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Word counter

Count words, characters, sentences and reading time instantly.

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This free word counter instantly counts the words, characters, sentences and paragraphs in your text, and estimates reading time. It's perfect for essays, SEO meta descriptions, social posts and anything with a length limit.

How to use it

  1. Type or paste your text into the box.
  2. The counts update live as you type.
  3. Check the word, character and reading-time counts.

Frequently asked questions

How is a word counted?

Words are sequences of characters separated by spaces or line breaks, so numbers and hyphenated terms count as one word.

Does it count characters with and without spaces?

Yes — it shows the total character count, which is handy for platforms like X/Twitter and SEO titles with strict limits.

How is reading time estimated?

It's based on an average adult reading speed of about 200–230 words per minute.

What does Word counter do?

Count words, characters, sentences and reading time instantly.

When would I actually use this?

Fitting a piece to a limit: an essay to a word count, a post to a network's cap, a meta description to what a result page will show.

What is the most common mistake?

Assuming one character equals one unit of the limit. An emoji can cost two or more, a combining accent can cost two, and several platforms bill a link at a flat rate regardless of length.

How is Word counter different from Word frequency counter?

They sit next to each other but answer different questions: Word frequency counter is the one to open when you need it to count how often each word appears in your text, ranked from most to least. Pick whichever matches what you're starting from — both are free.

Where do the figures come from?

Counting follows Unicode: the tool reports code points and grapheme clusters separately, because they differ for emoji and combining marks. Per-network limits come from each platform's published specification.

Further reading

All guides →
ExplainerWord Count: Reading Time and LimitsA word count is words separated by spaces. Here's how it's counted, why limits exist, how it maps to pages and reading time, and when characters count instead.ExplainerCounting Characters Against a Limit Someone Else SetOne emoji is 1 character, or 7, or 11, or 25, depending on who is counting. Which one your form, your database and your SMS gateway mean — and a one-paste test that tells you which you are facing.ExplainerDetecting the Language of a Text, and Why Short Texts FailMeasured, not asserted: 90 short real phrases across six languages, none declined and 68 right — 76%, falling to 64% under sixteen letters. Four of the wrong answers came back at 100% confidence.ExplainerSentence Case and Title Case: The Rules Differ by LanguageEnglish title case has three different cutoffs depending on the style guide. French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian have none at all. German capitalises every noun. The tool knows about none of this — here is exactly what it does.How-toExtracting the Text from a PDF, and What the Layout Does to ItA PDF stores glyphs at coordinates — not lines, not paragraphs, not a reading order. Extraction rebuilds the text from those positions, which is why two columns come out interleaved, a table loses its cells, and a scan gives you nothing at all. Measured by running the tool.How-toTurning Notes into a PDF Worth ArchivingPlain text has no layout, so any converter has to invent one for you. Here is exactly which decisions this one makes — page, margins, font, line breaks — what it does with a tab and a long line, and what you have to add yourself before a note is worth keeping.
Word counter — OneKitly