Facebook Character Counter

Facebook's Wild Character Limit

63,206 characters. That's not a typo. Facebook lets you write a small novel in a single post. Will anyone read it? Almost certainly not. The irony is that shorter posts (like 40-80 characters) get way more engagement. People scroll fast.

The truncation happens around 477 characters on desktop, even less on mobile. So your first couple sentences need to hook people before they decide whether to tap "See more." Most won't.

For Facebook Ads (Where It Actually Matters)

The ad character limits are tighter, and these actually affect how your ads display:

• Primary Text: 125 characters or it gets cut off in some placements
• Headline: 40 characters. Go longer and you'll see "..."
• Description: 30 characters for that little text under the headline
• Honestly? Test both short and long copy. Different audiences respond differently.

How Facebook Handles Character Counting

That 63,206 character limit sounds massive until you realize Facebook chops your post at around 480 characters in the feed anyway. On mobile? You get about 125 characters before they hide the rest. The weird part is that Facebook still lets you write way beyond what anyone will see without clicking. It's like giving you a billboard-sized canvas but only showing people a postcard-sized preview.

Links behave strangely. When you paste a URL, Facebook generates a preview card with the image, title, and description from that page. The URL itself still counts toward your character limit, but Facebook often hides it once the preview loads. So a 200-character URL takes up space in your limit, even though viewers don't see it. You can delete the URL after the preview appears, which saves characters.

Emojis generally count as one character each, which is nice. Special characters, accents, and symbols also count as one. Line breaks count too, so if you're spacing out your post for readability (which you should), remember each Enter press costs you a character. Facebook's character counter is usually accurate, but this tool helps you see exactly where you stand before posting.

Facebook Posts That Get Reach

Shorter really does perform better on Facebook. Posts under 80 characters get noticeably more engagement than longer ones. Why? Because they fit entirely in the feed without truncation, and people can read them in a glance while scrolling. The algorithm notices when people actually read your post versus just scrolling past it, and that affects how many people see it.

Organic reach on Facebook is kind of a joke now compared to a few years ago. Pages that used to reach 20-30% of their followers now hit 2-5% on average. The algorithm prioritizes posts from friends and family, then groups, then maybe pages if you're lucky. Visual content (photos, videos) gets more reach than text-only posts, but even that's declining. The real strategy is getting people to engage quickly - comments and shares signal to Facebook that your post is worth showing to more people.

What actually still works? Asking genuine questions gets comments. Sharing something mildly controversial (but not offensive) sparks discussion. Local community content performs well in local groups. Anything that gets people tagging their friends works because it spreads organically. But the days of just posting and expecting reach are over. You're competing with an algorithm designed to keep people on Facebook, not send them to your website or increase your visibility for free.

Frequently Asked Questions