Pick the platform and the field, paste your text, and see how many characters you use and how many you have left. Every platform counts differently, and we count along.
Why is my field not here?
Because the platform publishes no number for it. We only list limits we can read at the source: the help centre, the developer documentation or an announcement by the platform. Not published are, among others: the username and display name on Instagram and TikTok, the bio on TikTok and Threads, the length of a Facebook post, and the headline and About section on LinkedIn. For X only the 280 characters of a normal post can be read; the bio and the longer Premium posts sit behind a page we cannot open.
Every limit comes from the platform itself: the help centre, the developer documentation or an announcement, read on 23 September 2026. Everything happens in your own browser: we do not send or keep anything.
The limits we show
These are the fields the platform publishes a number for itself, in the help centre, the developer documentation or an announcement. The main ones:
| Platform | Field | Characters |
|---|---|---|
| Bio | 150 | |
| Caption (post or reel) | 2,200 | |
| TikTok | Video caption | 2,200 |
| YouTube | Video title | 100 |
| YouTube | Video description | 5,000 |
| X | Post (free account) | 280 |
| Post | 3,000 | |
| Threads | Post | 500 |
| Pin description | 800 |
Every platform counts differently
Four platforms write down how they count, and all four do it differently. A simple counter that adds up letters is therefore wrong on three of the four.
- X counts every emoji and every non-Latin character as 2. Every link counts as exactly 23 characters, short or long, because they all go through its own shortener.
- Threads counts an emoji as its number of UTF-8 bytes. One emoji can eat 4 of your 500.
- TikTok counts in UTF-16 runes, where most emoji count as 2.
- YouTube counts the video description in bytes instead of characters. An é or ë counts as 2 and an emoji as 4, so a text with accents can look like it fits in the box and still be too long on upload.
Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest write down nothing about how they count. There we simply count the characters, and the result is an approximation.
Why your field may not be here
Because the platform publishes no number for it. Other character counters do show those numbers, but they come from blogs copying each other, and they are often wrong. We only list what we can read at the source.
Not published are, among others, the username and display name on Instagram and TikTok, the bio on TikTok and Threads, the length of a Facebook post, and the headline and About section on LinkedIn. Two well-known examples of how wrong it goes: that a TikTok caption takes 4,000 characters (that is the field for a photo post; a video caption is 2,200) and that Threads moved to 10,000 (a post is still 500; the 10,000 is a separate text attachment).
More reach for your post?
A text that fits the limit is not read any better for it. Bought likes and views count towards your numbers, not as real engagement: they come from profiles that do nothing else. What they do is make a new post look fuller to the first visitors.
Frequently asked questions about text length
How many characters can an Instagram bio be?
150 characters. That is in Instagram’s own help centre.
How many characters can a TikTok caption be?
2,200, and TikTok counts those in UTF-16 runes. The 4,000 you often read belongs to the description of a photo post, not to a video.
Is a Threads post 500 or 10,000 characters now?
500. The 10,000 characters are a separate text attachment you can add to a post, not a longer post.
Is the text length checker free?
Yes, without an account. Everything happens in your own browser: your text is not sent anywhere and not kept.
