How to use the word Counter
- Type or paste into the Your text box.
- The result updates instantly as you type. There is no button to press.
- Use Copy result to copy the figures, or Copy link to share a link that reopens the word Counter with the same inputs.
How it works
Word and character limits are everywhere: school essays, job applications, grant proposals, meta descriptions, social posts and text messages. This counter updates as you type or paste, and goes beyond a simple word count to show characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, lines, average word length, the most frequent keywords and how long the text takes to read aloud or silently.
A word here is a run of letters or numbers, so "don't", "well-known" and "3.5" each count as one word, while punctuation, emoji and stray symbols don't count. Characters are counted as real characters (Unicode code points), so an accented letter or an emoji counts once. Sentences end at a full stop, question mark, exclamation mark or line break, and paragraphs are separated by a blank line.
Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, the average silent reading speed for adults found in a large 2019 review of reading studies. Speaking time assumes 150 words per minute, a comfortable pace for a presentation or speech. Keyword density ignores common short words such as "the" and "and", which helps writers spot words they repeat too often. Everything happens in your browser: nothing you paste is uploaded, and your text is not added to the shareable link.
Formula
Words in languages written without spaces, such as Chinese, Japanese and Thai, can't be split this way, so long runs of those characters count as single words. Use the character count for those languages.
Example
A typical 1,500-word essay takes about 6 min 18 sec to read silently (1,500 ÷ 238) and about 10 minutes to read aloud (1,500 ÷ 150). A meta description should usually stay under about 155–160 characters, and a text message fits 160 characters before splitting. If a keyword makes up more than 3–4% of an article, it may read as repetitive.
Frequently asked questions
Does the word counter count hyphenated words as one?
Yes. Hyphenated words such as 'well-known', contractions such as 'don't', and numbers such as '3.5' each count as one word, matching how most word processors count.
Are spaces counted as characters?
The headline character count includes spaces and line breaks. 'Characters (no spaces)' excludes all whitespace, which some forms and publishers use instead.
Is my text saved or uploaded?
No. The text is processed entirely in your browser and is not uploaded, stored or included in the share link.
Why does my word processor give a slightly different count?
Programs differ on edge cases such as URLs, slashes, dashes and numbers with symbols. Differences are usually under 1%.