Count characters and check the limit
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Characters
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No spaces
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Letters
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Digits
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How it fits
- Google title tag6060 left
- Meta description155155 left
- Single SMS160160 left
- X / Twitter post280280 left
- WhatsApp about139139 left
- Instagram caption22002200 left
- LinkedIn post30003000 left
- YouTube description50005000 left
Sends as 0 SMS messages
Plain SMS alphabet, so 160 characters fit in one message and 153 in each part after that.
Counting happens as you type, in this page. Nothing you paste is sent anywhere.
Most character counting is really a question of whether something will fit. This tool answers that directly: it counts as you type and shows how much room is left against the limits people actually run into — a 160-character SMS, a 280-character post, a 155-character meta description, a 2,200-character Instagram caption. It also tells you how many text messages your copy would really send as, which is rarely what the raw count suggests.
The limits worth knowing
A single SMS holds 160 characters, and anything longer is split into parts of 153 — the missing seven carry the reassembly header. A post on X allows 280. A meta description is usually cut around 155, and a page title around 60, though Google truncates by pixel width rather than by counting, so both are approximations. Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters but only the first 125 or so show before the More link, which is the limit that actually matters for whether anyone reads it. WhatsApp's about field stops at 139.
Why an SMS can halve without warning
Text messages are normally encoded with GSM-03.38, a 128-character alphabet that covers English, digits and common punctuation. One character outside it — a rupee sign, an emoji, any Devanagari, or the curly apostrophe that Word substitutes automatically — forces the entire message into Unicode, where the capacity drops from 160 characters to 70. Nothing warns you: the message simply costs more and arrives in more parts. This tool shows the segment count and says which encoding you are in, so you can spot the one stray character before sending to a list.
Counting Hindi and other Indic scripts
Indic scripts build syllables from a base letter plus marks, and a naive counter treats those marks as neither letters nor punctuation and quietly drops them. The word नमस्ते is six code points: four letters, a virama and a vowel sign. Here all six are counted, so the number agrees with what you see. This matters twice over for SMS, because Devanagari is outside the GSM alphabet, so Hindi messages are always on the 70-character limit.
Frequently asked questions
- Why does my SMS split into two messages before 160 characters?
- Because a single character outside the standard SMS alphabet switches the whole message to Unicode, where only 70 characters fit instead of 160. A rupee sign, an emoji, Hindi text, or a curly apostrophe pasted from Word will all do it. This tool flags that the moment it happens.
- Why is a two-part SMS 153 characters per part, not 160?
- Each part of a split message carries a small header saying how the pieces reassemble, and that header takes seven characters out of every segment.
- Does this count spaces?
- Both figures are shown. Character limits on SMS, posts and meta descriptions all include spaces, so the 'Characters' figure is the one to check against them.
- Does it count Hindi correctly?
- Yes. Devanagari vowel signs and the virama are combining marks rather than letters, and they are counted — so the figure matches what you can see on screen rather than under-reporting it.
- Is the text I paste sent anywhere?
- No. Every figure is computed in this page as you type, so an unpublished caption or a draft message never leaves your device.
- Why is the Google title limit 60 characters?
- Google truncates by pixel width rather than character count, and 60 characters is the widely used approximation for where most titles start being cut. Treat it as a guide, not a hard rule.
- What is the difference between this and the word counter?
- The word counter is for length — words, sentences, reading time. This one is for fit: how much room is left against a specific limit, and how many SMS parts your text becomes.