How many characters does X / Twitter allow in a post?

A standard X (formerly Twitter) post is capped at 280 characters, counted by code point, and this tool turns its bar red the moment you pass 280. Links count as 23 characters regardless of their real length, so a tweet with one URL effectively has 257 characters of room. X Premium subscribers can post much longer, but 280 is still the limit that controls whether your post shows in full to everyone.

Does a Chinese character count as one character or two?

On every social platform here a Chinese character counts as one character, exactly like an English letter, because the counter measures Unicode code points rather than bytes. So 微博 is 2 characters and 你好世界 is 4. The one place the rule changes is SMS: an SMS that contains any Chinese character is encoded in UCS-2, where each character takes 2 bytes, which is why the SMS panel shows a much smaller per-segment allowance than the social rows.

Why does an SMS with Chinese or emoji only fit 70 characters?

Plain Latin SMS uses the GSM-7 alphabet and fits 160 characters in one segment. The moment a single character falls outside that alphabet, such as any emoji or any Chinese character, the carrier re-encodes the entire message in UCS-2, which only fits 70 characters per segment. There is no partial mode: one emoji in an otherwise English text drops the whole message from 160 to 70, and concatenated UCS-2 messages fit only 67 per segment because of header overhead.

What is the Instagram bio character limit?

An Instagram bio is limited to 150 characters, far shorter than the 2200 characters allowed in a post caption. The counter gives the bio and the caption separate rows so you can write both at once and see which fits where. Because emoji and line breaks each consume from that 150, a bio that looks short on screen can still hit the cap, and the bar will flag it before you try to save.

How long should a meta title and meta description be?

Aim for roughly 60 characters for an SEO meta title and 160 characters for a meta description. Google renders titles by pixel width rather than a hard character count, but 60 is the practical safe point before it truncates with an ellipsis; descriptions usually clip around 155 to 160. The tool puts both in the SEO section so you can size a page title and snippet against the same text you are counting for social.

Does the ignore spaces option change the social platform limits?

The ignore spaces toggle only changes the headline character total it shows you; the platform bars always count exactly what the platform counts, which includes spaces. Use ignore spaces when you want to know how many visible glyphs you wrote, for example to compare two captions by content density, then untoggle it to read the true remaining room each platform gives you including every space and line break.

Trim a tweet to fit under 280

You drafted a thought that runs to 340 characters and X will not let it post. Paste it here, watch the X bar glow red at 60 over, and cut words until the bar turns green at 280. Because the counter measures code points, the emoji you added counts as the single character X sees, so you trim to the real limit rather than a byte estimate.

Write an Instagram bio that actually fits 150

Bios feel short until you add three emoji and a line break and suddenly the save button rejects you. Type the bio here, keep the Instagram bio row green, and you know it will save on the first try. Compare it against the caption row at the same time if you are reusing the copy.

Size an SMS campaign before you get billed for 3 segments

One emoji in a promo text flips the whole message to UCS-2 and your 160 character budget collapses to 70, quietly turning a one-segment send into three at triple the cost. The SMS panel shows the encoding and segment count live, so you see the cost jump before you schedule the blast and can swap the emoji for a word.

Fit a meta title and description for a new page

Drafting the SEO snippet for a landing page, you need the title near 60 and the description near 160 so Google does not truncate them. Paste each, read the meta rows, and ship a snippet that renders in full on the results page instead of trailing off into an ellipsis.

Social Media Character Counter for Twitter, Instagram, Weibo and SMS

Count characters against real X, Instagram, Weibo, LinkedIn, TikTok and SMS limits as you type, all in your browser

Runs locally
Category Text
Best for Removing repetitive cleanup work from everyday writing and operations.

Ignore spaces

Your text

Characters: 0No spaces: 0

Social platforms

X / Twitter post0 / 280 (280 left)

Twitter DM0 / 10000 (10000 left)

Instagram caption0 / 2200 (2200 left)

Instagram bio0 / 150 (150 left)

Facebook post0 / 63206 (63206 left)

Weibo post0 / 2000 (2000 left)

LinkedIn post0 / 3000 (3000 left)

TikTok caption0 / 2200 (2200 left)

YouTube title0 / 100 (100 left)

YouTube description0 / 5000 (5000 left)

Threads post0 / 500 (500 left)

SMSGSM-7 · per segment 160

0segments0 / 160

SEO meta tags

Meta title (SEO)0 / 60 (60 left)

Meta description (SEO)0 / 160 (160 left)

What this tool does

A live character counter that checks one piece of text against the real length limits of every major social platform at once. Type or paste a caption, tweet, bio, ad headline or SMS and each platform gets its own progress bar showing exactly how many characters you have left or how far you went over. The caps are the real 2026 numbers: X / Twitter 280, Twitter DM 10000, Instagram caption 2200, Instagram bio 150, Facebook post 63206, Weibo 2000, LinkedIn post 3000, TikTok caption 2200, YouTube title 100, YouTube description 5000, Threads 500, plus SEO meta title 60 and meta description 160. Characters are counted by Unicode code point, so one emoji or one Chinese character is one character, never two surrogate halves. A toggle drops whitespace when you only care about visible letters. SMS gets its own panel: plain text bills at 160 per segment in GSM-7, but a single emoji or one Chinese character flips the whole message to UCS-2 at 70 per segment, and concatenated messages drop to 153 or 67. Copy the text back out with one click. Everything runs locally and the text never leaves the page.

Tool details

Input: Text; The page exposes text boxes, numeric controls, file pickers, or structured inputs depending on the tool.
Output: Live result + Copy + Preview; The result area focuses on usable output, with copy, download, or preview actions when supported.
Privacy: Browser-side processing; The main tool logic does not call an external API, so inputs normally stay in the current tab.
Save / share: Shareable URL state; Key settings are encoded in the URL so another person can reopen the same setup.
Performance budget: Initial JS <= 9 KB; No WASM budget is declared, keeping the tool quick to open on mobile.
Best fit: Text · Marketer; Category and role tags drive related tools, internal links, and quick fit checks.

How to use

1. Input

Paste or drop your content into the tool panel.
2. Process

Click the button. All processing is local in your browser.
3. Copy / Download

Copy the result or download to disk in one click.

How Social Media Character Counter fits into your work

Use it to clean, compare, reshape, or extract plain text before it goes into a document, CMS, spreadsheet, or prompt.

Text jobs

Removing repetitive cleanup work from everyday writing and operations.
Making text easier to compare, paste, publish, or feed into another tool.
Working with content locally when the text is private or unfinished.

Text checks

Scan for unintended whitespace, duplicate lines, and lost punctuation.
For long text, test the first few lines before applying the whole change.
Copy the final output only after checking the preview.

Good next steps

These links move the current task into a more complete workflow.

Real-world use cases

Trim a tweet to fit under 280
You drafted a thought that runs to 340 characters and X will not let it post. Paste it here, watch the X bar glow red at 60 over, and cut words until the bar turns green at 280. Because the counter measures code points, the emoji you added counts as the single character X sees, so you trim to the real limit rather than a byte estimate.
Write an Instagram bio that actually fits 150
Bios feel short until you add three emoji and a line break and suddenly the save button rejects you. Type the bio here, keep the Instagram bio row green, and you know it will save on the first try. Compare it against the caption row at the same time if you are reusing the copy.
Size an SMS campaign before you get billed for 3 segments
One emoji in a promo text flips the whole message to UCS-2 and your 160 character budget collapses to 70, quietly turning a one-segment send into three at triple the cost. The SMS panel shows the encoding and segment count live, so you see the cost jump before you schedule the blast and can swap the emoji for a word.
Fit a meta title and description for a new page
Drafting the SEO snippet for a landing page, you need the title near 60 and the description near 160 so Google does not truncate them. Paste each, read the meta rows, and ship a snippet that renders in full on the results page instead of trailing off into an ellipsis.

Common pitfalls

Assuming an emoji counts as one character on SMS. It does on every social platform here, but on SMS one emoji re-encodes the whole text to UCS-2 and cuts your per-segment room from 160 to 70. Watch the SMS panel, not the social bars, before a paid blast.
Forgetting that links still eat characters on X. A long URL counts as a flat 23 characters on X, so a tweet that looks like 240 visible characters can already be at 263 once the link is added. Add the link to the text before trusting the X bar.
Trusting a byte-based counter for Chinese. Tools that count UTF-8 bytes report a Chinese caption as roughly triple its real length and make you cut text you did not need to. This counter measures code points, so 你好世界 is 4 characters, matching what the platform sees.

Privacy

Every count, every progress bar and the SMS segment math run as plain JavaScript inside your browser tab. The caption, tweet, bio or SMS you type is never uploaded and never logged. The one caveat: the shareable link encodes your text in the query string, so pasting a share link into chat will record that text in the recipient server access log. For a private draft, use the copy button and paste the text rather than the URL.

FAQ

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Social Media Character Counter for Twitter, Instagram, Weibo and SMS

What this tool does

Tool details

How to use

1. Input

2. Process

3. Copy / Download

How Social Media Character Counter fits into your work

Text jobs

Text checks

Good next steps

Real-world use cases

Trim a tweet to fit under 280

Write an Instagram bio that actually fits 150

Size an SMS campaign before you get billed for 3 segments

Fit a meta title and description for a new page

Common pitfalls

Privacy

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