Letter Counter

About this tool

The counter shows more than one kind of length because systems count differently. Characters counts Unicode characters, so an emoji counts as one. Visible characters counts what a reader sees as single symbols, which differs for flags and joined emoji. UTF-16 length is how JavaScript counts, where some characters count as two. UTF-8 bytes is the storage size.

Below the counts, bars compare your character total with common limits: an Instagram bio, an X post, one SMS segment, a Discord message and an Instagram caption. These numbers are widely documented, but platforms change them and count special characters in their own way, so use this as a guide and double-check in the app. An SMS that contains non-basic characters usually uses a different encoding with a much smaller limit per segment.

How to use the letter counter

1. Paste or type your text into the box.
2. Read the counts instantly.
3. Check the limit bars to see if you are within the length you need.
4. Edit your text and watch the numbers update.

Examples

The text Hello world. How are you? has 25 characters, 5 words and 2 sentences.

Good uses

• Checking a bio, caption or post before publishing.
• Keeping an essay or article within a word limit.
• Estimating reading time.
• Understanding why styled text may count differently.

Compatibility and limits

Counting is done by your browser, so nothing is uploaded. The sentence count is an estimate based on punctuation. Visible-character counting depends on your browser's text segmentation support, and older browsers fall back to counting Unicode characters.

Text made with Unicode characters can be hard for screen readers to read and may not match searches for the original words. Keep names, links and important details in plain text.

Frequently asked questions