By the Tooliday Team. Last updated 14 November 2026.
A post that is cut off halfway, a text message that gets split in two, a search result that ends in “…”. All of these come down to character limits. This guide explains the common limits, why your count may differ from a platform’s, and how to write to fit. You can check your own text with our Character Counter.
Common limits at a glance
| Where | Typical limit | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Standard X (Twitter) post | 280 characters | Paid accounts can have longer posts |
| Single SMS | 160 characters | Basic characters only |
| Instagram caption | 2,200 characters | Only the start shows before “more” |
| YouTube video title | 100 characters | The first part shows in search |
| Search result title | About 60 characters | A guide, not a hard limit |
| Meta description | About 150 to 160 characters | A guide, not a hard limit |
Platforms change their rules from time to time, so treat this table as a starting point and check the platform’s current guidance before an important post.
Why your count and the platform’s count can differ
- Spaces and line breaks count. Most limits include them. A count that leaves them out will look smaller.
- Emoji and special characters. A tool may count an emoji as one character, while a platform may count it as two or more.
- Links. Some platforms count every link as a fixed length, whatever its real length.
- Text message encoding. A single SMS holds 160 basic characters. If it contains certain special characters or emoji, the limit per message drops to 70, and longer messages are split into parts that each hold slightly fewer characters (153 and 67).
A worked example
Take the sentence “Hello world”. It has 11 characters with spaces and 10 without. Against a 160 character guide you have 149 left. Now imagine a meta description of 180 characters. It is 20 over, so a search engine will probably shorten it and end it with “…”. Rewriting it to say the same thing in about 150 characters keeps the whole message visible.
Writing to fit
- Put the most important words first, because the end is the part that gets cut.
- Remove filler such as “very”, “really” and “in order to”.
- Prefer short, common words.
- Leave a few characters of room, since platforms may count differently from your tool.
- Read the result aloud. If it still makes sense, it is probably short enough.
Search titles and descriptions are not exact
Search engines shorten titles and descriptions by pixel width, not by a fixed number of characters. A title full of narrow letters such as “i” and “l” fits more characters than one full of wide letters such as “W” and “M”. The figures of about 60 and 160 are useful targets, but a preview tool for your own page is the best check.
Try it yourself
Paste your text into the Character Counter to see characters with and without spaces, words, lines and how far you are from each guide. For a word count and reading time, use the Word Counter, and read How to Count Words and Estimate Reading Time.