Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences and paragraphs with reading time, live as you type. Free, and your text never leaves your browser.
Paste or type to start counting
Count words and characters as you type
Paste an essay, a blog draft, a tweet or a cover letter and the counts update on every keystroke: words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, and an estimated reading time based on an average pace of 200 words per minute. Nothing to submit and no page reload — the numbers simply track the text.
It is built for limits: a 500-word essay cap, a 280-character post, a 160-character SMS, meta descriptions that truncate near 155 characters. Character counts include punctuation and line breaks, which is what most platform limits actually measure.
The text never leaves your device. Counting happens in your browser, so it is safe for confidential drafts — contracts, medical notes, unpublished work — that you would not paste into a site that uploads to a server.
Frequently asked questions
How are words counted?
Any run of letters, numbers or symbols separated by whitespace counts as one word, so "well-known" is one word and "3.5" is one word. This matches how most word processors count.
Do characters include spaces?
The Characters figure includes spaces, punctuation and line breaks, which is what platform limits usually measure. The No Spaces figure removes every kind of whitespace.
How is reading time calculated?
Words divided by 200 per minute, rounded up to the next whole minute. Adult readers of English prose typically fall between 200 and 250 words per minute.
Is there a limit on how much text I can paste?
No. The counts are simple string operations and handle book-length text without trouble.
Is my text saved anywhere?
No. It stays in the text box in your browser and is gone when you clear it or leave the page.