About the Character Counter
This character counter shows how long your text is while you type: characters including spaces, characters without spaces, words, lines, sentences, paragraphs and an estimated reading time. Paste a meta description, a post, an SMS or an ad headline and see straight away whether it fits the limit you are working with.
Characters are counted as Unicode code points, so an accented letter like é or a Chinese character counts as one. Some emoji are built from several code points joined together (a family emoji or a flag, for example) and count as more than one, which is also how many platforms count them. Social networks and SMS gateways sometimes apply their own weighting on top of that, noted in the limits below.
The count updates on every keystroke and the text never leaves your browser, so it is safe for drafts, internal documents and anything else you would rather not paste into an online service.
How to use it
- Paste or type your text into the box.
- Read characters (with spaces) for most platform limits, or characters without spaces when a brief asks for that.
- Edit until the count fits the limit you need.
- Use the word, sentence and reading-time numbers for longer texts.
Examples
- A meta description of 158 characters: fits the roughly 155 to 160 characters Google usually shows on desktop.
- An SEO title of 72 characters: likely to be cut off in search results, aim for about 60.
- An SMS of 165 plain characters: split into two messages, because one GSM-7 SMS holds 160.
- An SMS with one emoji: the whole message switches to Unicode encoding and one part holds only 70 characters.
- An X (Twitter) post of 281 characters: one too many for a standard account.
Common character limits
- SEO title tag: about 50 to 60 characters before Google truncates (the real limit is pixel width).
- Meta description: about 155 to 160 characters on desktop, less on mobile.
- X (Twitter) post: 280 characters for standard accounts; links count as 23.
- SMS: 160 characters in GSM-7, 70 when any Unicode character or emoji is present.
- Google Ads responsive search ad: headlines 30 characters, descriptions 90.
- Instagram caption: 2,200 characters. LinkedIn post: 3,000 characters.
- YouTube video title: 100 characters.
Characters with and without spaces
Characters with spaces is what almost every platform, form field and database column limit refers to. Characters without spaces is mainly used in translation and publishing, where it gives a length measure that does not depend on formatting. Line breaks count as whitespace, so they are included in the first number and excluded from the second.
Frequently asked questions
How do I count characters in a text?
Paste the text into the box above. The character count, with and without spaces, updates immediately.
Do spaces count as characters?
In almost every limit, yes. The counter shows both numbers so you can use whichever your platform or brief requires.
How are emoji counted?
As Unicode code points. A simple emoji counts as one or two, and combined emoji such as flags or family groups count as several, similar to how many platforms count them.
Is this also a word counter?
Yes. It shows words, lines, sentences, paragraphs and reading time next to the character counts.
Is my text stored?
No. Counting happens in your browser and nothing is uploaded.