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About this tool
Check text against X, Instagram, LinkedIn, SEO and SMS character limits with a live remaining count.
Character Limit Checker counts your text against 23 real platform limits — X posts at 280, Instagram captions at 2,200, LinkedIn posts at 3,000, YouTube titles at 100, meta descriptions at 160 and more — and shows exactly how many characters you have left as you type. It also weights links the way X does (every URL counts as 23 characters) and works out SMS segment billing in GSM-7 or UCS-2. Useful for social media managers, SEO writers and anyone drafting copy that has to fit.
Open Character Limit Checker on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Type or paste into the 'Your text' box and pick one of the 23 presets from the Platform limit menu, or set a Custom limit of your own.
For X posts, leave 'Count every link as 23 characters' ticked so URLs are billed the way t.co shortening bills them.
Watch the characters-remaining figure and SMS segment breakdown; if you are over, press 'Trim to limit' and then Copy text.
23 presets covering social, video, SEO, ads and messaging, plus a custom limit field for anything else.
Shows both raw characters and visible characters, so a two-code-unit emoji never surprises you at the limit.
Over the limit? Cut the text to fit and copy it without leaving the page.
Standard posts are capped at 280 characters. Every link counts as 23 characters regardless of its real length because X rewrites URLs through t.co, and this tool applies that weighting for you.
Aim for roughly 150-160 characters. Google truncates on pixel width rather than a hard character count, so keeping the key message in the first 120 characters is the safest approach.
Most platforms count UTF-16 code units, and many emoji — especially those with skin tones or joined sequences — take two or more units each. The 'visible characters' figure shows the human count so you can see the difference.
A GSM-7 message fits 160 characters in a single segment, then 153 per segment once it splits. Any character outside the GSM alphabet, including most emoji, switches the message to UCS-2 at 70 characters per segment (67 when split).