Character Counter — Check Text Against Any Limit
Count characters with and without spaces, check them against a limit and see how many SMS messages the text needs.
Free, with no sign-up and no watermark. The file is processed in your browser and never uploaded.
The Character Counter shows how many characters your text has, with and without spaces, alongside words and its size in bytes. Pick a limit — 280, 160, 500, 1000, 2200, 5000 or a Custom number — and a bar shows how much room is left or how far over you are.
It also tells you how many SMS messages the text would need, because a single non-standard character (like an emoji or a Hindi letter) drops the SMS limit from 160 to 70 characters.
Step by step
- Paste your text: Type or paste into the Input text box. All counts update immediately.
- Choose a limit: Under Limit, click one of the preset numbers or Custom and enter your own.
- Watch the bar: The bar shows characters used against the limit; it turns red and says how many characters you are over if you go past it.
- Check the SMS line: Below the text box you’ll see how many SMS messages the text would take and whether it uses standard (GSM) or Unicode characters.
Handy for
Social posts
Keep posts, bios and captions within a platform’s character limit.
SMS campaigns
Avoid paying for extra message parts caused by emoji or special characters.
Forms and databases
Check text fits a field limit, or its byte size for systems that limit bytes.
Meta descriptions
Keep page titles and descriptions to a target length.
Good to know
Bytes (UTF-8) matters for some systems: English letters use 1 byte, accented letters 2, Hindi 3 and most emoji 4.
Long SMS messages are split into parts of 153 standard characters (or 67 Unicode characters) each.
Platforms change their limits from time to time — use Custom if a preset doesn’t match.
Questions
Are spaces counted?
The main count includes spaces and line breaks; Without spaces excludes all whitespace.
How are emoji counted?
As one character each, the way you see them. Some platforms count certain emoji as two — if you’re right at a limit, leave a little margin. The SMS line counts the way phones do: an emoji uses two or more Unicode units, and € [ ] { } ^ ~ | \ use two places in a standard SMS.
Why does my SMS count jump when I add one emoji?
SMS messages use a small standard alphabet. Any character outside it switches the whole message to Unicode, which fits 70 characters instead of 160.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. Everything is processed by your browser on your own device — nothing you type or upload is sent to a server, so it is safe to use with private notes, drafts and work documents.
Further reading
- Bold and Fancy Text for Instagram Bios and WhatsApp — Fancy text uses Unicode look-alike letters, not fonts. Copy bold or script styles into bios, but know where they break: screen readers, search and limits.
More Text Tools tools
- Case Converter — Switch text between upper, lower, title and sentence case, or turn it into camelCase, snake_case and kebab-case.
- Fancy Text Generator — Turn plain text into bold, italic, script, bubble and other Unicode styles you can paste into bios, posts and messages.
- Text Compare (Diff Checker) — Compare two versions of a text side by side and see every added and removed line, word or character highlighted.
- Remove Duplicate Lines — Delete repeated lines from a list while keeping the original order, with case and spacing options.
- Sort Lines Alphabetically — Sort a list alphabetically, naturally, by number or length, reverse it or shuffle it randomly.
- Remove Line Breaks — Join text that was broken into short lines — such as text copied from a PDF — while keeping real paragraphs.