Social Media Character Counter

Character limits on eight social networks

Each network sets its own limit: LinkedIn allows 3,000 characters per post, X 280, Bluesky 300, Threads 500, Mastodon 500 by default and an Instagram caption 2,200. Several also count differently, so the table shows both.

“Counted strictly” in the table below means 1 for each letter, space and line break, and 2 for most emoji and for bold or italic letters made with Unicode styling. The counter uses it wherever a network doesn't document how it counts, so if a network counts an emoji as 1, you have a little more room than shown.

The counter covers these eight networks. It doesn't cover TikTok, Pinterest or Reddit, so check those in their own apps.

The limits come from each network's own pages, checked on 15 and 16 October 2026:

1. LinkedIn: its help article on posts, its Talent Blog on headlines, its limits for groups and its help on comments in groups
2. X: its counting rules, its weight table for symbols and its help page on X Premium
3. Instagram: Meta's API reference for captions, which still gives 30 hashtags, and Instagram's help pages on hashtags per post and the bio
4. Facebook: Meta publishes no limit for Page posts
5. Threads: Meta's Threads API documentation and its page on text attachments
6. Bluesky: its post schema and its app's link shortening
7. Mastodon: its posting guide and the code that checks a post's length
8. YouTube: its help page on titles and descriptions and its developer documentation for videos

Two rows have no limit because the network publishes none for them: a Facebook Page post and a comment on a LinkedIn post. LinkedIn gives a limit only for comments in groups, and two figures for it: 1,250 characters on one help page and 1,000 on another.

Mastodon's 500 is the default: a server running modified Mastodon software can allow more, and the text of a content warning counts toward the same limit. The counter has no field for a content warning.

Threads' emoji rule comes from Meta's API documentation; how the Threads app itself counts isn't documented. A Threads post can also carry a text attachment of up to 10,000 characters, which the counter doesn't count.

For one network in more detail, use the LinkedIn character counter, the X (Twitter) character counter or the Instagram character counter.

Why networks count the same text differently

Each network counts with its own rule: X weighs a link as 23 and an emoji as 2, Bluesky counts what you see and shortens links, Meta's Threads documentation counts an emoji's bytes, and Mastodon counts a link as 23. So one 280-character post counts 261 on X and 262 on Bluesky. Select “Insert an example” above the text box for a short post with one emoji and a 43-character link. The counter's “Characters” count shows 280, one for every character you see, and each network's row in the counter shows:

A plain character count puts the example right at X's limit of 280, but X counts it as 261. In this example, the link is where counts differ most: X counts every link as 23, and so does Mastodon for links that start with http or https. Bluesky's app counts a link as the short form it displays: the domain plus the first 13 characters of a long path, then three dots. LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Threads don't say how a link counts, so the counter counts every character of it.

Characters, words and lines: what the other counts mean

Above the network list, the counter shows six counts for the text itself: characters, characters without spaces, words, sentences, paragraphs and lines. “Characters” counts what you see, so an emoji or an accented letter is 1, which is why it can differ from a network's count.

Words are the pieces of text between spaces or line breaks that hold a letter or a digit. Sentences follow your browser's own sentence detection. A paragraph is a block of text separated by an empty line, and every line break starts a new line. The example post has 280 characters, 233 without spaces or line breaks, 44 words, 4 paragraphs and 9 lines; the sentence count depends on your browser.

When a text is too long for one network

When a text is over a network's limit, that network's row says how many characters over it is. Select the row, and the preview under “Where it gets cut” strikes through the part that network would not take, so you can shorten the text for that network alone. The preview marks the limit, not the “… more” fold where a feed hides the rest of a long post: LinkedIn and Instagram don't document where that fold falls, so the counter doesn't guess.

What to cut depends on the network: a long link costs its full length in the Threads row and in the strictly counted rows, such as LinkedIn, so a shorter link saves room there. It saves nothing on X or Mastodon, where a link counts 23, and little on Bluesky, which shortens long links itself. An emoji costs 1 on Bluesky and Mastodon and 2 on X. In the strictly counted rows most emoji cost 2; in the Threads row and in a YouTube description an emoji costs its bytes, usually 4, and 8 with a skin tone.

The headline, title and bio rows are for when you write one of those: a LinkedIn headline holds 220 characters, a YouTube title 100 and an Instagram bio 150, so write them on their own rather than reusing a post.

The copy button copies the text for the row you selected: as typed for most networks, and with one invisible character on every empty line for a LinkedIn row, so LinkedIn keeps the empty lines. Each of those characters counts 1 in the strict count, and the LinkedIn row's count leaves them out, so leave one character of room for each empty line.

Plan what your team posts in one place

A team that posts every week needs more than a counter: one place to plan, write and approve what goes out. Scripe is a social media management platform for B2B teams and agencies, built LinkedIn-first. Today it publishes to LinkedIn.

In its content calendar your team plans posts for the company page and colleagues' profiles, writes them with AI, asks for a review and schedules them. For timing, see when to post on LinkedIn, or browse the other free tools for your posts.