How to count characters for social media
- Type or paste your post, caption or title.
- Read the X count at the top, then the bar for each platform.
- Shorten the text until every platform you need shows characters left.
Examples
A post with a link. Check out our Diwali sale at https://example.com/diwali-sale-2026?utm_source=x is 78 characters long, but X counts it as 52: the 29 characters before the link plus 23 for the link.
Emoji. Happy Diwali 🪔✨ is 15 characters as you see them. X counts it as 17, because each emoji counts as 2.
Hindi. नमस्ते दुनिया counts as 13 on X, one for each letter, vowel sign and halant, plus the space.
Japanese. おはようございます is 9 characters, and X counts it as 18. A post in Japanese, Chinese or Korean fits about 140 characters.
About this tool
Paste a post, caption or video title to see how much room is left on each platform at once. X is counted the way X counts it: every link is 23 characters, and emoji and many non-Latin characters count as 2. Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, WhatsApp Business and Facebook are counted in plain characters against their limits, and you also get guides for a search title and a meta description.
Common questions
Why does X count my post as longer?
X counts every link as 23 characters, every emoji as 2, and characters such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean as 2. These rules come from X's developer documentation, and this page follows them.
Does a short link save space on X?
No. X counts every link as 23 characters whatever its real length, so a shortened link takes the same room as a long one.
How is Hindi counted on X?
Each letter and sign counts as 1, because Devanagari is in the range X counts singly. A conjunct such as क्ष is made of three parts, so it counts as 3 even though it looks like one letter.
Are these limits official?
The X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and WhatsApp Business limits come from their own help or developer pages. Meta doesn't publish a limit for Facebook posts, so the 63,206 figure is marked as not official. The title and description lengths are common guides, because Google sets no fixed limit.
Can I post more than 280 characters on X?
Yes, with X Premium. X's help pages say Premium subscribers can write longer posts of up to 25,000 characters. Everyone else has 280.
Is it free to use?
Yes. There's no sign-up, and you can use it as often as you like.
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. This tool runs inside your browser, so what you enter stays on your device.
Do I need to install anything?
No. It works in your browser on a computer or a phone.