ToolFeather
Text & WritingRuns in your browser

Character Counter

Count characters and words instantly, with live 'characters remaining' for the limits that matter — tweets, SMS, meta tags and captions.

Quick presets

Character Counter

Characters
0
No spaces
0
Words
0
Sentences
0
Paragraphs
0
Lines
0
Reading time
0
UTF-8 bytes
0
SMS –
Platform limits

“Characters” counts what you see (grapheme clusters), so an emoji like 👍🏽 counts as one. Some platforms count differently — X counts most emoji as two.

Runs in your browser — nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.

ToolFeather · Limit checks
Scratchpad auto-saved
Stored in this browser (localStorage)

About the Character Counter

A character counter tells you exactly how long a piece of text is — not just in words, but in the units that actually matter when you are writing for a platform with hard limits. As you type or paste, every figure updates live, so there is no button to press and nothing to submit.

The top grid breaks your text down into characters (with and without spaces), words, sentences, paragraphs and lines, and estimates reading time at a comfortable 200 words per minute. The limits panel below shows how many characters you have left for a tweet, an SMS message, a Google meta description, an SEO title tag and an Instagram caption — the number turns red the moment you go over.

Everything is calculated in your browser, so you can safely count sensitive drafts, client copy or unpublished posts without any of it being uploaded.

Examples

Drafting a tweet → watch the X / Twitter (280) figure so you trim before it turns red.
Writing a meta description → keep the Meta description (160) counter at or above zero for a clean Google snippet.
Checking an essay → read the Words and Reading time stats to gauge length at a glance.

Character limits that matter

WhereLimitNotes
X / Twitter post280Links & media counted specially
SMS (single)16070 if using emoji/special characters
Google title tag~60Longer titles get truncated in results
Google meta description~160Aim for 150–160 to avoid truncation
Instagram caption2,200Only first ~125 shown before 'more'
Facebook post (ideal)~80Shorter posts get more engagement
LinkedIn headline220Profile headline field

Writing to the right length is half the battle in social and SEO. Paste your text above and the counter shows characters remaining against each of these limits in real time, turning red the moment you go over.

Frequently asked questions

10 answers
How is reading time calculated?
It assumes an average adult reading speed of 200 words per minute. Very short texts are shown in seconds so the estimate stays meaningful.
Do the character counts include spaces?
The main 'Characters' figure includes spaces and line breaks. A separate 'Characters (no spaces)' figure strips all whitespace for platforms that count differently.
Why does a limit number turn red?
Red means you have exceeded that platform's limit — the number becomes negative to show how many characters you need to cut.
How are sentences counted?
A sentence is counted at each run of text ending in a period, question mark or exclamation point, plus any trailing text with no final punctuation.
Is my text stored or sent anywhere?
No. All counting happens locally in your browser, so nothing you type is uploaded or saved.
What is the character limit for a tweet / X post?
A standard X (Twitter) post is 280 characters. Links and some other elements are counted specially by the platform, but 280 is the figure to write to. This counter shows how many characters you have left as you type.
What is the ideal meta description and title length for SEO?
Aim for a meta description of about 150–160 characters and a title tag of about 50–60 characters, so Google is less likely to truncate them in search results. The counter flags when you exceed these.
What is the SMS character limit?
A single SMS is 160 characters (using standard GSM encoding). Longer messages are split into multiple segments, and using emoji or special characters can lower the per-segment limit to 70.
Does it count spaces as characters?
Yes — spaces are characters and count toward limits like tweets and SMS, so the tool includes them. It also shows a separate count without spaces where that's useful.
Is my text uploaded?
No — counting happens entirely in your browser, so it's safe for private or unpublished text.