Count words, characters with and without spaces, sentences and paragraphs as you type — plus an estimated reading time at 200 words per minute. Free, no sign-up — runs locally in your browser.
What gets counted, exactly
Every word counter draws its lines somewhere, and the honest thing
is to say where. Here, a word is a run of letters
or digits: "state-of-the-art" is one word, so is "don't", and a
free-standing em dash is not a word at all. Characters
are counted as Unicode code points — one per letter, accented
letter or emoji — both with and without whitespace, because
character limits in the wild (a post, a meta description, an SMS)
are sometimes quoted one way and sometimes the other.
Sentences end at . ! ? or … followed by a space or
the end of the text, which keeps the decimal point in "3.14" from
inventing a sentence; a trailing fragment without a full stop
still counts. Paragraphs are blocks separated by
blank lines. And reading time assumes 200 words
per minute, the middle of the range usually cited for adult silent
reading.
How to use this counter
- Type or paste your text. Every figure updates live — there is no Count button to press and nothing to submit.
- Read the two character figures together: the no-spaces number is the one to compare against limits quoted "excluding spaces".
- Use reading time for planning: blog posts, scripts and speeches are easier to size in minutes than in words. For a spoken script, multiply by about 1.5 — people speak at roughly 130 words per minute.
- Your draft is kept in this browser for 7 days, so you can close the tab and come back. Clear saved draft wipes it on the spot.
Why word counts are worth watching
Word counts are quiet contracts everywhere in writing. A meta
description is a character budget (about 155) before it is cut off
in search results; a résumé is one or two pages whatever the word
count is, and recruiters feel the difference between 400 tight
words and 700 padded ones; an essay brief's ±10% is a real grading
rule, not a suggestion. For the web, length interacts with
attention: readers decide in seconds whether a page is a two-minute
read or a commitment, and the honest reading-time figure up top is
the same estimate editors use when they label articles "4 min
read". None of this makes longer better or shorter better — it
makes the number worth knowing before you publish, pitch or submit,
rather than after.
Frequently asked questions
How does this counter define a "word"?
A word is a run of letters or digits separated by whitespace or punctuation. Hyphenated compounds ("well-known") and contractions ("don't") count as one word each; a lone dash, bullet or other punctuation mark on its own does not count at all. Other counters make different choices — some count anything between spaces, including a stray "—" — which is why two counters can disagree by a few words on the same text. The definition matters more than the counter, so ours is stated here and on the page.
How is the reading time worked out?
At 200 words per minute, the middle of the 180–220 wpm range usually cited for adult silent reading of English prose. Dense technical text reads slower, a children's book faster — treat the figure as a planning estimate ("about a four-minute read"), not a measurement. If you are timing a speech instead, note that speaking aloud runs nearer 130 words per minute, so multiply the reading time by roughly 1.5.
Why do the two character counts differ?
One counts every character including spaces and line breaks; the other counts characters only, which is the figure that matters for limits like a 280-character post or a 160-character SMS segment. Both count Unicode code points, so an accented letter or an emoji counts as one character — some older counters count the bytes or UTF-16 units instead and report an emoji as two or four, which is technically a storage measure, not a character count.
How are sentences counted?
A sentence ends at a run of . ! ? or … that is followed by a space or the end of the text — so the decimal point in "3.14" is not a sentence break, and closing quotes are handled. A final chunk of words with no full stop still counts as one sentence. Abbreviations like "e.g." will fool this (and almost every) counter into an extra sentence; if your text is full of them, expect the sentence count to read slightly high.
Is my text saved or sent anywhere?
It is counted locally in your browser and never transmitted. Like several other tools here it is auto-saved as a draft in this browser's local storage for 7 days, purely so an accidental refresh does not lose a long draft; the Clear saved draft button deletes it immediately, and it never leaves your device.
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