Word Counter
Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs.
- Runs in your browser
- No signup
How to use Word Counter
Paste or type your text
Drop in an essay, article, post or script. Counting starts as you type.
Read the statistics
See words, characters with and without spaces, sentences, paragraphs, average word length, reading and speaking time.
Check your keywords
The top keywords list shows which words you use most, ignoring common stop words.
How to count words and characters in your text
Essays, cover letters, articles, grant applications and social posts all come with length limits. Word Counter gives you an instant, accurate count of words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you write, plus reading and speaking time, without sending your text anywhere.
What gets counted
Words are separated by spaces and line breaks, so hyphenated words like well-known count as one. Characters are shown both with and without spaces, because some forms count one way and some the other. Sentences are detected from ending punctuation, and paragraphs from blank lines between blocks of text.
Reading and speaking time
Reading time assumes 200 words per minute, a typical adult reading speed. Speaking time assumes 130 words per minute, a comfortable pace for presentations and videos. A 650-word speech therefore takes about five minutes to deliver.
Typical length targets
Useful benchmarks when you are writing to a brief:
- Tweet or X post: up to 280 characters.
- Meta description: about 150 to 160 characters.
- Cover letter: 250 to 400 words.
- Blog post: 800 to 2,000 words, depending on the topic.
- College application essay: often capped at 650 words.
Keyword density
The top keywords panel lists your most frequent meaningful words, skipping stop words such as the, is and and. It is a quick way to spot a word you are overusing, or to check that an article actually mentions its main topic. Your text stays in your browser.