Character limits: every platform in one place
Every platform truncates or rejects text past its limit. Here are the numbers that matter, in one place.
Why character limits matter
A caption cut off mid-sentence, a bio that won't save, a meta description Google truncates with an ellipsis — character limits fail silently and make published work look careless. Checking length before posting takes seconds and is the difference between a clean post and a re-edit.
Counting rules differ by platform: most count every character including spaces and emoji, and URLs are sometimes counted at a fixed length (X counts any link as 23 characters) — so a raw character count is a floor, not always the exact number the platform sees.
Three different things get called a «limit»: a hard maximum (the platform refuses text past it — X's 280, LinkedIn's 3,000), a display truncation (your text survives but folds behind «more» — Instagram's ~125-character caption fold), and a recommendation («ideal length» advice, which is opinion, not a rule). This table labels each row so you know which one you're planning against.
Search snippets: the invisible limits
Google doesn't enforce title or description lengths — it truncates the display. Titles start clipping around 60 characters; meta descriptions around 155–160. Front-load the words that matter so a clipped snippet still makes sense.
Character limits by platform
| X / Twitter post | 280 characters — hard maximum (25,000 for Premium) | weighted X counter |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters — hard maximum; display folds at ~125 (“more”) | Instagram counter |
| TikTok caption | 4,000 characters — hard maximum | |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters — hard maximum; displays ~210 before “see more” | |
| YouTube title / description | 100 / 5,000 characters — hard maximums | |
| SMS (single message) | 160 characters (70 with emoji/Unicode) — GSM standard | |
| Google title / meta description | ≈60 / ≈155–160 SHOWN — display truncation, not a limit; pixel-based |
Hard maximum = the platform rejects text past it; display truncation = text survives but folds; recommendations are not rules. Verified 2026-07-23 against official help pages (X, LinkedIn, YouTube), the GSM standard, and cross-checked 2026 guides where help pages are script-gated (Instagram, TikTok). Full source manifest kept with the project.
Check your text against every limit
Do spaces and emoji count as characters?
Spaces always count. Emoji count on every major platform, and in SMS a single emoji switches the whole message to Unicode encoding, dropping the per-message limit from 160 to 70 characters.
How do I check my text against a limit?
Paste it into the character counter — the platform-limit gauges show exactly how much room is left for X, Instagram, LinkedIn and more, updating as you type, entirely in your browser.