A character limit is the most text a platform will accept in a field, such as a post, caption, title or description. Some limits are hard rules: go over them and the platform will not let you publish. Others are not limits at all, just the point where text gets cut off on screen. This guide lists well-sourced hard limits for common platforms, explains how search titles and descriptions really work, and separates official rules from practical advice.
Limits in this guide come from each platform's official help pages, developer documentation or newsroom, checked October 3, 2026. Platforms change their limits, so check the linked sources before relying on a number. Advice marked as our guidance is WriterFlowLab's editorial view, not a platform rule.
Hard limits: a quick reference
- X post: 280 characters. X counts some characters as two and every link as 23, as explained below. Source: X developer documentation.
- Threads post: 500 characters, with the option to attach up to 10,000 characters of text. Source: Meta newsroom.
- LinkedIn post: 3,000 characters. LinkedIn suggests writing an article instead for anything longer. Source: LinkedIn Help.
- YouTube video title: 100 characters. Source: YouTube Help.
- YouTube video description: 5,000 characters. Source: YouTube Help.
- Instagram caption: 2,200 characters, 30 hashtags and 20 @ tags, as listed for captions published through Instagram's API. Source: Meta for Developers.
We have only listed limits we could confirm on an official source. If a platform you use is missing, check its help center rather than a third-party list.
How X counts characters
X's developer documentation explains that its 280-character count is weighted:
- most Latin letters, punctuation and common symbols count as one character;
- emojis count as two characters each, so a post can hold up to 140 emojis;
- Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters count as two each;
- every link counts as 23 characters, however long or short the address is.
This means a character counter that treats every character equally can disagree with X's own count. Our word and character counter counts each character once and counts links at their full length, so for X posts with links or emojis, treat its number as a guide and check the count in X before you post.
Search titles and meta descriptions: no fixed limit
Many SEO checklists give a fixed character count for page titles and meta descriptions. Google's own documentation does not:
- Titles: Google says there is no limit on how long a title element can be, but the title link is "truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width". Source: Google Search Central.
- Meta descriptions: Google says there is no limit on how long a meta description can be, but the snippet is "truncated in Google Search results as needed, typically to fit the device width". Google may also write its own snippet from the page content instead. Source: Google Search Central.
Because truncation depends on screen width and on the characters used, no character count guarantees that a title or description will display in full. Google does recommend descriptive, concise titles and warns against unnecessarily long or verbose ones.
Our guidance: put the most important words at the start of titles and descriptions, so they survive if the end is cut off, and keep each one focused on a single page's topic. For the address itself, see our guide to writing good URL slugs, and for capitalization, our guide to title case vs sentence case.
Hard limits vs practical length
A hard limit tells you the maximum, not the target. A 3,000-character LinkedIn post or a 5,000-character YouTube description is allowed, but that does not make it the right length for your message.
Our guidance:
- Lead with the point. Longer posts and descriptions are often shortened in feeds until someone expands them, so the opening line has to work on its own.
- Fit the length to the job. A quick update can be a sentence or two. A detailed explanation may need most of the limit, or a link to a longer piece.
- Be wary of "ideal length" figures. Numbers quoted as the perfect length for a post or caption usually come from third-party studies rather than the platforms themselves, and they vary by audience and format.
Checking your length before you post
- Paste your draft into the word and character counter to see characters with and without spaces.
- Compare the count with the platform's limit, allowing for X's weighted counting if relevant.
- If you are well over, cut repetition first, then move detail into a linked article.
- Check the post in the platform's own editor before publishing, since that is the count that matters.
If you are adapting one piece of content for several platforms, our guide to repurposing a blog post covers how to tailor each version rather than cutting the same text to fit.
Frequently asked questions
Should I count characters with or without spaces?
Our word counter shows both. Platform limits apply to the text you enter in their editor, so check the count there before publishing if you are close to a limit.
What is the character limit for a Google title or meta description?
Google does not set one. It says there is no limit on the length of either, but both are truncated in search results as needed, typically to fit the device width.
Why does my character count differ from the platform's?
Platforms can count some characters differently. X, for example, counts emojis and some scripts as two characters and every link as 23. The platform's own editor is the final word.
Next steps
Check your next post or description in the word counter, and before publishing anything drafted with AI, run through our checklist for cleaning AI-generated text.