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.
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 (2026)
| X / Twitter post | 280 characters (25,000 for Premium) |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters (125 shown before “more”) |
| TikTok caption | 4,000 characters |
| LinkedIn post | 3,000 characters (210 before “see more”) |
| YouTube title / description | 100 / 5,000 characters |
| SMS (single message) | 160 characters (70 with emoji/Unicode) |
| Google title / meta description | ~60 / ~155–160 shown |
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.