Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and reading time.
Paste any text below and get a live count of words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and estimated reading time. Nothing is uploaded - everything happens in your browser.
- Words
- 0
- Characters
- 0
- Characters (no spaces)
- 0
- Sentences
- 0
- Paragraphs
- 0
- Reading time
- 0s
How to use it
Paste your text
Drop a draft, an essay or any block of text into the textarea. The counter starts updating as you type - there's no submit button.
Read the live stats
Words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs and estimated reading time refresh on every keystroke.
Edit until you hit your target
Trim or expand the text until you fall inside your word-count target. Your text never leaves your browser.
What is it?
A word counter measures the length of a piece of writing in words, characters, sentences and paragraphs. It's the same metric your essay rubric, content brief or character-limited form is referring to, just computed instantly. Our counter also estimates reading time so you can tell at a glance whether a draft fits a 5-minute newsletter slot or has bloated into a 15-minute monologue.
When to use it
Use it when a target word count matters: academic essays with hard limits, blog posts with SEO sweet spots (1,500–2,500 words is the going wisdom), meta descriptions, tweets, ad copy, and book or screenplay drafts. It also helps writers benchmark daily output and break long pieces into reading-time chunks an audience will actually finish.
Common mistakes
Word counts vary between tools because of how each one splits text - some treat hyphenated words as two, others count contractions inconsistently. Don't paste rich text from a word processor expecting tracked changes or comments to be excluded automatically. And remember that submission systems often count any whitespace-separated token, including stray numbers and citations.
FAQ
- How is the word count calculated?
- Words are detected by splitting your text on whitespace and stripping empty tokens. Hyphenated words count as one word, as in most word processors.
- How is reading time estimated?
- We use an average reading speed of 225 words per minute, which matches Medium's estimate and most academic studies on silent reading.
- Is my text uploaded anywhere?
- No. The tool runs entirely in your browser. Your text never leaves your device.