Social media character counter: X, LinkedIn, Instagram, Threads and more

Why the same text has different lengths

Networks don't count characters the same way:

• X counts every link as 23 characters, whatever its length, and counts emoji and Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters as 2 (X: counting characters).
• Threads counts emoji as their UTF-8 bytes, so 🚀 is 4 and a family emoji 25 (Threads API: Posts). The Threads character counter also checks links and the topic tag.
• Bluesky counts graphemes, what you see as one character, up to 300, and the post also has to stay under 3,000 bytes (Bluesky post record).
• YouTube limits a video description to 5,000 bytes, not characters, so text in Cyrillic or with emoji fits less (YouTube Data API).
• TikTok and Telegram count in UTF-16 units, in which most emoji count as 2.

So a 280-character post can be fine on Threads and too long on X, or the other way round.

The limits, with sources

Checked on 14 October 2026. "Approximate" means the network doesn't state the limit, or doesn't say how it counts, on its own pages.

Network	Limit	How it counts	Source
Threads	500	Emoji as UTF-8 bytes	Meta
X	280 (Premium 25,000)	Links 23, emoji and CJK 2	X
Bluesky	300 graphemes and 3,000 bytes	Graphemes	Bluesky
Mastodon	500 by default, set by each server	Links 23	Mastodon
LinkedIn	3,000	Not stated (approximate)	LinkedIn
Instagram caption	2,200, at most 30 hashtags	Not stated (approximate)	Meta
Facebook	63,206	Approximate, not stated by Meta	Third-party sources only
TikTok video caption	2,200	UTF-16 units	TikTok
YouTube	Title 100, description 5,000 bytes	Description in UTF-8 bytes	Google
Pinterest	Title 100, description 800	Not stated (approximate)	Pinterest
Reddit	Title 300, body 40,000	Approximate, not stated by Reddit	Third-party sources only
Telegram	Message 4,096, caption 1,024	After formatting is removed	Telegram
Discord	2,000 (Nitro 4,000)	Not stated (approximate)	Discord
WhatsApp	4,096	Stated for the business API	Meta
Google Business Profile	1,500	Approximate, not stated by Google	Third-party sources only

Where a network doesn't say how it counts emoji or links, the counter counts each character as one, so treat the number as close, not exact.

Writing one text for several networks

Write for the strictest network first. If the text fits X's 280 weighted characters and Bluesky's 300 graphemes, it fits almost everywhere else. Put links near the end, keep emoji for meaning rather than decoration, and check hashtags: Instagram stops at 30, Threads takes one topic tag per post.

To schedule the same post to Threads, Govir publishes it at the time you pick and checks it against Threads' own rules before it goes out.

Questions

Is this count exact? For Threads, X, Bluesky, Mastodon, TikTok, YouTube and Telegram it follows each network's documented rules. For networks that don't document how they count, it's approximate.

Why does my X count differ from the number of letters? X counts every link as 23 characters and emoji as 2.

Is my text sent anywhere? No. Everything is counted in your browser; nothing is sent to Govir or stored.

Why no logos? Each network's name is written out instead: their brand rules don't allow their logos on tools like this one.