Summary: count characters free and private with a character counter
A character counter reports how many characters a piece of text contains. To count characters free and privately, paste or type your text into the box above and read Characters, the total including spaces, in the first card. Without Spaces, Letters and Numbers sit beside it. Nothing is uploaded: the counting runs in your browser, and you can confirm that in the Network tab of your browser's DevTools.
Characters counts what you see, so ๐, ๐ซ๐ท and รฉ each count as one. Apps count differently, so the tool also shows Unicode code points, UTF-16 code units (JavaScript's length, which many maxlength limits use) and UTF-8 bytes (the size in files and databases). Type a number into the Character limit box and it shows how many characters remain.
For words, sentences and reading time, use the word counter, and for the number of lines use the line counter.
Table of Use: character limits and how counts differ
Limits as of October 2026. The figures for X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest and Google Ads come from the platforms' own help or developer documentation. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok do not publish all of these numbers, so those rows are widely reported limits that can differ by account or app version. SMS follows 3GPP TS 23.038 (character set) and TS 23.040 (concatenation).
| Where | Limit |
|---|---|
| X post | 280 characters on a standard account, 25,000 with X Premium; a link counts as 23, an emoji as 2, and each Chinese, Japanese or Korean character as 2 |
| Instagram caption and bio | 2,200 characters for a caption, 150 for the bio |
| Facebook post | 63,206 characters |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters |
| TikTok caption | 4,000 characters |
| YouTube title and description | 100 and 5,000 characters |
| Pinterest pin description | 800 characters (the title is limited to 100) |
| Google Ads responsive search ad | 30 characters per headline, 90 per description |
| SMS (single message) | 160 characters in the GSM alphabet, 70 if any character needs Unicode; longer messages are split into parts of 153 or 67 |
| Title tag and meta description | About 50 to 60 and 150 to 160 characters, a rule of thumb: Google truncates by pixel width, not a fixed count |
The same text can have several different lengths. These rows were produced by the counter above:
| Text | Characters | Code points | UTF-16 units | UTF-8 bytes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cafรฉ, with รฉ as one code point | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| cafรฉ, with e plus a combining accent | 4 | 5 | 5 | 6 |
| ๐ | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| ๐ซ๐ท | 1 | 2 | 4 | 8 |
| ๐จโ๐ฉโ๐ง | 1 | 5 | 8 | 18 |
| ๆฅๆฌ่ช | 3 | 3 | 3 | 9 |
Features
- Characters counted the way you see them. Letters with accents, flags and family emoji count once each, even when they are built from several code points. Browsers without Intl.Segmenter fall back to counting code points.
- Twelve counts. Characters, Without Spaces, Letters (any alphabet), Numbers, Special Characters (punctuation, symbols and emoji), Emoji, Whitespace, Non-ASCII Characters, Unique Characters, Unicode Code Points, UTF-16 Code Units and UTF-8 Bytes.
- Character limit (optional). Shows used and remaining characters, or how far over you are.
- Character Frequency Table. Rank, character, Unicode value, count and percentage, sorted by Frequency (highest first) or Code point (Unicode order). Invisible characters such as no-break spaces, zero-width spaces and byte order marks are named, so stray ones are easy to spot.
- Copy Statistics, Download Report and Clear. The report is a text file, character-counter-report.txt, with the counts, the frequency table if it is shown, and your original text.
- Responsive on long pastes. Counting is deferred while you type so the text box stays usable.
If the frequency table shows a character you do not want, such as a stray no-break space, the find and replace tool can remove it, and the remove empty lines tool and remove duplicate lines tool tidy up the rest. To see the numeric code of every character, try the text to ASCII converter, or read bits with the binary to text converter.
How to Use the Character Counter
- Type or paste your text into the box labelled Enter or paste your text.
- Read Characters, Without Spaces, Letters and Numbers in the four cards, and the rest under Detailed Character Breakdown.
- Optional: type a limit, for example 280, into Character limit (optional) to see how many characters remain.
- Under Display Options, keep Show character frequency table ticked and choose Sort by Frequency or Code point.
- Click Copy Statistics or Download Report to keep the numbers, and Clear to start again.
Who Can Use a Character Counter
Social media managers check posts, captions and bios against platform limits before publishing. SEO writers fit title tags and meta descriptions to the usual rule of thumb of about 60 and 160 characters, and the text case converter helps tidy headlines. Anyone sending SMS should know that one character outside the GSM alphabet, such as an emoji, switches a message to the 70-character limit; the Non-ASCII count is only a rough hint, because letters such as รฉ, รฑ and รผ are in the GSM alphabet. Developers compare UTF-16 and UTF-8 counts with maxlength attributes and database columns, and the text diff tool shows what changed between two drafts. Students and writers use Without Spaces for assignments that set a limit that way.
FAQs
How do I count characters in a text?
Paste or type the text into the box above. The Characters card shows the total, including spaces, tabs and line breaks, and it updates as you type. Without Spaces, Letters and Numbers sit beside it, and the Detailed Character Breakdown lists all twelve counts. To compare the total with a limit, type the limit into the Character limit box.
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes. Characters counts every character, including spaces, tabs and line breaks, and that is the figure most limits use, such as Instagram captions. Without Spaces counts everything except spaces, tabs and line breaks, which some essay and form limits ask for. If you are unsure which one applies, check the rule of the platform you are writing for.
Do emojis count as one character?
In the Characters total, yes: ๐, โค๏ธ, ๐ซ๐ท and ๐จโ๐ฉโ๐ง each count as 1 because that is what you see. Other systems count differently. Many input fields limit UTF-16 code units, where most emoji take 2 and a family emoji takes 8, and X counts each emoji as 2. The tool also shows code points, UTF-16 units and UTF-8 bytes so you can match whichever rule applies.
Why are the UTF-16 and UTF-8 counts different from the character count?
They measure storage, not what you see. JavaScript strings and many maxlength limits count UTF-16 code units: ordinary letters take 1 and most emoji take 2. UTF-8, the usual encoding for files and databases, uses 1 byte for ASCII, 2 for most accented letters and for Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew and Arabic, 3 for most other scripts such as Chinese, Japanese and Devanagari, and 4 for most emoji. Use the byte count when a database column or API limit is set in bytes.
How do I check my text against a character limit?
Type the limit, such as 280 or 160, into the Character limit (optional) box under the text area. The tool then shows how many characters you have used out of the limit and how many remain, or how far over the limit you are, and it updates as you edit. The limit must be a whole number greater than 0.
Does it count accented letters and other alphabets as letters?
Yes. Letters means letters from any alphabet, so รฉ, รฑ, รผ and Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Devanagari and Chinese characters are all letters. Numbers covers digits from any script plus characters such as ยฝ. Accented letters also appear in the Non-ASCII count, because they fall outside the 128 ASCII characters.
What are the character limits for X, Instagram and SMS?
As of October 2026, X allows 280 characters on a standard account and 25,000 with X Premium, Instagram captions allow 2,200, and a single SMS holds 160 characters in the GSM alphabet or 70 if any character needs Unicode. Platforms change limits, so check their help pages for anything critical. The table above lists more.
Is it safe to paste private text into a character counter?
Yes. The counting runs in your browser with JavaScript, and nothing you type or paste is uploaded or saved. The text exists only on the open page and is gone when you close or reload it. You can check this yourself by watching the Network tab in your browser's DevTools while you type.