FREE TOOL · COUNTS THE WAY X COUNTS

Twitter character counter

A plain letter count disagrees with X. Links always cost 23, every emoji costs 2, and characters outside X's common-script ranges cost 2. This counter applies X's own published weighting rules live, so the count here tracks the one the post button uses.

0 / 280
Fits
  • 0 characters typed
  • 0 links · 23 each
  • 0 emoji · 2 each
  • 0 other 2-weight characters
Schedule it to X and 8 more platforms - start free Write once, publish everywhere, with a per-platform version where limits differ. Cancel anytime.
THE COUNTING RULES

How X actually counts to 280

X does not count letters, it counts weights. Characters in the ranges X's rules list as weight 1 cover most common scripts: Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, and more, plus digits, punctuation, and everyday symbols. Emoji weigh 2 each, however many codepoints they are built from, and so does everything outside those listed ranges, CJK included. And every URL is wrapped by the t.co shortener and always costs exactly 23, whether the original link is 25 characters or 250. All of this is documented in X's own developer reference on counting characters, and it is why a generic word-processor count disagrees with the post button.

Two practical consequences. First, emoji-heavy posts run out of room much faster than they look: 10 emoji spend 20 of your 280. Second, long links cost you nothing extra, so there is no reason to hand-shorten a URL before posting.

REFERENCE

The X character limits, in one table

FieldLimitNotes
Post 280 Weighted characters on a free account. Reply text counts the same way.
Post (X Premium) 25,000 Premium subscribers can write long posts. The feed collapses them behind "Show more".
Any URL 23 Every link is wrapped by the t.co shortener and always counts as 23, no matter its real length.
Any emoji 2 Every emoji counts as 2, even multi-part ones like family or skin-tone emoji.
Direct message 10,000 DMs have their own, much higher cap.
Bio 160 Profile bio field.
Display name 50 The name shown above your handle.
Username 15 The @handle itself.

Post, URL, and emoji figures are from X's developer documentation on counting characters. Profile field limits are X's long-standing documented values. Verified August 2026. Checking a caption against the other 8 platforms too? Use our all-platform character counter and post preview.

WHEN THE 280 BOUNCES AN AUTOMATION

Don't cut it, thread it

The 280 limit is the classic way an automated X post fails: a model drafts something great at 340 characters, the platform refuses it, and the workflow discovers this after the fact. The lazy fix is truncation, which ships a post with its ending cut off.

Threading is usually the better instruction, and through Blotato it is one call rather than a chain of replies to manage: the first post goes in content.text and the rest in content.additionalPosts, an array of follow-up posts that Blotato chains for you, no tweet IDs to capture. The same field works for Threads and Bluesky. Tell the agent: count with X's weights first, and when a draft will not fit, split it at sentence boundaries into a thread instead of cutting it, the way the preview above does.

FAQ

Twitter character counter questions

01 How many characters can I post on Twitter (X)?
280 weighted characters on a free account. X Premium subscribers can post up to 25,000 characters, with the feed collapsing long posts behind "Show more". Reply text follows the same 280 limit and the same weighting.
02 Do links count toward the 280 characters?
Yes, but always as exactly 23 characters. X wraps every URL with its t.co shortener, so a 100-character link and a 30-character link both cost 23. This counter applies the same rule, so paste your links in full.
03 Why does X say my post is too long when I counted 280?
Because X counts by weight, not by letters. Characters from most common scripts count as 1, but emoji, CJK, and characters outside X's listed ranges count as 2 each. A plain counter reads each emoji as one character while X charges two, so an emoji-heavy post runs out of room earlier than a plain count suggests. This tool uses X's weighting so the number you see matches how X counts.
04 Do emoji really count as 2 characters on X?
Yes, every emoji counts as 2, regardless of how it is built. A family emoji made of four joined emoji still counts as 2, the same as a single smiley. That is per X's own published counting rules.
05 What happens if my post is over the limit?
In the app, the post button stays disabled. Through an API, the platform rejects the post; through Blotato, an automation sees that rejection as a failed status when it polls. The fix in both cases is the same: cut the text, or split it into a thread.
06 How do I post something longer than 280 characters?
Three options: subscribe to X Premium for the 25,000-character limit, link out to the full piece, or split the text into a thread. The thread preview above shows where your text would break into 280-character posts, splitting at sentence and word boundaries.
07 Is this the same as an Instagram character counter?
No, the limits and the counting rules are different. Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters counted plainly, while X weighs characters and caps at 280. Our post preview tool checks one caption against all 9 platforms at once, including Instagram, if that is what you need.
08 How does an automation avoid the 280 limit?
By counting before submitting, with X's weighting rather than plain length, and by threading what does not fit. The Blotato API accepts a whole thread in one call: the first post goes in the text field and the rest in additionalPosts, with the reply chaining handled for you.
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