Word Counter
Live word, character, sentence and paragraph counts with reading time — free, and your text never leaves your device.
Your files never leave your device.
How to use the word counter
- Type or paste your text into the box above. Every count updates instantly as you type — there is no button to press.
- Read the stats. Words, characters (with and without spaces), sentences, paragraphs, reading time, speaking time and your longest word are shown in the grid.
- Copy or clear with the buttons below the box when you're done.
What each statistic means
- Words — any run of non-whitespace characters. Hyphenated terms like well-known count as one word.
- Characters — everything you typed, including spaces and punctuation. Chars (no spaces) is the count used by platforms like X/Twitter and by many academic word limits.
- Sentences — counted by sentence-ending punctuation (. ! ?).
- Paragraphs — each non-empty line of your text.
- Reading time — based on the average silent reading speed of 200 words per minute.
- Speaking time — based on a comfortable presentation pace of 130 words per minute, useful for speeches and video scripts.
Why word counts matter
Plenty of writing comes with a hard limit, and going over usually means rejection or truncation. Students face essay word counts; job applicants face cover-letter limits; marketers face meta description limits (around 155 characters before Google truncates them in search results); social platforms count characters, not words. Knowing your count as you write — instead of after — is what keeps you from a painful editing pass at the end.
Speakers and video creators use it the other way around: a five-minute talk is roughly 650 words at a natural pace. Paste your script, check the speaking time, and cut before you rehearse rather than after.
Frequently asked questions
Is my text uploaded anywhere?
No. Counting happens entirely in your browser as you type. Nothing is sent to a server, logged, or stored. Close the tab and your text is gone.
How are words counted?
A word is any sequence of non-whitespace characters separated by spaces, tabs or line breaks. Hyphenated terms like well-known count as one word, matching the behavior of most word processors.
How accurate is the reading time?
Reading time assumes an average silent reading speed of 200 words per minute, and speaking time assumes 130 words per minute. Both are estimates — dense technical text reads slower, simple text faster.
Does it match Microsoft Word or Google Docs counts?
For normal prose the counts are identical or within a word or two. Differences only appear with unusual spacing, em-dashes without spaces, or footnote markers.
Is there a text size limit?
There is no artificial limit. Counting is instant for typical documents; pasting tens of megabytes of text may slow your browser tab.
Does it work offline?
Yes. Once the page has loaded, the counter works without an internet connection.