Social media character counter

What the social media character counter does

Every social network sets its own character cap, and they rarely agree. Text that fits comfortably in a Facebook post gets cut in half as a tweet, and a TikTok bio is far shorter than an Instagram one. This counter is built for exactly that problem: you type or paste your text once and instantly see, for each network, how many characters you have used and how many are left.

Unlike a generic counter, every network here shows its real limit next to a progress bar. While you are within range the bar stays green; as you approach the cap it turns amber; and if you go over, it turns red and tells you precisely how many characters you are over by. That way you know whether your text is ready to publish or needs trimming first.

How to use it

1. Type or paste your post, bio or title into the text box.
2. Check the summary on top: characters, characters without spaces and words.
3. Scan the list of networks and watch the bar and the “left” value on each one.
4. Need the text elsewhere? Hit Copy text.

Everything is calculated inside your browser: your text is never sent to a server.

The real limits per network

These are the current caps the tool uses. A limit is the maximum number of characters a network accepts in that field; going over it makes the text truncate or blocks the publish button.

How characters are counted

The method is simple: every character in your text is counted, including spaces, line breaks and punctuation. The formula for how much room you have left on each network is:

characters left = network limit − characters used

Accented letters and non-English characters count as a single character, just like a normal letter. The “without spaces” figure removes spaces and line breaks before counting, and the “words” figure counts groups of characters separated by spaces. One real caveat: some networks measure emojis as two characters instead of one, so if you lean on emojis, always leave a little slack.

Worked example

Say you want to publish this line:

New podcast episode is live now. Give it a listen and tell me what you think.

The counter returns 77 characters, 62 without spaces and 16 words. Applying the formula across several networks:

The same sentence sails through as a tweet with 203 characters to spare, yet it barely squeezes into a TikTok bio, where only 3 characters remain. If instead you pasted a 115-character title into YouTube, whose cap is 100, the bar would turn red and read “over by 15”.

Frequently asked questions

Do spaces count as characters?

Yes. On almost every network the limit includes spaces, line breaks and punctuation, so the counter adds them up. That is why we also show the “without spaces” total, handy when you want to know how much actual text you wrote.

Does an emoji count as one character?

It depends on the network. This tool counts each simple emoji as one character, but platforms like X often count many emojis as two. As a rule of thumb, if your text has several emojis, do not push it to the exact limit and keep a few characters of buffer.

Why does X allow 280 characters while Facebook allows over 63,000?

Each platform designs its fields with a different intent. X started as a short-message service and keeps posts brief; Facebook, by contrast, is built for long, blog-style updates. Bio limits are short everywhere because a bio is a summary, not a long piece of text.

Is my text stored or sent anywhere?

No. All counting happens in your own browser with JavaScript; the text never travels to a server and is not stored. You can safely use it with private drafts.

Are the limits up to date?

The values reflect each network’s public caps as of this page’s date. Platforms adjust them from time to time (X, for instance, offers longer posts to paid accounts), so before an important campaign it is worth confirming the cap directly in the app.