X counts a link as 23 characters however long it is, an emoji as two, and some alphabets as double. This counts the way X counts, which is why the number here sometimes disagrees with your text editor.
Tuned to X's real counting rules — links always cost 23 characters no matter how long they are, and emoji count double. Pick your account tier and start typing.
Plenty of room
Not one character per character. The rules are published and almost nobody has read them, which is why so many posts get rejected at 279.
Every link costs 23 characters
However long it is. A twelve-character link and a two-hundred-character link both cost 23, because X shortens everything through its own wrapper before counting. So there is no point trimming a URL — and a long one is free.
Emoji cost two
Every one. A post with a dozen emoji has spent 24 characters on them, which on a 280-character tier is nearly a tenth of the post.
Some alphabets cost double
Latin, Greek, Cyrillic and most European scripts count as one per character. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Hebrew and several others count as two. A Japanese post has half the room an English one does.
Whitespace at the ends is trimmed
Leading and trailing spaces and newlines are discarded before counting, so they cost nothing. Spaces in the middle count normally.
The number everybody knows, and the one most people are actually writing against.
Long posts, collapsed behind a Show more in the timeline.
Effectively an article. Almost nobody reads to the end of one.
Worth knowing that the limit is not the constraint that matters. A post over roughly 280 characters gets truncated in the timeline behind a Show more, so the first couple of lines still carry the whole burden of getting anybody to expand it.
Never shorten a URL
A link shortener costs you nothing and buys you nothing — X already charges a flat 23 either way. It also makes the link look less trustworthy, which costs clicks.
Put the link last
Not a counting rule, a reading one. A link mid-sentence is a place to leave; a link at the end is a place to go next.
Budget your emoji
Six emoji is twelve characters. On a free account that is a whole clause you could have written instead.
Write to 240, not 280
Leaves room to fix a word choice without restructuring the sentence, and gives anybody quoting you space to add a comment.
Link detection is pattern matching, so an unusual URL format may be counted as plain text rather than as 23. Emoji built from several code points — a flag, or a family with skin tone modifiers — may count as more than one emoji here where X counts them as one.
Both errors are small and both err toward showing you a higher count than X will, which is the safe direction to be wrong in. If you are within two characters of the limit, paste it in and check.
Other platforms count differently and truncate differently: Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube titles. For everything else there is the plain word counter.
Everything here runs in your browser — nothing you type is uploaded anywhere.
Word Counter
Words, characters, sentences and reading time, live.
Case Converter
Upper, lower, and Title Case done properly.
Word Cloud
Which words you actually lean on.
Readability
Flesch-Kincaid and three others at once.
Word Unscrambler
Every valid word in a jumble of letters.
Reading Time
How long a piece takes to read.
Citation Generator
APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard.
Essay Counter
Word goals and progress for longer drafts.
Instagram Counter
Where your caption gets truncated.