Twitter Character Counter

The 280-character limit on Twitter is both a constraint and a creative challenge. Before 2017, tweets were limited to just 140 characters, forcing users to be extremely concise. The expanded limit gives you more room to express ideas, but the best tweets still tend to be punchy and direct.

Character counting on Twitter has some quirks worth knowing. URLs always count as 23 characters regardless of their actual length because Twitter wraps them in t.co links. Emojis count as 2 characters each due to Unicode encoding. Mentions and hashtags use their full character count, so @username takes 9 characters.

Twitter Premium subscribers get access to 4,000-character tweets, but that does not mean you should use all of them. Long tweets can get truncated in timelines, and engagement data shows shorter tweets often perform better. The extra space is useful for threads and detailed explanations, not rambling.

Timing matters as much as length. Tweets posted during peak hours (8-10am and 6-9pm in your target timezone) typically get more visibility. Combining the right character count with optimal posting times gives your content the best chance of being seen.

Our character counter updates in real-time as you type, showing exactly where you stand against the limit. The visual indicator changes from green to yellow to red as you approach and exceed the limit, so you always know when to trim.