Does the count include spaces?

Both figures are shown, because forms differ and rarely say which they mean. Where you cannot tell, use the higher figure — it is the one that cannot fail validation.

How many words is 500 characters?

Roughly 80–85 words in English, taking an average of about six characters per word including the space. Technical writing with longer words comes out fewer.

Are emoji one character?

Often not. Many emoji are several code units, and some — flags, and those with skin tone modifiers — are more still. A form counting code units may see one emoji as four characters.

No. Counting happens in your browser as you type, and nothing is sent anywhere or kept.

Character Counter

Counts characters, words, sentences and paragraphs as you type, with and without spaces, against the limit you are writing to.

Runs in your browser — nothing is uploaded

Your text

Analysis

Words: 0
Characters: 0
No spaces: 0
Sentences: 0
Paragraphs: 0
Reading: 0 min

Against common limits

Twitter/X post0/280
SEO title0/60
Meta description0/160

Need this as an API?

Why use it

Built to be genuinely useful

With and without spaces

Application forms mean different things by 'characters', and the two figures can differ by a fifth on a long answer.

Counts down to your limit

Set the limit and see what remains, rather than counting up and comparing in your head.

Nothing is uploaded

The arithmetic runs in your browser. Salary, marks and tax figures are nobody else's business, and none of it is sent anywhere.

Free, no sign-up

No account, no limit on how many times you run it, and no result held back.

How it works

Three steps

1
Type or paste the text.
2
Set your limit.
3
Watch the counts as you edit.

Which count a form means

Forms rarely say. A 500-character limit might mean 500 including spaces or excluding them, and on a typical paragraph the difference is around 80 characters — a sentence. Where a form validates on submission, the safe assumption is the stricter reading.

Some systems also count a newline as one character and others as two, which is why a piece of text that fits in a text editor can be rejected by a form. If an entry is close to a limit, removing a blank line is often enough.

Why a character limit is usually a length limit in disguise

A 300-character statement is about 50 words: two or three sentences. Writing to fill it produces something dense and unreadable, and writing to say one thing clearly usually comes in under it with room to spare.

The useful approach is to write the answer, then cut. Text written to a limit reads like text written to a limit, and a reader working through several hundred applications notices the difference between an answer that was edited and one that was padded.

FAQ

Questions people ask

API access

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Tell us what you are building, how you plan to use it and the volume you expect. We will come back to you with availability, integration details and a quote for your usage.

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