What next?
Counts, then the formatting and reading-time questions that follow.
How to use this tool
- Paste or type your text.
- Counts update live as you write.
- Read words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and reading time.
What your result means
Words split on spaces; characters are shown both with and without spaces; reading time assumes roughly 200–250 words a minute. Handy for essays, meta descriptions, tweets and timed speeches.
Why this one is different
Characters are counted twice, with spaces and without, because a form limit and a design spec each mean a different one of those. Sentences and paragraphs sit beside them, and a reading estimate underneath, all moving as you type — there is nothing to press, so pasting a draft answers the question immediately.
Why the best writers obsess over word count
From tweet limits to essay briefs to SEO meta descriptions, the right length is often as important as the right words. Editors have counted words for centuries because concision is a craft, not an afterthought.
Watching the count as you write — words, characters, reading time — keeps you inside the limit and sharpens every sentence to pull its weight.
How it works
Words are counted by splitting on whitespace, sentences by terminal punctuation, and paragraphs by blank lines. Reading time assumes an average pace of 200 words per minute. Everything updates instantly and privately in your browser.
How the counts are worked out
Words are counted as runs of characters separated by whitespace, which matches how word processors and most editors count. Sentences are detected from terminal punctuation, so abbreviations and decimal points can nudge the figure. Reading time assumes about 225 words per minute — a reasonable average for adults reading digital prose, though it varies widely with subject matter and familiarity.
Worked example
A 750-word blog post, as this tool measures it:
Characters ~4,300 including spaces
Sentences ~45
Reading time 4 min — 750 ÷ 200 = 3.75, which the tool rounds
Dividing words by sentences gives an average of about 17 words per sentence, which is close to the ceiling most plain-English guidance recommends. If that average climbs past 25, the count is telling you something a spellchecker will not: the sentences have got too long, whatever the total length is.
Counting words is the easy part; the limits are what vary
Different platforms count differently, and the gaps are large enough to get a submission rejected. Most word processors, and this tool, count runs of characters separated by whitespace, so a hyphenated compound is one word and a number is a word. Academic word limits often exclude the abstract, references and appendices; check the marking scheme rather than the total.
Character limits are worse. Some social platforms count a link as a fixed length regardless of the real URL. Emoji and accented characters may count as one character, two, or more, depending on whether the platform counts code points, UTF-16 units or grapheme clusters. Meta descriptions are truncated by pixel width rather than character count, which is why an all-caps description gets cut earlier than a lowercase one of the same length.
For editing rather than compliance, the averages are more useful than the total. Sentences averaging under about 20 words and paragraphs under about 100 read comfortably for a general audience; if your averages are well above that, the fix is usually splitting sentences rather than cutting words.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text stored or sent anywhere?＋
No. All counting happens locally in your browser — your text never leaves your device.
Does it count for essays and social posts?＋
Yes — use the word count for essays and the character count for platforms with limits like posts or meta descriptions.
How does it decide what counts as a word?＋
Words are runs of characters separated by whitespace, so hyphenated compounds count as one and numbers count as words. This matches how most word processors count.
How long does my text take to read?＋
Silent reading averages roughly 200 to 250 words a minute for general prose, so 1,000 words is about four to five minutes. Speaking aloud is slower, around 130 to 150 words a minute.
Do social platforms count characters the same way?＋
Not always. Some count links as a fixed length regardless of the real URL, and emoji or accented characters can count as more than one unit depending on the encoding.
What is a reasonable paragraph or sentence length?＋
For readability, most guidance suggests sentences averaging under 20 words and paragraphs under about 100. The counter's averages are more useful than the totals if you are editing for clarity.
Related tools
Assumptions & limitations
Counting text is less exact than it looks:
- Hyphenated compounds count as one word; contractions count as one. Different tools make different choices here, so a small discrepancy against another counter is expected.
- Sentence detection is heuristic — "e.g." and "3.5" can register as sentence endings.
- Reading time is an average, not a measurement. Technical or unfamiliar material reads far more slowly than narrative prose.
- Character counts are reported both with and without spaces, because platform limits differ on which they mean.
Sources & references
Counting rules and the writing standards that use them:
- Unicode Standard Annex #29 — text segmentation: what counts as a word boundary
- GOV.UK content design — sentence length and readability guidance
- plainlanguage.gov — short sentences and paragraphs — how sentence and word counts affect readability