Character Limits 2026: Instagram, X, Telegram, SMS

A caption that fits on Instagram can be too long for X, and a short text with one emoji can turn into two SMS messages. The problem is rarely the number itself. It's that every platform counts in its own way. This guide puts the numbers in one table and explains the rules behind them, so you know why a counter shows what it shows.

Character limits by platform (November 2026)

Platforms change their limits from time to time. These are the values Zebra's character counter checks against as of November 2026.

How to check your text against every limit

1. Open the character counter. It works in the browser, with no account.
2. Paste or type your caption, post, bio or message.
3. Look at the numbers: characters, characters without spaces, words, sentences, paragraphs, lines, hashtags and reading time.
4. Check the platform bars. Each bar fills up as you type and turns red when you go over, showing how many characters to cut.
5. Edit until every platform you need is in the green, then copy the text.

The text is counted in your browser and saved only in that browser's local storage, so it survives a page refresh. The Clear button removes it.

Instagram: 2,200 for a caption, 150 for a bio

An Instagram caption can be up to 2,200 characters long, but the feed shows only the first lines, roughly 125 characters, before the "more" link. Treat those first characters as the headline: the hook, the offer or the question goes there, and hashtags go at the end.

The bio limit is 150 characters, and every emoji, line break and space counts toward it. If you want to style the bio with unusual letters, try Instagram fonts, then paste the result into the counter to make sure it still fits.

X: 280, but not 280 of everything

X uses a weighted count. Latin and Cyrillic letters, digits and most punctuation count as 1. Each emoji counts as 2. Chinese, Japanese and Korean characters also count as 2, so a post written entirely in Japanese fits about 140 characters. Any link counts as 23, however long or short the actual URL is, because X shortens it.

That's why a regular counter can show 270 while X refuses to publish. Zebra's counter applies the X weights separately in its X bar, so you see the number X will see. Paid X accounts can publish longer posts; the 280 limit applies to standard accounts.

Telegram: 4,096 for a message, 1,024 for a caption

A Telegram text message holds 4,096 characters. A caption under a photo, video or file holds 1,024 on a regular account; Telegram Premium allows longer captions. If your text is longer than the caption limit, send the media first and the text as a separate message, or put the text first and attach the media below it.

Telegram counts in UTF-16 code units rather than in visible characters. For plain text the two are the same, but a simple emoji takes 2 units, and emoji with a skin tone or several joined parts take even more (👍🏽 is 4). A caption with 30 emoji can use 30 or more extra units. The Telegram bars in the counter use this same unit count.

SMS: why 160 sometimes becomes 70

A standard SMS uses the GSM-7 alphabet: Latin letters, digits and common symbols. One message holds 160 such characters. A few symbols from the extended GSM set, such as € [ ] { } ~ ^ | and \, take 2 positions each.

As soon as the text has a single character outside that alphabet (an emoji, a Cyrillic letter, a Chinese character, many accented letters, or a curly quote copied from a word processor if your phone doesn't replace it), the whole message switches to UCS-2 encoding and the limit drops to 70. Long messages are split into parts: 153 characters per part in GSM-7 and 67 in UCS-2. Each part is billed as a separate SMS, so one emoji in a bulk message can double its cost.

The counter shows the encoding and how many SMS your text will be sent as.

YouTube and Google: titles and snippets

A YouTube video title can be up to 100 characters, but search results and the mobile app often cut it earlier, so put the main words in the first part.

A meta description has no hard limit. Google shows roughly the first 160 characters (the exact cut-off depends on pixel width) and may write its own snippet. Aim for 140–160 characters with the key point at the start.

TikTok

As of November 2026, a TikTok caption can be up to 4,000 characters and a profile bio up to 80. TikTok isn't in the counter's bars yet, so compare the character count with these numbers yourself, and check the app if your text is right at the edge.

What counts as one character

• Emoji. You see one 👍🏽 or one 🇯🇵 flag, but inside the text it can be two to seven code points. Zebra counts what you see, so each emoji is one character in the main counter. X counts it as 2, and Telegram and SMS count code units.
• Accented letters. An "é" can be stored as one character or as "e" plus an accent mark. The counter treats both as one.
• Spaces and line breaks. Both count everywhere. Empty lines between paragraphs in an Instagram caption count too.
• Links. On X a link is always 23. Everywhere else it counts at full length, so shorten long links before posting to Telegram or SMS.

FAQ

Check your text now

Paste your next caption, post or message and see every platform limit at once. Open the character counter →