Character Counter
Live counts as you type — characters, words, reading time, and platform limits for X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Discord, and SMS.
Platform limits
Frequently asked questions
How is the character count calculated?
Counts use grapheme clusters — what you actually see as one character. So a single emoji like ❤️ counts as 1, even though it's stored as multiple bytes internally. This matches what Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok display in their own counters.
Does Twitter / X count emojis as 1 character?
X (Twitter) counts most emojis as 2 weighted characters because of how its API encodes them. Plain ASCII counts as 1, CJK characters (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) count as 2, and most URLs are shortened to a fixed 23 characters regardless of length. The counter on this page shows grapheme count; for X-specific weighted count, expect 1.5–2× more.
What is the Instagram bio character limit?
150 characters. The counter on this page enforces that limit with a live progress bar — if it goes red, your bio will be truncated when posted.
What is the TikTok caption character limit?
2,200 characters for video captions, 80 characters for the profile bio. Both are tracked live below.
How is the SMS limit calculated?
Plain text SMS allows 160 characters per message (GSM-7 encoding). Adding any non-Latin character or emoji switches the message to UCS-2 encoding, which drops the limit to 70 characters per part. Long messages get split and reassembled on delivery.
What counts as a word?
Anything separated by whitespace (spaces, tabs, line breaks). The reading-time estimate uses the standard 200 words per minute; speaking time uses 130 words per minute, which matches an average podcast or audiobook narration pace.