Social Media Character Counter (X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok)
Count characters the way each platform does: X weighted count with links as 23, Bluesky, Threads, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Discord limits.
Basic counts: 126 visible characters (graphemes), 127 code points, 127 UTF-16 units, 131 UTF-8 bytes · 1 link · 1 hashtag · 0 mentions.
Limits checked on 8 November 2026; platforms change them without notice. X, Bluesky, Threads and the TikTok and YouTube APIs document how they count; for the others UTF-16 units are used, which is what most web forms count, so an emoji usually uses 2.
| Platform | Limit | Used | Left | Status | How it is counted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) post | 280 | 111 | 169 | OK | Weighted: most Latin characters 1, CJK, Hangul and emoji 2, every link 23 |
| X Premium post | 25,000 | 111 | 24,889 | OK | Same weighting; posts over 280 show “Show more” |
| Bluesky post | 300 | 126 | 174 | OK | Graphemes (what you see as one character) |
| Threads post | 500 | 131 | 369 | OK | Characters, with emoji counted as their UTF-8 bytes |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 | 127 | 2,073 | OK | UTF-16 units (emoji usually 2); 5 hashtags at most (announced December 2025) |
| Instagram bio | 150 | 127 | 23 | OK | UTF-16 units; limit shown in the app |
| TikTok caption (in the app) | 4,000 | 127 | 3,873 | OK | Widely reported in-app limit, not in TikTok’s documentation; UTF-16 units |
| TikTok caption via API or scheduler | 2,200 | 127 | 2,073 | OK | TikTok’s developer docs: 2,200 UTF-16 units |
| YouTube title | 100 | 127 | -27 | Over by 27 | UTF-16 units; < and > are not allowed |
| YouTube description | 5,000 | 131 | 4,869 | OK | UTF-8 bytes, as YouTube’s API documents it, so non-Latin text and emoji take 2–4 each; < and > are not allowed |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 | 127 | 2,873 | OK | UTF-16 units |
| Facebook post | 63,206 | 127 | 63,079 | OK | Widely quoted figure, not published by Meta; UTF-16 units |
| Pinterest Pin title | 100 | 127 | -27 | Over by 27 | UTF-16 units |
| Pinterest Pin description | 800 | 127 | 673 | OK | UTF-16 units |
| Discord message | 2,000 | 127 | 1,873 | OK | 4,000 with Nitro |
| Google search title (guide) | 60 | 127 | -67 | Over by 67 | Google cuts by pixel width (about 600 px), not a fixed count |
| Meta description (guide) | 160 | 127 | 33 | OK | Shown up to about 920 px on desktop; shorter on mobile |
Every platform counts characters differently. X gives Chinese, Japanese, Korean and emoji double weight and counts every link as 23 characters, Bluesky counts what you see, Threads counts emoji by their byte size, and most other sites count UTF-16 units, where an emoji usually uses two. Paste a post once to see how much room you have on each platform and where to cut if it is too long.
How to use this tool
- Paste your post, caption, title or description.
- Choose the platform you are writing for; its count and remaining characters appear at the top.
- Check the table to see the same text against every other limit.
- If you are over, copy the “Text that fits” version or shorten the text yourself.
Formula
X count = Σ weight(character) + 23 × links, with weight 1 for U+0000–U+10FF and a few punctuation ranges, 2 for everything else and for each emoji
The X rule follows the open-source twitter-text configuration (version 3): text is NFC-normalised, characters in U+0000–U+10FF, U+2000–U+200D, U+2010–U+201F and U+2032–U+2037 weigh 1, all others 2, a whole emoji sequence weighs 2, and every link counts as a 23-character t.co link. Links are found when they start with http://, https:// or www., or end in a common domain such as .com. Bluesky allows 300 graphemes; Threads counts emoji as UTF-8 bytes; YouTube’s API limits descriptions to 5,000 bytes. The Google lines are guides. Limits as of November 2026.
Example
The sample post has 86 ordinary characters, one emoji (⏱️, weight 2) and one 39-character link, which X counts as 23. Its X count is 86 + 2 + 23 = 111 of 280, leaving 169. On Instagram, which counts UTF-16 units, the same text uses 127 of 2,200 because the link counts in full and the emoji takes two units. It is too long for a YouTube title (100) by 27.
Frequently asked questions
Why does X say my text is too long when it looks shorter than 280?
Characters outside the Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and similar ranges count double, so a Korean or Japanese post fits about 140 characters. Emoji also count 2, and links count 23 however short or long they are.
How long can an Instagram caption be?
2,200 characters, and only the first line or two show in the feed before “more”, so put the important words first. In December 2025 Instagram also announced a limit of five hashtags per post or reel.
Is the TikTok limit 2,200 or 4,000?
Both appear. The app is widely reported to accept 4,000 characters, a figure TikTok does not document; its developer documentation gives 2,200 for posts made through the API that scheduling tools use.
Sources
- twitter-text — weighted length configuration v3
- Bluesky — app.bsky.feed.post lexicon (300 graphemes)
- Meta for Developers — Threads API posts
- TikTok for Developers — Content Posting API (title up to 2,200)
- YouTube Data API — videos resource (title 100 characters, description 5,000 bytes)
- Pinterest API v5 — Pin schema (title 100, description 800)
Last updated:
Page address with these inputs: https://kakao.mobile/tools/social-media-character-counter/
Cite or embed this tool
kakaoCalc. (2026, November 8). Social Media Character Counter (X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok). https://kakao.mobile/tools/social-media-character-counter/
“Social Media Character Counter (X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok).” kakaoCalc, 8 Nov. 2026, kakao.mobile/tools/social-media-character-counter/.
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