Social Media Character Counter
Paste your text to count characters (with and without spaces), words, and bytes in real time — and instantly see whether it fits Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, and LinkedIn limits. Everything runs in your browser; nothing is stored or sent anywhere.
Platform limit check
- Instagram caption0 / 2,200 · 2,200 left
Short enough to show fully without “more” (~125 chars)
- Threads post0 / 500 · 500 left
- X (Twitter) post0 / 280 · 280 left
CJK characters and emoji count as 2 (Korean-only text: ~140 max)
- YouTube title0 / 100 · 100 left
- LinkedIn post0 / 3,000 · 3,000 left
- Instagram bio0 / 150 · 150 left
Character limits by platform
Current character limits across major social platforms (as of 2026). Going over a limit either blocks publishing or truncates your post — check with the counter above before you hit publish.
| Platform | Field | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Caption | 2,200 chars | Feed truncates after ~125 chars behind “more” — put the hook first | |
| Hashtags | 30 max | Posts with more than 30 hashtags are rejected | |
| Bio | 150 chars | Including links and emoji | |
| Threads | Post | 500 chars | Split longer pieces into a connected thread |
| X (Twitter) | Post | 280 chars | CJK characters count as 2 — Korean-only text maxes out around 140 |
| YouTube | Title | 100 chars | Search results often cut titles around 70 characters |
| YouTube | Description | 5,000 chars | Only the first 2–3 lines show before the fold — key links go on top |
| Post | 3,000 chars | Feed collapses after the first 2–3 lines behind “see more” |
Tips for working within the limits
Win the first 125 characters
Instagram folds captions behind “more” after roughly 125 characters. Put your core message and hook inside those first 125 characters, and push details and hashtags below the fold.
Treat X as 140 characters for CJK text
X's 280-character limit counts Korean, Chinese, and Japanese characters as 2 each. If you write mostly in a CJK language, plan for about 140 characters of real space.
Rewrite per platform, don't just crop
The same idea works better short and conversational on Threads (500) and longer and structured on LinkedIn (3,000). Keep one source text and reshape it for each platform's grammar.
Line breaks and spaces count too
The blank lines you add for readability count toward the limit on most platforms. When you're close to a limit, watch the with-spaces number, not the without-spaces one.
Frequently asked questions
- Do spaces count as characters?
- Yes. Instagram, Threads, X, and most other platforms count spaces and line breaks toward the limit. This tool shows both with-spaces and without-spaces counts, and the platform checks use the with-spaces count — the same way the platforms do.
- Where does Instagram's “more” cut the caption?
- In the feed, Instagram collapses captions after roughly 125 characters (including line breaks). The exact point varies slightly by device and language, so keep your core message within the first 125 characters. The full caption limit is 2,200 characters.
- Why is X effectively 140 characters for Korean?
- X weights characters differently: Latin letters, digits, and basic punctuation count as 1, while CJK characters and emoji count as 2. The total weight must stay under 280, so Korean-heavy text effectively maxes out around 140 characters. The X row in this tool applies the same weighting. One difference: X counts every link as 23 characters regardless of its real length, while this tool counts links character by character — so text with links may read slightly longer here.
- How are emoji counted?
- This tool counts each emoji as one character, the way a person sees it (grapheme-based, per the Unicode standard). Platforms may differ — X counts emoji as 2, for example. The byte count shows how much space the text takes in UTF-8 if you need a storage-based figure.
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