The limit is 280 characters — or is it bytes?

Plenty of systems cap input by bytes, not characters. A string of 200 emoji can blow past a 280-byte limit because each emoji is several bytes in UTF-8. Counting visible characters alone hides the number that actually gets rejected.

Measure what matters

The Text Statistics tool reports characters, words, lines, sentences, and UTF-8 bytes at once. Paste your draft and see both the friendly character count and the byte count a server will enforce, so you trim the right thing.

Compare drafts precisely

When you are deciding between two phrasings, the String Similarity tool shows how close they are by Levenshtein distance — useful for seeing how much a trim actually changed the text.

When to check

Trimming copy to fit a database column or a tweet-style limit.
Estimating storage or payload size before sending.
Confirming a multibyte string will not exceed a byte-based cap.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the byte count larger than the character count?

Because a character is not a byte in UTF-8. Latin letters take one byte each, while many other scripts take two, three, or four, so a value can pass a character limit and still overflow a byte-limited column.

Which count do my form limits use?

Databases and transport layers almost always enforce bytes, while a user interface usually counts characters. Checking both before shipping is what prevents a value that looks valid from being rejected on save.

How is reading time estimated?

From the word count divided by a typical adult reading rate. It is an approximation, and technical text with code and notation reads slower, so treat the estimate as a floor rather than a promise.

Count characters, words, lines, and UTF-8 bytes