Character Counter
Count characters in real time with live limits for Twitter/X, SMS, meta descriptions and more.
How to Use
- Type or paste your text into the input box.
- The character count updates live, with and without spaces.
- Check the platform limit bars to see how close you are to common limits.
- Use Clear to start over.
When to Use This
- Writing a meta description to the 160-character guideline is easier with a bar showing the remaining room before search results truncate it.
- Drafting an SMS campaign where each segment carries a cost, the segment line marks the moment the message tips into a second part.
- Composing a post for X against the 280 limit shows headroom as you type rather than after the compose box rejects it.
- Checking a title tag against 60 characters while writing avoids a round trip through a separate search result preview tool.
Frequently Asked Questions
About This Tool
One character is not a settled unit. A program can count bytes, code points, UTF-16 code units, or grapheme clusters, which is what a reader calls a letter. The four agree on plain ASCII and diverge the moment an emoji, a flag or a combining accent appears. Platforms that publish a limit each pick their own answer, which is why a message can fit in one place and overflow in another.
This counter reports the JavaScript string length, that is UTF-16 code units: ASCII and most European and Indic letters count as one, emoji outside the basic plane as two. The second figure strips all whitespace, newlines and tabs included. Four fixed bars track 280 characters for an X post, 160 for a single SMS, 160 for a meta description and 60 for a title tag, and the segment line shows one segment to 160 characters, then one per 153.
Notes & Limits
- Counting is per UTF-16 code unit, so most emoji add two, a flag or a skin-toned emoji adds more, and a letter plus a combining accent adds two.
- The SMS estimate assumes the GSM-7 alphabet; one emoji or non-Latin character switches a message to UCS-2, where segments hold 70 and 67 characters.
- Search engines truncate titles and descriptions by rendered pixel width rather than character count, so 60 and 160 are guidelines and not hard cuts.
- The four limits are fixed here, so use Word Counter when you need to set a target of your own and track it against a bar.