🔢 Character Counter
Type or paste your text to see the character count update live, the SMS segments it will be billed as, and how it measures against X's 280 and the meta description and title rules of thumb.
🔢 Count Your Characters
🔢 Character Count
| Limit | Counted | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Post on X (weighted) | 0 | 280 left of 280 |
| Meta description (rule of thumb) | 0 | 160 left of 160 |
| SEO title (rule of thumb) | 0 | 60 left of 60 |
| SMS, GSM-7 (160 in one, 153 a segment) | 0 | Empty |
Characters are what a reader sees, so a skin-toned emoji is one. An SMS is billed in segments: 160 GSM-7 characters fit one text and 153 fit each segment of a longer one, but a single character outside that alphabet (a curly apostrophe, an emoji, ë) switches the whole message to 70 and 67. X weighs its 280 by its published counting rules: links 23, emoji and most non-Latin characters 2. The meta description and title figures are rules of thumb, since search results cut by width on screen. Platforms change their rules; your provider's own counter is the final word.
What is a Character Counter?
A character counter measures the exact length of your text and compares it against the maximums imposed by the places you publish. Whether you're fitting a headline into an SEO title, a caption into a tweet, or an alert into a single SMS, it shows how many characters you have left and flags the moment you go over.
Because it recalculates instantly as you type, you can tighten a sentence and watch the remaining count climb back into the green — no guesswork, no truncated messages. It all runs locally in your browser, so your drafts stay private.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
Why do character limits matter?
Some limits cut your text and some cost money. A post on X stops at 280 by X's weighted count, and an SMS past one segment is sent and billed as several. Search results cut titles and descriptions by width on the screen, so the 60 and 160 character figures here are rules of thumb, not limits Google publishes.
Do spaces count towards the limit?
Yes — on nearly every platform a space is a character just like a letter. That's why this tool shows characters including spaces as the primary figure, and offers a separate no-spaces count for the rare case where you need it, such as certain form fields or word-density checks.
How is the SMS limit calculated?
A single SMS holds 160 characters when every character is in the GSM-7 alphabet. A longer message is split into segments of 153, because each carries a small header. One character outside the alphabet, such as a curly apostrophe from a word processor, an emoji or a letter like ë, switches the whole message to UCS-2: 70 characters in one text, 67 a segment, with each emoji counting as two. The characters € [ ] { } ~ \ | ^ are in GSM-7 but count as two. The counter names the characters that forced UCS-2 and shows the count if you swap the look-alikes for plain ones.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. The counter runs entirely in your browser and updates as you type, so nothing you paste is sent to a server. It's safe for confidential copy, unpublished announcements, and personal messages.