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Free tool · Official limits

Instagram Character & Hashtag Counter

Paste your text: caption length, hashtag and @ mention count, bio length and, if you like, a YouTube title or an X post are compared with the official limits as you type.

Runs in your browser — your text is never sent or stored

Official limits read at the source on September 23, 2026

All free tools

Count your text

The whole text you will post, hashtags and @ mentions included.

Visible characters
0 / 2,200
2,200 left
UTF-16 units
0 / 2,200
2,200 left

Start typing

Instagram and YouTube don't publish how they count emoji; the safe side is keeping both numbers within the limit.

Hashtags
0 / 5
0 different
@ mentions
0 / 20

Which official limits does the counter use?

Every number was read from one of the sources below; the tool uses no other number.

How to count it yourself

You can reach the same result without the tool. Four rules are enough:

  1. Count visible characters

    Every letter, digit, space and symbol you see is 1. An emoji, a flag or an emoji with a skin tone also counts as a single character.

  2. Count UTF-16 units separately

    Many emoji are 2 units (like 👋) and combined emoji such as a family can reach 11. Accented letters (é, ü) are 1 unit. Instagram doesn't publish which count it uses, so keep both below the limit.

  3. Count hashtags

    Every “#” directly followed by a letter, digit or underscore starts a hashtag; the tag ends at the first space or punctuation mark. “#” plus a space is no hashtag, and $ or % cut the tag.

  4. Weigh an X post

    Latin letters, digits and common punctuation count 1; every emoji 2; Chinese, Japanese, Korean and most other characters 2; every link 23, whatever its length. The total must stay within 280.

Example

Good morning 👋 #coffee #monday

  • Visible characters: 30 (👋 is one character)
  • UTF-16 units: 31 (👋 is two units)
  • Hashtags: 2
  • X weighted characters: 31 (👋 counts 2)

Check in the browser console

You can see the same two numbers in your browser's developer console; the tool uses these two methods:

const s = "Good morning 👋 #coffee #monday";
[...new Intl.Segmenter().segment(s)].length; // 30
s.length; // 31

Sources and read times

The limits were read from official pages and written into the tool with their dates. If a page changes, a number is updated only after it has been read again.

Frequently asked questions

How many characters can an Instagram caption have?

Meta's developer documentation gives a maximum of 2,200 characters for an Instagram caption. The Help Center's caption page states no number, so the tool uses 2,200.

How many hashtags can I use on Instagram?

Instagram's Help Center says up to 5 tags per post. Meta's API documentation says 30; because the two sources disagree, the tool warns at 5 and shows both with their dates.

Why do I see two character counts?

An emoji is one character on screen but usually 2, sometimes more, UTF-16 units for a computer. Instagram and YouTube don't publish which one they count; if both numbers are within the limit, you are safe.

How does X count characters?

An X post allows 280 weighted characters: Latin letters count 1, emoji 2, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and most other characters 2, and every link 23. Attached media counts 0.

Is my text sent anywhere?

No. Counting happens entirely in your browser; the text is not sent to a server, not stored and not passed to any analytics tool.

Related guide

Social media growth guide: a steady production rhythm and the right metrics