Free Character Counter
Count characters with and without spaces, words, sentences, and more. Perfect for social media limits and essays. 100% free, no signup.
Type or Paste Your Text
Character counts update in real-time as you type
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What Is Character Counter?
A character counter tells you exactly how many characters are in your text — with and without spaces. This precision matters when you’re writing for platforms that enforce strict character limits: Twitter’s 280-character cap, Google’s 160-character meta descriptions, or SMS messages that break at 160 characters.
Character counting is fundamentally different from word counting. A 50-word paragraph might be 300 characters or 400 characters depending on word length and punctuation. When a platform cuts your text at a fixed character position, word count is irrelevant — you need to know the exact character total.
Our character counter gives you both counts (with and without spaces) plus supplementary metrics like word count, sentence count, and line count. Everything runs in your browser with zero data transmission, so it’s safe for any content.
How Character Counter Works
Step 1: Paste or Type Your Text
Enter the text you need to measure — a tweet draft, meta description, SMS message, form field content, or any text where character count is critical.
Step 2: Read Your Character Count
The total character count (with spaces) and character count (without spaces) update instantly. Both numbers are displayed prominently so you can see at a glance whether you’re within your limit.
Step 3: Check Supplementary Metrics
Word count, sentence count, paragraph count, and line count are also displayed. This helps when you’re working with content that has both character and structural requirements.
Step 4: Edit to Fit Your Limit
If you’re over the limit, trim directly in the editor and watch the count drop in real-time. No need to switch between your writing tool and a separate counter.
Key Features
With & Without Spaces
Some platforms count spaces (Twitter, SMS), others don’t (certain form validators, coding challenges). Both counts are always visible so you don’t have to guess which one your platform uses.
Real-Time Updates
Every keystroke updates the count instantly. This is critical when you’re editing a tweet from 285 characters down to 280 — you need to see each deletion register immediately.
Line Count for Code & Poetry
The line counter is useful for content formats where lines matter: code snippets with line limits, poetry with fixed stanza lengths, or configuration files with line-based constraints.
Browser-Only Processing
Your text stays on your device. No API calls, no server storage. Paste passwords, API keys, private messages, or any sensitive text without concern.
Who Should Use This
Character limits are everywhere — social media, SEO, development, and messaging all enforce them differently.
Social Media Managers
Craft tweets, Instagram captions, and LinkedIn posts that fit within platform limits. Preview exactly how much space you have left before posting.
SEO Specialists & Content Writers
Write meta titles (60 chars), meta descriptions (160 chars), and Open Graph text that won’t get truncated in search results or social previews.
Students Writing to Constraints
Some assignments specify character limits rather than word limits — especially short-answer responses, application essays, and scholarship submissions.
Developers & Product Teams
Test form field validation, check database column limits, and verify that UI text fits within allocated space. Character count is a constant concern in product development.
Character Counter vs. Word Counter — When Each Matters
Word count tells you how much you’ve written. Character count tells you whether it fits. These are different questions, and using the wrong metric leads to truncated tweets, cut-off meta descriptions, and broken SMS messages.
A word counter is the right tool when your constraint is about content depth — essay word limits, blog post length targets, article assignments. A character counter is the right tool when your constraint is about physical space — a text field that accepts 160 characters, a title tag that truncates at 60, or an ad headline capped at 30.
Our character counter is purpose-built for space-constrained writing. The dual with/without-spaces display, real-time updates, and supplementary metrics give you everything needed to write precisely to any character limit.
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FAQ
Questions & answers
Everything about our character counter tool.