A Steam profile comment stops at about 1,000 characters. Valve does not publish that number anywhere we could find, so we measured it: on 27 October 2026 we read 10,871 comments on 150 public profiles, and the longest plain-text comment was 999 characters long, with none above that.
Below is how we counted, what counts as a character, which formatting tags Steam lists for profile comments, and why comment art falls apart after you post it.
How Long Can a Steam Comment Be?
Of the 10,871 comments we read, 10,428 had no links and no formatting tags, so the displayed text should match what was submitted. In that set the longest comment is 999 visible characters; eight comments sit at exactly 999, and not one reaches 1,000. Several of the longest end in the middle of a word, which is the shape of a hard cut, not of people stopping at a round number.
We looked for the figure in Steam Support and in Steam's own formatting help pages on the same day and found no limit stated. One user in a 2024 Steam Discussions thread reported an error saying the comment needs to be less than 1,000 characters. That matches what we measured; we have not seen the message ourselves, though that user's comment was 583 characters by their count.
How long comments actually are, in that same set of 10,428:
- 0 to 99 characters: 8,757 comments (84%)
- 100 to 199: 757
- 200 to 299: 331
- 300 to 399: 236
- 400 to 499: 112
- 500 to 599: 71
- 600 to 699: 48
- 700 to 799: 44
- 800 to 899: 39
- 900 to 999: 33
- 1,000 or more: 0
The median comment is 30 characters. The ceiling matters for comment art and pasted walls of text, and for almost nothing else.
How We Measured It
We read the comment threads of public profiles the way any signed-out visitor sees them: the rendered text of each comment, with a line break counted as one character. Leading and trailing spaces were trimmed, so a comment that ends in a space reads one short. Nothing was posted and no account was used. Comments containing links or formatting tags were left out of the ranking because Steam changes their length on display. A blocked link, for example, is replaced by the text {LINK REMOVED}, which is how one rendered comment came out at 1,016 characters.
Two limits of the method. The figure comes from what Steam displays, not from the comment box itself, which only appears when you are signed in, and we did not read its attributes. And we did not read the dates of the comments, so we cannot say whether the ceiling has always been the same or is the same on every profile; the sample says what it says.
Do Spaces, Line Breaks and Accents Count?
Yes, each one counts as one character. Line breaks have no separate limit that we could see: one comment in the sample has 563 line breaks in 584 characters. Non-ASCII letters count as one character each, not as bytes: a 938-character comment that weighs 1,036 bytes in UTF-8 was posted without trouble, so the ceiling is not a byte count.
Emoji we do not know. One user in the 2024 thread thinks some characters count double, without saying which, and no comment near the ceiling in our sample contained any. If your comment is close to the limit and full of emoji, that is where to cut first.
Why Does Steam Say My Comment Is Too Long When It Isn't?
Steam Discussions threads from 2015 to 2024 carry the same complaint: a comment that another counter puts well under 1,000 characters is refused. In the 2024 thread it was 583 characters of comment art. We did not measure what Steam counts beyond the text it displays, so what follows is the two explanations the evidence allows, not a diagnosis of your case.
First, your counter is not Steam's. Word processors offer a count without spaces, some counters skip line breaks, and some count bytes, where every accented letter takes two or more. Second, formatting tags and links are characters in what you submit even when they are not in what you see: [b] and [/b] around a word add seven characters, and a link may count in full in what you submit, whatever Steam later displays in its place.
The practical answer is to cut the comment to around 900 characters, post it, and read it back. If it was accepted and shows in full, you have your margin.
Which Formatting Works in Profile Comments?
Steam publishes a formatting help page for profile comments. As we read it on 27 October 2026, it lists these tags:
[h1],[h2],[h3]for headings[b]bold,[u]underline,[i]italic[strike]strikethrough[spoiler]hidden until clicked[noparse]shows tags as plain text instead of applying them[hr]a horizontal rule[url=...]a link with your own text
The help page for reviews is longer: it adds [list], [olist], [quote], [code] and [table], plus embedded widgets when you paste a YouTube, store or Workshop link. The profile page lists none of those. We did not try them in a profile comment, so we can only say they are not on the list.
What we saw rendered across the 10,871 comments: links, spoilers, strikethrough, bold, italic and underline. Headings and horizontal rules did not appear in the sample at all, which says nothing about whether they work.
Do Links Work in Steam Comments?
Yes. A link in a profile comment renders as a clickable link, and the sample contained plenty. Some links are replaced on display by the text {LINK REMOVED}; we saw the replacement, not the rule that decides which links get it. Separately, posting links in the Steam Community is one of the things a limited account cannot do, which is covered in why you cannot comment on a Steam profile. If a link is what is stopping your comment, the fix is to leave the link out.
Why Does Steam Comment Art Look Broken?
Because the comment is rendered as ordinary web text, and four things in Steam's own stylesheet, read on 27 October 2026, work against a picture made of characters.
- Runs of spaces collapse into one. The rule for comment text does not preserve whitespace, so a browser treats ten spaces as one. Art aligned with spaces loses its columns the moment it is posted.
- The font is proportional.Steam's community pages set Motiva Sans and nothing switches comments to a monospace font. Thirty characters on one line and thirty on the next are not the same width, so edges that line up in a text editor drift on the profile.
- Tall comments get their own scrollbar. Comment text is capped at 400 pixels in height with scrolling inside, and each line is 18 pixels, which comes to about 22 lines. Anything taller is cut off until the reader scrolls inside the comment.
- Phones wrap it differently. On screens up to 480 pixels wide the left padding disappears, so lines get wider room, and any run of characters too long for the line is broken wherever it hits the edge.
How to Make Comment Art That Survives
These are working rules that follow from the stylesheet, not measurements of finished art, so check the result with your own eyes before you paste it anywhere else.
- Align with block or Braille characters, never with spaces; a run of spaces is one space.
- Keep lines short. Thirty to forty characters a line is a starting point; the proportional font decides the rest, so test it on a profile you control.
- Stay under about 22 lines, or the piece gets a scrollbar.
- Stay under 1,000 characters in total, line breaks included.
- Open the profile on a phone before you call it done.
If you would rather start from something than from a blank box, our Steam comment generator has a category of compact single-line ASCII and Unicode art; you need a free account to use it.
Is There a Limit on How Many Comments You Can Post?
Valve publishes no number for profile comments, and the figures users report contradict each other. If a comment is refused after a run of them, the cause is more likely frequency than length, and it is covered in posting too often. What a wall of comments signals, and what it cannot prove, is in how Steam profile comments actually work.
With the Write Your Own Comments add-on on Steam profile comments, you can send your own lines. We take up to 1,000 characters per comment, so keep yours just under the ceiling we measured, and we read every line you send before anything is posted.
Quick Answers
What is the character limit for Steam profile comments? About 1,000 characters. Valve does not publish the figure; in 10,428 plain-text comments we read on 27 October 2026 the longest was 999 characters and none reached 1,000.
Do spaces and line breaks count toward the limit? Yes, one character each. We saw no separate limit on the number of lines: one comment in the sample had 563 line breaks in 584 characters.
Can I use bold or spoilers in a Steam comment? Yes. Steam's formatting help for profile comments lists headings, bold, underline, italic, strikethrough, spoiler, noparse, a horizontal rule and links. Lists, quotes, code and tables are on the help page for reviews, not the one for profile comments.
Why does my Steam comment art look different after posting? Runs of spaces collapse to one, the font is proportional, and a comment taller than about 22 lines scrolls inside a 400-pixel box. Align with block characters, keep lines short, and check it on a phone.
Imbaboost is not affiliated with Valve or Steam.
