Word and Character Limits for Social Media, SEO and Essays
Word and character limits for X, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube, plus SEO titles, Google Ads, college essays and SMS, from official sources.
By Awais, Founder and editor-in-chiefPublished
The limits people hit most often are 280 characters for a post on X, 2,200 for an Instagram caption, 3,000 for a LinkedIn post, 160 characters for a single text message, and 4,000 characters for a UCAS personal statement. Search engines have no fixed limit for page titles and descriptions, but they cut them short on screen, so most writers aim for about 50–60 and 150–160 characters.
Below is a reference table for each area, with a link to the official source wherever the platform publishes one. Limits change, so the date of this guide matters: these were checked in October 2026.
Social media character limits
| Platform | What | Limit | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| X (Twitter) | Post, standard account | 280 characters | X developer docs |
| X (Twitter) | Post, Premium subscribers | Up to 25,000 characters | X Help |
| Caption | 2,200 characters | Meta developer docs | |
| Hashtags per post | 5 | Instagram Help | |
| Bio | 150 characters | Instagram Help | |
| Threads | Post | 500 characters (plus an optional text attachment of up to 10,000) | Threads developer docs |
| Bluesky | Post | 300 characters | Bluesky post schema |
| Mastodon | Post | 500 characters by default; each server can change it | Mastodon docs |
| Post | 3,000 characters | LinkedIn Help | |
| TikTok | Photo post description | 4,000 characters | TikTok developer docs |
| YouTube | Video title / description | 100 / 5,000 characters | YouTube Help |
| Pin title / description | 100 / 800 characters | Pinterest Help |
Things that change the count
Not every character counts as one. X counts most letters, digits and punctuation as 1, but emoji and Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters as 2. Every link counts as 23 characters, however long it really is, because X shortens it. That means a post written entirely in Japanese fits 140 characters, not 280.
Instagram’s hashtag limit dropped. Instagram long allowed 30 hashtags, and older guides still say so. Its Help Center now says you can use up to 5 tags on a post.
Visible text is shorter than the limit. Long captions and posts are cut off behind a “more” link after a few lines. Put the important words first.
SEO and ad limits
| Item | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Page title (title tag) | No fixed limit | Google truncates long titles to fit the screen; about 50–60 characters usually shows in full |
| Meta description | No fixed limit | Snippets are truncated to fit the device; about 150–160 characters is a common target |
| Google Ads headline | 30 characters | Up to 15 headlines per responsive search ad |
| Google Ads description | 90 characters | Up to 4 descriptions |
| Google Ads display path | 15 characters per field | Two path fields |
| Google Play app name / short description | 30 / 80 characters | Full description 4,000 |
| App Store app name / subtitle | 30 / 30 characters | Keywords field is 100 bytes |
Google’s own documentation says there is no limit on how long a title element or a meta description can be; it shortens them as needed to fit the device. The 50–60 and 150–160 character targets are rules of thumb from the SEO industry, based on what typically fits. Width matters more than count: “WWW” takes up far more room than “iii”. Google may also rewrite your title or choose a different snippet if it thinks another one matches the search better.
The Google Ads figures come from Google’s guide to responsive search ads. In Chinese, Japanese and Korean, each character counts double. The app store limits come from Google Play Console Help and App Store Connect Help; because Apple’s keyword field is measured in bytes, accented and non-Latin keywords use it up faster.
Essay and application limits
| Application | Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| UCAS personal statement (2026 entry onwards) | 4,000 characters including spaces | Three questions, each answer at least 350 characters |
| Common App personal essay | 650 words | Choose one of 7 prompts; check the Writing section of the current application |
| Typical scholarship or supplemental essay | Often 150–500 words | Set by each college or funder |
UCAS replaced the free-form personal statement with three questions for 2026 entry: why you want to study the course, how your studies have prepared you, and what else you have done to prepare. The total is still 4,000 characters, including spaces, and each answer needs at least 350 characters (UCAS).
The Common App lists 7 essay prompts for 2026–2027 (Common App), and its personal essay has long had a 650-word maximum. Word counts in an application form can differ slightly from your word processor’s count, for example with hyphenated words, so leave a few words of slack.
A useful conversion: in English, a word averages around 5 to 6 characters including the following space. So 4,000 characters is roughly 650–750 words, and 650 words is roughly 3,500–4,000 characters. Count both if a form gives one limit and your editor shows the other.
SMS limits
A single text message holds 160 characters if every character is in the standard GSM-7 alphabet, or only 70 if any character needs Unicode (UCS-2), such as an emoji or a curly apostrophe. Both figures come from the 3GPP standard TS 23.038. Longer texts are split into parts, and each part loses a few characters to a header, so a multi-part message carries 153 GSM-7 or 67 Unicode characters per part (Twilio docs).
| Message | Encoding | Parts |
|---|---|---|
| 160 plain characters | GSM-7 | 1 |
| 161 plain characters | GSM-7 | 2 (153 + 8) |
| 70 characters including one curly apostrophe (’) | UCS-2 | 1 |
| 100 characters including one curly apostrophe (’) | UCS-2 | 2 (67 + 33) |
Most emoji use two UCS-2 units, so each one takes two of the 70 places. Some symbols, including the euro sign, square brackets, the tilde and the backslash, are in GSM-7’s extension table and count as two characters each. For businesses that pay per part, one emoji in a 150-character reminder can double the cost of every message.
How to stay under a limit
- Write first, then cut. Draft freely, then paste the text into the Character Counter, which shows live limits for X, Instagram, LinkedIn, search snippets and SMS. For essays, use the Word Counter.
- Cut filler phrases. “In order to” becomes “to”. “At this point in time” becomes “now”. “Due to the fact that” becomes “because”.
- Front-load the point. Readers often see only the first line of a caption or the first 50 characters of a title.
- Replace long links. On platforms that count the full link, use a short link or point people to your bio. For print, a QR code saves space: see how to make a QR code.
- Check before you post photos too. A caption is not the only thing you share; see how to remove location from photos.
Both counters run in your browser. Your draft is not uploaded or stored on a server.
FAQ
Do spaces count as characters?
Yes, almost everywhere: social networks, SMS, UCAS and search snippets all count spaces. Only some forms ask for a count “without spaces”, and they say so.
Does a line break count as a character?
Usually yes. Most platforms count a line break as one character, and some count it as two (a carriage return plus a line feed). Leave a little room if you use many line breaks.
Why does my text message say 70 characters instead of 160?
At least one character in it is outside the GSM-7 alphabet, such as an emoji or a curly quote copied from a word processor. That switches the whole message to Unicode, which fits 70 characters per message.
How long should a meta description be?
Google sets no fixed limit, but snippets are trimmed to fit the screen. About 150–160 characters is a practical target. Make the first 120 characters count, because mobile results may show less.