Last updated: March 2026
Character Limits by Platform
Every platform has character limits, and knowing them saves you from awkward truncation. Here's a comprehensive list of the limits that matter most for writers, marketers, and anyone publishing content online.
Social Media: Twitter/X allows 280 characters per tweet (up from the original 140). Instagram captions can be 2,200 characters, but only the first ~125 characters show before the "more" link. Facebook posts allow 63,206 characters. LinkedIn posts get 3,000 characters. TikTok captions allow 4,000 characters.
SEO: Google displays roughly 60 characters for title tags before truncating with "...". Meta descriptions show about 155-160 characters. URLs display up to ~512 pixels wide (roughly 50-60 characters). Going over these limits means Google may rewrite your snippets.
Messaging: Standard SMS has a 160-character limit per segment. Going over splits your message into multiple texts, which costs more and may arrive out of order. WhatsApp allows 65,536 characters. Slack messages can be 40,000 characters.
Email: Email subject lines should stay under 50-60 characters to avoid truncation on mobile. Preheader text (the preview shown after the subject) should be 40-130 characters. There's no hard limit on email body length, but shorter emails typically get higher engagement.
Our letter counter tracks the most important limits in real-time with color-coded progress bars — green when you're safely under, amber when approaching the limit, and red when you've exceeded it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between letters and characters?
Letters are alphabetic characters (a-z, A-Z). Characters include everything — letters, numbers, spaces, punctuation, and symbols. Our counter shows both characters with spaces and characters without spaces.
How are spaces counted?
The 'Characters (with spaces)' count includes all whitespace characters — regular spaces, tabs, and newlines. The 'Characters (no spaces)' count excludes all whitespace.
What platforms have character limits?
Twitter/X allows 280 characters, Instagram captions 2,200, Facebook posts 63,206, LinkedIn 3,000, Google title tags ~60, meta descriptions ~160, and YouTube titles 100.
Can I count characters in a specific selection?
Currently the counter analyzes all text in the input box. To count a specific section, paste just that section into the text area.
Does it handle emoji and Unicode?
Yes. Emoji and Unicode characters are counted. Note that some emoji use multiple Unicode code points but appear as one character. JavaScript's .length counts code units, which may differ from visible characters for complex emoji.