Character Counter

Character limits are unforgiving in a way word limits are not. A meta description that runs three characters long is simply cut off mid-word in the search results, a post that exceeds the limit will not send at all, and an SMS that passes 160 characters quietly becomes two messages you are charged for twice.

This counter shows both numbers that matter — with spaces and without — because different places ask for different ones. Social platforms, form fields and SMS all count spaces; some academic and translation briefs specifically exclude them. Both update on every keystroke, so you can edit down to a target rather than pasting into a checker over and over.

Underneath, every common limit is shown at once as a bar, with how much room is left. That is more useful than picking one limit at a time, because the same piece of text is usually destined for several places: a headline that fits a page title may be too long for a link preview.

The limits themselves are worth knowing. A search engine displays roughly 60 characters of a page title and about 160 of a description. A single SMS is 160 characters. A post on X is 280. An Instagram caption allows 2,200, but only the first 125 or so show before the More link.

Nothing you type is transmitted. The counting happens in the page, so an unpublished draft or a client's copy is safe to paste here.