You can do exactly that via the various sizeWithFont:
methods in NSString UIKit Additions. In your case the simplest variant should suffice (since you don't have multi-line labels):
NSString *someString = @"Hello World";
UIFont *yourFont = // [UIFont ...]
CGSize stringBoundingBox = [someString sizeWithFont:yourFont];
There are several variations of this method, eg. some consider line break modes or maximum sizes.