X counts every link as 23 characters, not its real length

Type or paste a post above and the counter applies X's counting rules rather than counting letters. Links resolve to their fixed cost, emoji count as one glyph each, and the bar turns red the moment the post would be rejected.

If you have X Premium, tick the box to switch the ceiling to 25,000 characters. The count stays live and stays in your browser either way.

X caps a post at 280 characters on a free account, but the count is not the number of letters you typed. Every URL is replaced by a fixed-length t.co link, so a link costs 23 characters whether the original was fifteen characters long or two hundred. The counter applies that rule automatically, which is why a post carrying a long link often reads as far shorter than you expected.

Emoji are the other place raw character counts mislead. A single emoji built from a base character plus a skin tone modifier is one visible glyph, and the counter measures visible glyphs rather than raw code units, so what you see in the box is what X will accept.

X Premium raises the ceiling to 25,000 characters. Tick the Premium box and the counter switches limits. The catch is that anything past 280 collapses behind a Show more link in the timeline, so a long post still has to earn the tap with its first 140 characters or so. The extra room changes what you can publish, not what people will read by default.

Hashtags are worth less on X than on almost any other network. One or two relevant tags is the practical ceiling, and past that the post reads as spam while eating characters you needed for the argument. When an idea genuinely does not fit in 280, the free thread splitter breaks a draft into numbered posts using the same 23-character link rule.