Character Counter
Count characters, words, and lines in your text. Check Twitter, SMS, and meta description character limits instantly.
Character Counter
Platform Limits
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The character counter gives you an instant count of characters (with and without spaces), words, and lines in any text — plus colour-coded indicators showing whether you are within the character limits for Twitter/X, SMS messages, and Google meta descriptions. Character limits are everywhere: Twitter/X enforces 280 characters per tweet, SMS messages allow 160 characters before splitting into multiple texts, and Google displays up to 160 characters of a meta description in search results. Going over these limits means your message gets cut off — often at an awkward mid-sentence point. Content writers, social media managers, and SEO practitioners use this tool daily. Paste your tweet draft, SMS text, or meta description to instantly see whether you are over or under the relevant limit. The colour indicators (green = within limit, red = over limit) make it easy to spot problems at a glance without counting manually.
How to Use the Character Counter
The Character Counter is designed to give you an accurate answer in seconds. Follow these steps:
- 1Type or paste your text into the input box
- 2Character count, word count, and line count update instantly
- 3Check the Platform Limits section to see if you are within Twitter, SMS, and meta description limits
- 4Green indicators mean you are within the limit — red means you have exceeded it
No account or sign-up required. All calculations run locally in your browser — nothing is stored or transmitted to any server.
How It Works
Character count with spaces is the raw length of the text string — every character including spaces, punctuation, and line breaks contributes to the total. This is the metric used by Twitter, SMS systems, and most character limit validators. Character count without spaces removes all whitespace characters before counting. Some academic submission systems and legal documents use this metric. Word count splits on whitespace and counts non-empty tokens. Line count counts newline characters plus one for the first line of non-empty text. The limit indicators compare your current character count (with spaces) against three fixed thresholds: Twitter/X (280), SMS (160), and Google meta description (160). Green means you are within the limit; red means you have exceeded it and need to trim.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Twitter/X character limit?
Twitter/X allows 280 characters per tweet for most accounts. URLs always count as 23 characters regardless of their actual length. Images, videos, and GIFs do not count toward the character limit. Quoted tweets add the quoted content's characters to your total. The character counter here tracks your character count against the 280 limit in real time.
How many characters should a Google meta description be?
Google typically displays up to 160 characters of a meta description in desktop search results and around 120 characters on mobile. Going over 160 characters does not cause a penalty, but Google will truncate your description with an ellipsis — meaning the end of your carefully crafted description will not be shown. Target 140–155 characters to ensure the full description displays on both platforms.
How many characters can an SMS message contain?
A standard SMS allows 160 characters using GSM-7 encoding (the standard Latin alphabet character set). If you include special characters outside GSM-7 — such as emoji, curly quotes, or accented letters in some languages — the message switches to Unicode encoding and the limit drops to 70 characters per segment. Long messages are automatically split into multiple SMS segments and reassembled on the recipient's device.
What is the difference between character count and word count?
Character count counts every individual character including spaces and punctuation. Word count counts the number of distinct words separated by whitespace. "Hello world" is 11 characters (including the space) but 2 words. Character limits are used by platforms and systems that enforce storage or display constraints — word count is more useful for academic assignments and content length targets.
Do spaces count toward a character limit?
Yes — for virtually all platform character limits (Twitter, SMS, meta descriptions, ad headlines), spaces count as characters. This counter shows both the count with spaces (the relevant number for limit checks) and without spaces for reference. When trimming to fit a character limit, removing unnecessary double spaces, trailing spaces, and redundant words is the fastest path to reducing count.