Social Media Character Limits: Check Before You Post
Updated 2026-06-21
Each social platform cuts off text at a different point: X (Twitter) shows 280 characters for free accounts, LinkedIn posts run to 3,000, Threads allows 500, and a YouTube description holds up to 5,000 — but only the first ~157 are visible before the "...more" fold. Knowing the limit is half the job; knowing where the visible truncation lands is the other half.
The limits that actually matter
Raw character ceilings are easy to look up. The numbers that cost you engagement are the truncation points — where a platform hides the rest of your text behind a "see more" link:
- X (Twitter): 280-character ceiling on a free post. There's no mid-tweet fold, so every character counts toward the hard cap.
- LinkedIn: 3,000-character post limit, but only the first ~210 characters (about 3 lines on desktop) show before "...more." Front-load your hook.
- Threads: 500-character cap per post; longer ideas need to be split into a thread.
- YouTube: 5,000-character description, but the first ~157 characters are what appear under the video and in search results. The rest sits below the "...more" fold.
A post can be well under the ceiling and still get clipped at the fold, so the visible cutoff is usually the line you care about.
How to check where your post truncates
Counting by hand is unreliable — emoji, links, and line breaks all behave differently per platform. Instead, paste your draft into the Social Character Counter and watch each platform's count and cutoff update as you type.
- Open the tool and paste or type your post.
- Read the live character count for X, LinkedIn, Threads and YouTube side by side.
- Watch the preview show exactly where each platform truncates — so you can see what readers see before they tap "more."
- Trim until your hook fits above the fold, then copy the finished text into the platform.
Because it runs entirely in your browser, nothing you draft is uploaded or stored anywhere. Unpublished posts, campaign copy, and client drafts stay on your device.
Common pitfalls to avoid
A few things quietly eat your character budget or break the preview you expected:
- Links don't always count as their full length. Some platforms wrap URLs to a fixed length, so a long link may cost fewer (or more) characters than it looks.
- Emoji can count as two characters. A single emoji often consumes more of the budget than one keystroke, which is enough to push you over a tight cap.
- Line breaks count too. Three blank lines for spacing can be the difference between fitting above the fold and getting clipped.
- The first line is everything. On LinkedIn and YouTube, write so the most compelling sentence lands before the truncation point — that's the only part most people read.
Stop guessing whether your caption will fit. Paste your draft into the Social Character Counter and see exactly where every platform cuts you off before you hit post.