# Character counter

> Count characters with and without spaces, X's weighted 280 count, SMS parts, and limits for Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and meta tags. Free, in your browser.

URL: https://tools.cuelark.com/character-counter
Publisher: Cuelark Team (https://cuelark.com)
Updated: 2026-11-10
Price: free, no sign-up
Privacy: runs in the browser; files are not uploaded

Paste text to count characters with and without spaces, check X's weighted 280-character count, see how many SMS messages it takes, and compare against Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and SEO title limits.

## How to use it

1. Type or paste the text.
2. Read characters with and without spaces at the top.
3. Check the bar for the platform you are posting to; red means over.

## Details

- **X (Twitter):** 280 weighted characters: Latin text counts 1, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and emoji count 2, every link counts 23 (twitter-text rules)
- **Instagram:** Caption up to 2,200 characters
- **LinkedIn:** Post up to 3,000 characters
- **YouTube:** Title up to 100 characters, description up to 5,000
- **SMS:** 160 GSM-7 characters in one message, 153 per part when split; any other character switches to Unicode at 70 (67 per part)

## Questions

### Is anything I type sent anywhere?

No. The calculation runs in this page with JavaScript; dates, text and numbers are never uploaded or stored on a server.

### Do spaces count as characters?

Yes, on every social platform and in SMS. 'Without spaces' is shown for forms and assignments that ask for it.

### Why does X say I have fewer characters left?

X weights characters: Japanese, Chinese, Korean and emoji count as two, and every link counts as 23 regardless of its length. The X bar uses those rules, so it matches the counter in the post box.

### Why did my SMS become two messages?

One character outside the GSM-7 set (an emoji, a curly quote or Hindi text) switches the whole message to Unicode, where the limit drops from 160 to 70. The SMS line shows the encoding and number of parts.

### What is the right length for a title tag?

Google has no fixed character limit; it truncates by pixel width, usually around 50 to 60 characters. The bar is a guide, not a rule.

## Related tools

- [Word counter](https://tools.cuelark.com/word-counter)
- [文字数カウント (Japanese character counter)](https://tools.cuelark.com/japanese-character-counter)
- [Token counter](https://tools.cuelark.com/token-counter)
- [Image to text (OCR)](https://tools.cuelark.com/image-to-text)