W Words Counter AI
Live limits for Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn & SMS

Character counter — free and live.

Type or paste your text and watch the character count, remaining characters and SMS chunks update as you go. Works for English, emoji and CJK scripts.

Your text

Character limits by platform

A live cheat sheet for the platforms writers actually use. SMS counts assume GSM-7 encoding — emoji or special characters cut the limit to 70 per chunk.

PlatformLimitNotes
Twitter / X (post)280Premium goes to 25,000 but reach drops past ~280.
Twitter / X bio160Plus 30 for display name.
Instagram caption2,200Only first ~125 show before “More”.
Instagram bio150One link until you set up link-in-bio.
LinkedIn post3,0001,300 is the practical optimum for engagement.
LinkedIn headline220Searchable — keywords count.
Facebook post63,206But anything over 480 truncates with “See more”.
YouTube title100Recommend keeping under 60 for SERP previews.
YouTube description5,000First 157 show in search snippets.
SMS (GSM-7)160Drops to 153 per chunk if message is split.
SMS (Unicode / emoji)7067 per chunk if split.
Email subject line50Highest open rates around 41–50.
Meta description155–160Truncates in Google SERPs past ~160.

Other tools

Use the right counter for the job — same engine, different focus.

Word counter

The flagship tool — words, sentences, paragraphs, readability and top-words analysis on one page.

Open word counter →

Readability checker

Flesch, Flesch-Kincaid, Coleman-Liau and ARI — with a plain-English explainer for each.

Open readability checker →

Reading time calculator

Words to minutes for blog posts, scripts and presentations.

Open reading time →

Frequently asked questions

What’s the character limit for Twitter / X?
Twitter (now X) allows 280 characters per post for free accounts. Premium subscribers can post up to 25,000 characters but see falling reach beyond ~280. Direct messages allow up to 10,000 characters.
What’s the character limit for Instagram captions?
Instagram captions allow up to 2,200 characters, but only the first ~125 characters show before the More button. Hashtags count toward the total. Bios are limited to 150 characters.
How many characters can I send in one SMS?
A single SMS holds 160 characters (using GSM-7 encoding). If your message contains emoji or special characters (Unicode), the limit drops to 70 characters per SMS. Longer messages are split across multiple SMS units, with overhead reducing per-chunk capacity to 153 (GSM) or 67 (Unicode).
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes, spaces are characters. Twitter, SMS, Instagram and LinkedIn all count spaces. The “characters without spaces” figure is mainly used for academic word counts and some style guides.
Does this counter work for Chinese, Japanese or Arabic?
Yes. Each character counts as one regardless of script. Some platforms (notably Twitter) historically counted CJK characters as 2 — that has been changed for Twitter/X, but always check the platform’s current rules.