Character Counter

How to use the character counter

1. Type or paste your text into the box, or use Open file for a plain-text file (.txt, .csv, .md and similar). Example loads a sample post.
2. Read the panel: Characters, Without spaces, Words, Sentences, Lines, Bytes (UTF-8) and SMS update as you type.
3. Under Limits to show, pick All platforms, Social media, SEO and ads or None. Each row shows how many characters are used, the limit, and how many are left. A red bar and a minus sign mean you are over.
4. For a limit that is not in the table, such as a form field or a job application, enter it in Your own limit (optional). A bar appears with “characters left” or “characters over”.

The sample post has 144 characters and 121 without spaces. It fits an Instagram bio with 6 to spare but is 44 characters over a YouTube title, and because of its 📱 emoji it needs 3 SMS messages instead of 1.

What counts as one character

The main count is of characters as a reader sees them, which Unicode calls grapheme clusters. That matters for emoji and accents, because many of them are built from several code points behind the scenes. Code that uses JavaScript’s length counts UTF-16 code units instead, so 👍 comes out as 2. The counter avoids that.

Other rules:

• Spaces, tabs and line breaks count in Characters. Without spaces drops all of them, so two spaces is 15 characters and 9 without spaces. A Windows line break (CR + LF) counts as one character.
• Punctuation, digits and symbols count one each: Hello, world! is 13 characters.
• Invisible characters such as zero-width spaces count even though you cannot see them. If a count looks too high, run the text through remove invisible characters.
• Lines are counted as the text has them; a final line break does not start a new line.
• Bytes (UTF-8) is what databases and many APIs measure: plain English letters take 1 byte, accented letters 2, Chinese and Japanese characters 3 and most emoji 4.

How each platform counts

Platforms do not all count the same way, so each row of the limits table uses that platform’s own rule:

Two examples from the counter: Read more at https://example.com/a-very-long-path/that/keeps/going is 66 characters but only 36 on X, because the link counts 23. 日本語のテキスト is 8 characters but 16 on X and 16 of the 30 allowed in a Google Ads headline.

The Social media view shows X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon. SEO and ads shows the Google Ads, title tag and meta description rows. SMS and the UCAS personal statement appear only under All platforms. Limits change; the character limits cheat sheet lists each one with its source.

SMS: why one emoji can triple the cost

An SMS uses the GSM-7 alphabet when every character is in it: 160 characters fit in one message and 153 in each part of a longer one. Any other character, such as an emoji, a curly apostrophe or a Chinese character, switches the whole message to UCS-2, where one message holds 70 units and each part 67. Most emoji take 2 of those units.

The last row shows the GSM extension characters ^ { } \ [ ] ~ | and €: each costs 2. Text that is not GSM-7 shows a note under the panel listing the characters responsible, so you can swap ’ for ' or drop the emoji. Some SMS providers replace curly quotes automatically before sending; this counter reports the text exactly as written. To break a long message into parts, use the text splitter.

When people use it

• Social posts and ads. Checking an X post, a LinkedIn update or three Google Ads headlines before pasting them into the platform, where an error appears only after you hit the limit.
• Search snippets. Drafting a title tag and meta description so the important words come before Google cuts them off.
• Applications. The UCAS personal statement allows 4,000 characters in total including spaces, with at least 350 per answer, so paste all three answers together for the total. Essays with a word limit belong in the word counter.
• Database fields and forms. A VARCHAR column or an API field that counts bytes may reject text that looks short enough; the Bytes (UTF-8) figure shows the real size.
• Cleaning before counting. Text pasted from a PDF or a web page often carries double spaces and stray line breaks. Remove extra spaces first if they are not meant to be there.

Questions