Character Counter for Social Media — X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, SMS
One box, every platform's limit — counted the way each platform counts, including X's 23-character links and the SMS alphabet switch.
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X counts links as 23 characters and most emoji and non-Latin characters as two; SMS switches from 160 to 70 characters per segment as soon as one character is outside the basic GSM alphabet. Limits are the platforms' published values and change occasionally.
Check a post against every platform's character limit at once: X, Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Instagram captions and bios, Facebook, LinkedIn posts and headlines, TikTok, YouTube titles and descriptions, Pinterest, Reddit, SEO meta titles and descriptions, and SMS. The counts follow each platform's own rules — X counts every link as 23 characters and most emoji as two; SMS drops from 160 to 70 characters per message as soon as you use a character outside the basic alphabet.
How to use Social Media Character Counter
- Write or paste the post.
- Read the bars: green fits, amber is close, red is over — with how many characters to cut.
- The hashtag, emoji and word counts at the top cover the other limits (Instagram's 30 hashtags, for instance).
Why the counts differ from a plain character count
X uses "weighted" counting: any URL counts as 23 characters no matter its length (it is wrapped in a t.co link), and characters outside the basic Latin ranges — emoji, CJK, most symbols — count as two, so a post full of emoji runs out of room at 140. Instagram, LinkedIn and the others count visible characters, which this counter does by grapheme clusters, so a flag emoji or a family emoji is one character, as the apps count it. SMS is the strange one: the GSM-7 alphabet allows 160 characters per message; one curly quote, accented letter outside the set or emoji switches the whole message to UCS-2 encoding at 70 characters, and long messages are split into segments of 153 or 67.
The limits
X 280 (longer for paying subscribers), Threads 500, Bluesky 300, Mastodon 500 (server-configurable), Instagram captions 2,200 and bios 150, Facebook 63,206, LinkedIn posts 3,000 and headlines 220, TikTok captions 4,000, YouTube titles 100 and descriptions 5,000, Pinterest 500, Reddit titles 300. Meta titles (about 60) and descriptions (about 160) are not hard limits — Google truncates by pixel width — but they are the conventional targets. Platforms adjust these occasionally; the figures here are the current published values.
Shorter is better anyway
Engagement studies on every network agree that posts well under the limit perform best: the first line decides whether anyone reads the rest, and "see more" folds hide everything after a few lines on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Use the limit as a ceiling, not a target.
For plain word and character counts, the word counter; to preview a page's search snippet, the SERP preview.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my X count higher than the number of characters?
X counts every link as 23 characters regardless of length, and emoji, CJK characters and most symbols as two each. A post that is 200 characters long can weigh 280 on X. The counter applies the same rules.
Why did my SMS limit drop from 160 to 70?
One character outside the basic GSM alphabet — an emoji, a curly quote, an accented letter such as ő — forces the whole message into UCS-2 encoding, which fits 70 characters per message. Replace that character and the limit returns to 160.
Are hashtags and mentions counted?
Yes, as ordinary characters on every platform. Instagram additionally allows at most 30 hashtags per post, which the caption row reports separately.
Are the limits up to date?
They are the platforms' current published values. X allows longer posts for paying subscribers, Mastodon servers can raise their limit, and platforms revise limits occasionally; treat a result within a few characters of the line as "check on the platform".
How are emoji counted on Instagram and LinkedIn?
As one visible character each, including flags and family emoji made of several code points — the way the apps count them. Only X uses the two-per-emoji rule.