Tool

Character Counter

Type or paste text and get a live character count. Letters, numbers, spaces, words — plus instant platform limit checking.

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Characters

0

No spaces

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Letters

0

Numbers

0

Spaces

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Words

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Lines

Character limits

Twitter / X post
280 left
SMS message
160 left
Meta description
160 left
Instagram caption
2,200 left
Instagram bio
150 left
LinkedIn headline
220 left
LinkedIn post
3,000 left
YouTube title
100 left
YouTube description
5,000 left

Count characters in three steps

No software to install. Works in any browser, on any device.

1

Type or paste your text

Drop any text into the input. Stats update live on every keystroke.

2

See live stats

Characters with and without spaces, word count, and platform limit bars all update in real time.

3

Check against your platform limit

See instantly whether you're within Twitter, SMS, meta description, or other limits.

Live count

Characters142
No spaces118
Words24
Lines2
Twitter142 / 280
SMS142 / 160

With and without spaces

Shows both counts so you match whichever limit applies to your platform.

Live counting

Updates on every keystroke. No button needed, no page reload.

100% private

Text stays in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.

About the Character Counter

Character limits matter everywhere online. Twitter cuts you off at 280, SMS messages break at 160, Instagram captions cap at 2,200, and Google truncates meta descriptions around 160. Going over a limit means your content gets cut — often at the worst possible point.

This tool counts characters as you type and shows exactly how much space you have left on each platform simultaneously. The progress bar turns amber when you pass 80% of a limit and red when you exceed it, so you can see at a glance which platforms you need to edit for.

The breakdown includes total characters, characters without spaces, letters only, numbers, spaces, word count, and line count — useful when a platform specifies its limit as “characters excluding spaces” or when you need to match a specific length requirement.

The tool works entirely in your browser — nothing is sent to any server, so you can safely paste sensitive content like login credentials, private messages, or confidential documents.

More free text tools: Word Counter tracks words and reading time live. Paragraph Counter shows your essay structure at a glance. Sentence Counter breaks down your text sentence by sentence.

More Text tools

Frequently Asked Questions

Does character count include spaces?

The tool shows both — characters with spaces and characters without spaces — so you can match whichever limit applies to your platform.

How many characters is a tweet?

Twitter/X allows 280 characters per post. URLs are always counted as 23 characters regardless of their actual length.

How many characters is an SMS?

160 GSM characters per segment. If you use emoji or special characters outside the GSM alphabet, the limit drops to 70 characters per segment and each segment counts as one SMS.

What's the ideal meta description length?

Aim for 120–158 characters to avoid truncation in most search result layouts. Google can show up to around 160 characters depending on the screen and query.

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