About the Character Counter
Most character counters give you one number. This one gives you the number each place you post will use: the visible characters (an emoji counts once), the characters without spaces, the UTF-8 bytes a database or API stores, and how many characters you have left on X, Threads, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, SMS and in a search result.
How to use it
- Paste or type your text.
- Read the character count, with and without spaces, at the top.
- Check the limits list. A bar turns red when you go past a platform's cap.
Example
- Input
- Café 👍🏽
- Result
- 6 characters · 5 without spaces · 13 bytes in UTF-8
Questions
Do emoji count as one character?
Here, yes: a thumbs-up with a skin tone is one visible character. Some platforms count it as two, and in UTF-8 it takes eight bytes. That is why the page shows both characters and bytes.
How accurate are the platform limits?
They are the published caps, and they are close estimates. Platforms have their own rules: X counts every link as 23 characters whatever its length, for example. Leave a few characters spare when you are near a limit.
Why count bytes?
Databases, SMS gateways and many APIs limit length in bytes, not characters. Accented letters take two bytes in UTF-8 and most emoji take four, so a 255-character field can overflow with fewer than 255 characters.