TikTok Character Counter

TikTok character limits at a glance

TikTok caption strategy under the 2,200 cap

First 100 characters are everything

On most phones, TikTok shows roughly the first 100 characters of the caption before the "...more" expand button. That window is your hook plus one CTA. The rest is below-the-fold and far fewer viewers read it. Treat the first 100 as a tweet that must work standalone. See also: Hashtag Counter.

Hashtag strategy

3-5 hashtags is the sweet spot. Each one costs the character count of the tag plus the #. Niche-specific tags (#bookishtok, #cooking2026) outperform broad tags (#fyp, #foryoupage) because the algorithm has already figured out broad relevance. Counting hashtags as part of the caption shrinks your hook budget.

2022 caption expansion

The cap jumped from 300 to 2,200 in early 2022 to match Instagram. The longer cap is for SEO-style descriptions and story copy. Most viral creators still use 80-200 char captions because longer ones bury the hook.

Hooks that work in 100 chars

"POV: you just found..." (15 chars setup). "If you do X, watch this" (22 chars). Numbered hooks ("3 things..." 12 chars). Question hooks ("Why does..." 11 chars). Personal claim ("I'm 28 and just..." 18 chars). The setup pattern uses 10-25 chars; you have 75-90 chars left for the actual hook.

Bio strategy under the 80-char cap

80 chars is brutally tight, the smallest social bio in 2026. No line breaks supported. Periods within the text become natural breaks in how the eye reads it. The three things to fit:

• Identity (who you are or what the account is about) - 15-30 chars
• Hook / value prop (what to expect) - 20-40 chars
• CTA (where to go next, optional) - 10-20 chars

Examples that fit 80: "Marketing tips for creators // new vid every Tue // DM for collabs" (66). "I make pasta. You watch. We all eat carbs. 🍝" (44). "Ex-VC. Now I rate startups in 60 seconds. Sub for the worst pitches." (68).

Emoji count as 2 each, so a 4-emoji bio costs 8 of your 80 chars. Spaces between emoji count too.

How TikTok counts characters

1 character per code point, mostly

TikTok counts characters as JavaScript counts them: UTF-16 code points. The Latin alphabet, digits, common punctuation, and spaces each count as 1. Line breaks (in captions) count as 1.

Emoji count as 2

Single emoji like 😀, 🔥, or ✈️ each take 2 code points (surrogate pairs in UTF-16) and TikTok counts them as 2 characters. Combined emoji (flag emojis like 🇺🇸, family groupings like 👨‍👩‍👧, skin-tone variants like 👍🏽) can count as 4, 7, or 11. The counter mirrors this behavior.

Hashtags and mentions

The # and @ symbols each count as 1 character. The tag word itself counts character-by-character. #travel costs 7 chars total (# + 6 letters). @username costs 9 chars (@ + 8 letters). The Stats card breaks out hashtag and mention counts separately so you can see how much of your caption budget they consume.

CJK characters

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters count as 1 character each on TikTok. This is why CJK-language creators can fit denser captions than English-language creators inside the same 2,200 cap.

Privacy and processing

All counting runs in your browser. TikTok caption drafts, bio iterations, brand copy under NDA, and pre-launch handles stay local. The tool does not log keystrokes, does not transmit the input, and does not store the source. Safe for confidential creator strategy.