: every link counts as a flat 23 characters no matter how long it is, and most CJK, Hangul and Japanese characters count as two.
- Every platform limit is checked at once against the same text, so you can see which destinations the post already fits.
- When the text is over a limit, the exact characters that would be cut are shown, rather than only a number.
Use cases
How X counts URLs, emoji, and CJK characters
X does not count characters. It computes a weighted length, and three of its rules make a plain character count wrong. Every URL is replaced internally with a fixed-length form and charged a flat 23 characters, whether the link is 18 characters or 180 — so there is no point shortening a URL before posting, and a post that looks 60 characters over may actually fit. Characters in most CJK, Hangul, Hiragana, Katakana and fullwidth ranges count as two rather than one, which halves the effective limit for Japanese and Chinese text.
Emoji are the third rule and the most confusing one. A single visible emoji can be one code point, or several joined by zero-width joiners, or a base character plus a skin-tone modifier. A family emoji is four people and three joiners: seven code points, eleven UTF-16 units, and one thing the reader sees. X counts it as two toward the weighted limit. A tool that calls .length on the string reports eleven, which is why counters disagree so wildly on posts containing emoji.
This page shows all of these numbers at once rather than picking one, because which is correct depends on where the text is going. The visible count is what a reader perceives, the weighted count is what X enforces, and the JavaScript length is what an unprepared form validator will measure.
The real limit is the preview, not the maximum
Most platform limits are far above the point at which the text stops being read. An Instagram caption may run to 2,200 characters but collapses behind "more" at roughly 125. A LinkedIn post allows 3,000 but shows about 210 before "see more". A YouTube description allows 5,000 and surfaces around 157 above the fold. In each case the hard limit is a technical ceiling and the preview length is the budget that matters.
The practical consequence is to front-load. Put the claim, the question or the hook inside the preview window and use the remaining space for detail, context and hashtags. If a post needs its last line to make sense, it is too long for the platform regardless of what the character counter says.
Bio fields are the opposite problem: they are short, hard limits with no expansion at all. An Instagram bio is 150 characters, an X bio is 160, a LinkedIn headline is 220. These are worth drafting against a counter rather than guessing, because the platform truncates silently on save in some clients and rejects the whole edit in others.
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FAQ
Why does X say I am over the limit when another counter says I am under?
Because X does not count characters the way a naive counter does. It uses a weighted length: every URL is counted as 23 characters regardless of its actual length, and characters in most CJK, Hangul and Japanese ranges count as two instead of one. This tool applies those rules, which is why its X number can differ from its plain character count — both are shown so you can see the difference.
How many characters is an Instagram caption?
The hard limit is 2,200 characters, but only about the first 125 show before Instagram collapses the rest behind "more". Treat 125 as the real budget for anything that needs to be read, and use the remaining space for detail and hashtags.
Do links count toward the 280-character limit?
Yes, but at a fixed cost. X replaces every link with its own shortened form internally, so a link counts as 23 characters whether it is 20 characters long or 200. There is no advantage to shortening a URL yourself before posting.
How are emoji counted?
As one visible character each here, because that is what a reader perceives. Technically many emoji are several code points joined together — a family emoji is four people plus three joiners, seven code points and eleven UTF-16 units — which is why different tools report wildly different numbers. For X specifically, an emoji counts as two toward the weighted limit, and this tool applies that.
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes, on every platform listed here. Spaces and line breaks all count toward the limit. The tool also shows a count without spaces, because some other contexts — SMS segments, certain ad fields — are measured differently.
What is the LinkedIn post character limit?
Three thousand characters for a post, 220 for your headline, and 2,600 for the About section. As with Instagram, the practical limit for a post is much lower: roughly the first 210 characters show before "see more", so the hook has to land inside that.