The Tutte polynomial is the most general invariant of matroids and graphs that can be computed recursively by deleting and contracting edges. We generalize this invariant to any class of combinatorial objects with deletion and contraction operations, associating to each such class a universal Tutte character by a functorial procedure. We show that these invariants satisfy a universal property and convolution formulae similar to the Tutte polynomial. With this machinery we recover classical invariants for delta-matroids, matroid perspectives, relative and colored matroids, generalized permutohedra, and arithmetic matroids, and produce some new convolution formulae. Our principal tools are combinatorial coalgebras and their convolution algebras. Our results generalize in an intrinsic way the recent results of Krajewski--Moffatt--Tanasa.