Twitter/X Character Counter
Count characters in your post live against X's standard 280-character limit.
This tool runs entirely in your browser. Your files are never uploaded to a server.
What this tool does
Type or paste your post to see a live character count against X's standard 280-character limit, with a clear warning as soon as you go over.
How to use it
Select the X/Twitter tab, then type or paste your post into the box — the running count and limit appear immediately below it.
Worked example
A plain single emoji like 🎉 counts as 1 character here; a flag emoji like 🇹🇷, built from two regional-indicator letters, counts as 2; and a family emoji like 👨👩👧👦, built by joining four people with invisible zero-width joiners, counts as 7 — even though it displays as a single picture.
How characters are counted
This tool counts Unicode code points rather than raw UTF-16 units, so most single emoji register as 1 character — closer to what you'd expect visually than a naive length count, though still not identical to X's own internal counting rules.
Does it shorten links?
No — X automatically shortens any URL to a fixed-length t.co link once posted, but this counter measures the raw length of exactly what you type, not that shortened version, so a long pasted link will count as long here even though it won't cost that many characters on X itself.
Limitations
This tool checks only the standard 280-character limit for free accounts, not the extended 25,000-character limit available to X Premium subscribers, and it doesn't reproduce X's exact internal weighting rules for every emoji or script.
Privacy
Counting happens entirely in your browser as you type — your post is never uploaded or posted anywhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Does this account for X Premium's higher limit?
- No — this tool checks against the standard 280-character limit for free accounts, not the 25,000-character limit for X Premium subscribers.
- Does it shorten links like X does?
- No — X automatically shortens URLs to a fixed-length t.co link in the actual post, but this counter measures the raw length of what you type, not the shortened version.
- Do emoji count as one character?
- A simple emoji like 🎉 counts as 1 character here, but a flag like 🇹🇷 counts as 2 and a multi-person family emoji can count as 7, since each is built from multiple underlying Unicode code points.
- Is this exactly how X counts characters internally?
- It's close but not guaranteed identical — this tool counts Unicode code points, which matches X's counting for most text and emoji but may not reproduce every edge case in X's own algorithm.