This free character counter helps you track characters, words, and text length in real time — perfect for Twitter, SEO meta descriptions, SMS, and more. Includes a live platform limit bar for instant feedback.
🔒 No data is stored. Everything runs in your browser.
This free online character count tool takes under 10 seconds to use:
Click the text area and paste your content — a social media caption, meta description, SMS, or any text.
Characters, characters without spaces, word count, and line count all update in real-time as you type.
Click Twitter, Instagram, Meta Desc, or another platform button to activate a live progress bar showing how close you are to the limit.
Edit your text until it fits within the limit, then click Copy Text to copy it directly to your clipboard.
Here is a real example of checking a meta description character count against Google's limit:
The fix: remove "No signup required." (20 chars) to bring it to 161 — one character over, so trim one more word. This is exactly the kind of real-time editing that the platform limit bar makes instant.
For Google meta descriptions, click Meta Desc — 160 above. The progress bar turns yellow at 85% and red when you exceed 160 characters.
A character counter is a browser-based utility that measures the exact number of characters in any text, including letters, numbers, spaces, punctuation, and line breaks. It is useful wherever platforms enforce strict character limits rather than word limits.
Unlike a word counter, it counts every individual symbol. This matters for platforms like Twitter (280 char limit), Google meta descriptions (160 chars), and SMS messages (160 chars). If you also need to track keyword frequency in your content, try our Keyword Density Checker — it works alongside character counting for SEO content optimization.
Our tool updates instantly and also shows characters without spaces, word count, and line count — giving you four metrics in one place. You can also clean your text with our Whitespace Remover before running a final count.
All counting happens locally in your browser. Your text is never sent to our servers — safe for confidential drafts, client copy, and sensitive content.
Use the platform buttons above or refer to this table. Paste your text and the progress bar tracks your count in real time:
| Platform / Content Type | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | URLs count as 23 chars |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | First 125 chars shown in feed |
| Instagram bio | 150 | — |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | — |
| Facebook post | 63,206 | — |
| YouTube description | 5,000 | First 157 chars shown in search |
| Google meta description | 155–160 | Truncated in SERP beyond this |
| Google page title | 50–60 | ~600px pixel width limit |
| SMS message | 160 | Multi-part SMS if longer |
| Email subject line | 40–60 | Recommended for open rates |
| TikTok caption | 2,200 | — |
| Pinterest description | 500 | — |
Need more tools for text analysis and SEO content? Try these from QuickMicroTools: