Word Counter
Words, characters, sentences, and reading time
Paste or type text and get a live count of words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, and an estimated reading time. Everything updates as you type, entirely in your browser — nothing you paste here is sent anywhere.
The most common use is checking against a limit: a tweet, a meta description, a college essay's word count, or a form field's character cap.
What each count actually measures
- Words — sequences of characters separated by whitespace. A hyphenated word ("well-known") counts as one; an em-dash—joined pair without spaces around it can count as one too, which is a common surprise when a word count comes in lower than expected.
- Characters — shown both with and without spaces, since "character limit" fields (like a tweet or SMS) usually mean including spaces, while some print or typesetting contexts mean without.
- Sentences — approximated by counting terminal punctuation (., !, ?). Abbreviations like "Dr." or "e.g." can inflate this count slightly, since the counter can't distinguish a sentence-ending period from an abbreviation's period with full reliability.
- Paragraphs — counted as blocks of text separated by a blank line.
- Reading time — word count divided by 200 words per minute, a commonly cited average adult silent-reading speed, rounded up to the nearest minute.
How the counts are computed
Word count splits the text on whitespace and counts non-empty resulting segments. Character count with spaces is simply the string length in code points; without spaces, whitespace characters are stripped first. Sentence count uses a regular expression matching runs of text ending in ., !, or ?. Paragraph count splits on one or more blank lines and counts non-empty resulting blocks. Reading time is Math.ceil(wordCount / 200) minutes.
Worked example
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It was a sunny day!" has 14 words, 68 characters with spaces, 57 without, and 2 sentences (split on the period and the exclamation mark), in a single paragraph. At 200 words per minute that's under a minute of reading time, so the tool reports "< 1 min."
Where the counts are approximate
Sentence counting by punctuation alone is inherently approximate: "Dr. Smith arrived at 3 p.m. and left." contains three periods but is grammatically one sentence, so the counter may overcount. Word counting by whitespace also treats a standalone number, a URL, or a hyphenated compound as one "word" each, which may or may not match how a specific style guide or word-count requirement wants them counted. For a hard requirement (a strict essay word limit, for instance), check the exact counting method your grader or platform uses, since methods do vary.
Common limits this is useful for checking
Social platforms and forms enforce character limits far more often than word limits — a post capped at 280 characters, a meta description that display engines truncate around 155–160 characters, a bio field capped at 150. Academic and professional writing more often specifies a word count (a 500-word essay, a 250-word abstract). Checking against both before submitting avoids a rejected form or a truncated preview.
Frequently asked questions
Does this count include spaces in the character count?
It shows both — characters with spaces and without — since different limits (a tweet vs. a print character count) mean different things by "character."
Why is my sentence count higher than I expect?
The counter looks for periods, exclamation points, and question marks. Abbreviations like "Dr." or "e.g." have periods that aren't sentence endings, which can inflate the count on text with a lot of abbreviations.
How is reading time calculated?
Word count divided by 200 words per minute, a commonly cited average silent-reading speed for adults, rounded up to the next whole minute.
Is my text sent anywhere?
No. All counting happens in your browser using JavaScript; nothing you type or paste is transmitted or stored.