Social Media Character Limits

Character limits by platform and field

The table lists 38 field limits across 10 platforms. "Official" means the platform's own help center, developer docs or validation endpoint states the number; "Secondary" means only third-party sources report it. All figures were checked on 5 November 2026.

Do fancy fonts count as more characters?

Yes, on platforms that count UTF-16 units, bytes or weighted characters; no, on platforms that count Unicode code points. The same 9-letter word "Aesthetic" produces these 4 counts in each style:

The 4 counting methods differ for 4 reasons:

1. Code points count each Unicode character once. Bold and plain text tie.
2. UTF-16 units count each Mathematical Alphanumeric letter as 2, because those letters sit outside the Basic Multilingual Plane. JavaScript's .length and TikTok's caption API use this count.
3. UTF-8 bytes count a Mathematical Alphanumeric letter as 4. Byte-limited fields, such as some game name fields, fill up 4 times faster.
4. Combining marks are separate characters. Strikethrough doubles the count, and default glitch text multiplies it by about 8.

How does X count fancy text?

X counts every fancy letter as 2 toward the 280 limit. X's open-source twitter-text configuration gives a weight of 1 only to code points in 4 ranges (U+0000–U+10FF, U+2000–U+200D, U+2010–U+201F and U+2032–U+2037) and a weight of 2 to everything else. Mathematical letters, small caps, circled letters, fullwidth letters, U+3164 and U+2800 all fall outside those ranges, so a post written entirely in bold fits 140 letters. Combining marks (U+0300–U+036F) weigh 1 each, so strikethrough text still doubles the count. X normalizes text with NFC before counting, which leaves styled letters unchanged. The twitter fonts page applies this weighting in its counter.

How does TikTok count fancy text in captions?

TikTok's Content Posting API limits captions to 2,200 "UTF-16 runes", so each Mathematical Alphanumeric letter uses 2 of the 2,200. In-app captions are widely reported at 4,000 characters, but TikTok has not published how the app counts them. TikTok names (30 characters) accept styled text, and usernames reject it; the tiktok fonts page filters styles for the name and bio.

Which fancy text styles use the most characters?

Glitch text uses the most characters, followed by strikethrough and underline, because every letter carries extra combining marks. A single glitch letter from the glitch text generator holds 3 to 13 code points at the default intensity (8.6 on average) and up to 40 at the maximum intensity, so a 32-character Discord display name fits about 3 default glitch letters. Small caps and wide text use 1 code point per letter, and their UTF-16 cost is also 1 per letter. For tight fields such as names, the small text generator gives the cheapest styled output on UTF-16-counting platforms.

Which character limits are not officially documented?

10 commonly quoted limits have no official source as of November 2026, so treat them as approximate: the Instagram username, name and highlight name; the TikTok username length and bio; Roblox profile descriptions; Free Fire, PUBG Mobile and Mobile Legends nicknames; and Steam profile names, which forum reports describe as a 32-byte limit rather than 32 characters.