Character Count Guide: Limits for Twitter, LinkedIn, SMS, and More
Whether you are crafting a tweet, writing a LinkedIn post, or composing an SMS, you have probably hit a character limit at the worst possible moment. Every platform enforces its own rules — and they are not always obvious or consistent.
This guide is your complete reference. Below you will find the character limits for every major platform, tips for writing within them, and a free tool to count characters instantly without pasting your text into a third-party app.
Why Character Limits Exist
Character limits are not arbitrary. They serve several practical purposes:
- User experience — shorter content is easier to scan and engage with on mobile devices
- Database design — fixed-length fields are cheaper and faster to store and index
- Content quality — constraints force clarity; you cannot ramble when you have 280 characters
- Feed formatting — uniform post lengths make feeds predictable and consistent
Understanding why limits exist helps you work with them rather than against them.
Character Limits by Platform
Twitter / X
| Content type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Tweet (standard account) | 280 characters |
| Tweet (X Premium subscriber) | 25,000 characters |
| Display name | 50 characters |
| Bio | 160 characters |
| Direct message | 10,000 characters |
Twitter expanded from its original 140-character limit in 2017. URLs are always counted as 23 characters regardless of their actual length, and images, videos, and polls do not count against the character total.
Pro tip: Twitter counts all Unicode characters — including emoji — as a single character. A single emoji uses 1 of your 280 characters.
| Content type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Post (feed update) | 3,000 characters |
| Article body | 110,000 characters |
| Article headline | 150 characters |
| Comment | 1,250 characters |
| Connection request message | 300 characters |
| Headline (profile) | 220 characters |
| Summary (About section) | 2,600 characters |
| Job title | 100 characters |
| Company name | 100 characters |
LinkedIn posts show approximately the first 210–215 characters before a “see more” link appears on mobile. Front-loading your message is essential — your opening line must earn the click.
| Content type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Caption | 2,200 characters |
| Bio | 150 characters |
| Username | 30 characters |
| Comment | 2,200 characters |
| Story text overlay | ~100 characters (displayed) |
| Hashtags per post | 30 (Instagram limit) |
Instagram captions are truncated after approximately 125 characters in the feed before a “more” link appears. Hashtags and mentions count toward the 2,200-character limit.
| Content type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Personal post | 63,206 characters |
| Page post | 63,206 characters |
| Comment | 8,000 characters |
| Group post | 63,206 characters |
| Profile name | 50 characters |
| Page name | 75 characters |
| Event description | 65,536 characters |
Facebook’s limit is generous enough that it almost never constrains content. The real limit is attention — posts longer than 400–500 characters see a significant drop in engagement.
SMS / Text Messages
| Standard | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GSM-7 (standard text) | 160 characters | Single SMS |
| Unicode / emoji | 70 characters | Single SMS |
| GSM-7 multi-part | 153 characters per segment | Concatenated SMS |
| Unicode multi-part | 67 characters per segment | Concatenated SMS |
SMS character counting is the most technically nuanced on this list. The GSM-7 alphabet covers standard Latin characters, digits, and common punctuation. The moment you include a character outside that set — an emoji, a curly quote, a non-Latin letter, or certain symbols — the entire message switches to Unicode encoding and the per-segment limit drops from 160 to 70 characters.
Practical impact: A single emoji in a 160-character message turns a 1-segment SMS into a 3-segment SMS, tripling the cost for businesses using SMS APIs.
TikTok
| Content type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Caption | 2,200 characters |
| Bio | 80 characters |
| Username | 24 characters |
| Comment | 150 characters |
TikTok captions are truncated at around 100 characters in the feed. Comments have a notably tight 150-character limit.
YouTube
| Content type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Video title | 100 characters |
| Video description | 5,000 characters |
| Comment | 10,000 characters |
| Channel name | 100 characters |
| Channel description | 1,000 characters |
| Tag | 500 characters total across all tags |
YouTube truncates video titles in search results and suggested feeds at around 60–70 characters. Keep your most important keywords within the first 60 characters of your title.
| Content type | Limit |
|---|---|
| Message | 65,536 characters |
| Status | 700 characters |
| Group name | 100 characters |
| Business description | 512 characters |
WhatsApp messages have an extremely generous limit — you are unlikely to hit it in normal use.
| Content type | Limit | Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Subject line | 998 characters | RFC 5321 |
| Subject line (practical) | 40–60 characters | Inbox preview |
| Body | No hard limit | — |
| Recipient address | 320 characters | RFC 5321 |
Email has no hard character limit for body content, but subject lines are where characters matter most. Most email clients display between 40 and 60 characters before truncating. On mobile, that drops to 30–40 characters.
A Quick Reference Table
| Platform | Key limit | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Twitter / X | 280 | Standard tweet |
| 3,000 | Feed post | |
| 2,200 | Caption | |
| 63,206 | Post | |
| SMS (Latin) | 160 | Single segment |
| SMS (emoji) | 70 | Single segment |
| TikTok | 2,200 | Caption |
| YouTube | 100 | Title |
| 65,536 | Message | |
| Email subject | ~60 | Practical inbox preview |
Tips for Writing Within Character Limits
Lead with what matters. Every platform truncates long content. Whatever you most want the reader to see should appear in the first 100–150 characters, before any “see more” cut.
Count before you paste. Copying text into a platform’s compose box and then trimming it is painful. Count first, trim once.
Watch out for invisible characters. Copying text from Word, Google Docs, or PDFs sometimes brings invisible Unicode characters — zero-width spaces, non-breaking spaces, smart quotes — that consume characters you cannot see.
Emoji count as characters. Most platforms count each emoji as one character. Some complex emoji sequences (like flags or skin-tone modifiers) may count as two. When precision matters, count with a tool.
Hashtags and mentions count. On Twitter and Instagram, every character in a hashtag or @mention is counted against your limit.
Count Characters Instantly — No Paste Required
Our free Character Counter gives you a live count as you type, with no data sent to any server. It shows:
- Total character count (with and without spaces)
- Word count and sentence count
- Reading time estimate
- Live feedback as you write — no button to press
It supports paste-in counting too, of course — but because the tool runs entirely in your browser, your text never leaves your device. Useful for sensitive content like API keys, personal messages, or proprietary copy.
Bookmark it for the next time you need to trim a LinkedIn post or check whether your SMS will split into multiple segments.
Summary
Character limits vary wildly by platform — from 70 characters for a Unicode SMS to 63,206 for a Facebook post. The ones that bite most often in practice are:
- Twitter/X (280) — tight enough to require real editing
- SMS (160 / 70) — tricky because Unicode halves your budget
- LinkedIn (3,000) — generous but with a 215-character “see more” cliff
Knowing the limits before you write saves you the frustration of cutting a polished post at the last minute. The Character Counter makes it easy to track exactly where you stand.