Skip to content
FreeToolsDaily

Character counter

Count every character, with and without spaces, and check your text against common platform limits.

Free No sign-up Runs in your browser

How it works

How to use the Character Counter tool

  1. 1

    Paste your text

    Type or paste a tweet, caption, SMS, title or description.

  2. 2

    See counts instantly

    Characters, characters without spaces, words and bytes update as you type.

  3. 3

    Check the limits

    Progress bars show how your text fits X, SMS, SEO titles, meta descriptions and more.

Emoji and accents count correctly

Many simple counters count an emoji like 👍🏽 as two or four characters because of how text is stored internally. FreeToolsDaily counts what you actually see, called grapheme clusters, so each emoji and accented letter counts as one, as most social platforms do.

Why bytes matter

Databases, SMS gateways and some APIs limit text by bytes rather than characters. In UTF-8, an English letter takes 1 byte, while accented letters, non-Latin scripts and emoji take 2–4 bytes.

Limitations

We’d rather be upfront about what this tool can’t do yet:

  • Platform limits change from time to time; check the platform's own rules for critical uses.
  • X/Twitter counts links and some characters differently; the count here is a close guide.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Is my text saved or sent anywhere?

No. Everything is calculated in your browser as you type. Your text is never uploaded, stored or logged.

Do spaces count as characters?

Yes, in the main count. The “Without spaces” figure excludes spaces, tabs and line breaks.

How long should a meta description be?

Around 150–160 characters. Google shortens longer descriptions in search results.

How many characters fit in one SMS?

160 characters using the standard GSM alphabet. Emoji or non-Latin characters reduce this to 70.

Keep going

Related tools

All text & developer tools