Word & Character Counter

Paste or type your text and see the number of words, characters, sentences, paragraphs and lines update instantly. The counter also estimates how long your text takes to read or speak, shows how close you are to common limits such as a tweet or a meta description, and lists your most frequently used words.

It works as you type, supports any language that uses letters and numbers, and does not upload your text.

A word is counted as a run of letters or digits, optionally joined by apostrophes or hyphens, so “don’t” and “well-known” each count as one word, and numbers count as words. This is closer to how word processors count than splitting on spaces, and it handles punctuation such as dashes and slashes sensibly. Characters are counted as visible symbols, so an emoji counts as one character even though it is longer in computer memory. “Characters (no spaces)” leaves out all whitespace.

Sentences are detected from the ending punctuation marks . ! and ?, and paragraphs are blocks separated by blank lines. Different programs use slightly different rules, so if you must meet an exact requirement (for example a university submission), check the final count in the system that will receive your work.

Adults reading silent, non-fiction text typically read around 200–250 words per minute, so this tool uses 225 words per minute for reading time. Speaking is slower: presenters and audiobook narrators usually speak at roughly 120–150 words per minute, and the tool uses 130. These are averages. Technical material, complex sentences and unfamiliar vocabulary take longer to read, and a fast speaker or a short sentence structure takes less.

Use the speaking time to plan a speech or a video script: a five-minute talk is roughly 650 words at this pace.

The limit bars show typical constraints: 280 characters for a standard X post, about 60 characters for an SEO page title and about 160 for a meta description before search engines may cut them off, 2,200 characters for an Instagram caption, and 160 characters for a single standard SMS segment. Platforms change these rules, so confirm the current limit before publishing.

The most-used-words list ignores common filler words and shows each term’s count and its share of your text. A word that makes up a large part of a short piece can signal repetition. For SEO writing, aim for natural language rather than hitting a keyword percentage; search engines reward useful, readable pages and do not require a fixed density.