Word Counter

What the Word Counter measures

Type or paste text into the box and the counts update as you go. Here is what each figure means.

• Words: groups of characters separated by spaces, tabs or line breaks.
• Characters: every character including spaces. A line break counts as one character.
• Characters (no spaces): the same count with all spaces, tabs and line breaks removed.
• Sentences: an estimate based on . ! ? and … followed by a space or the end of the text.
• Paragraphs: each non-empty line counts as one paragraph, like a word processor.
• Reading time and speaking time: estimates based on the word count.
• Most used words: words that appear more than once, ignoring common words such as "the" and "and".

How words are counted

A word is any group of characters that contains at least one letter or number. Symbols on their own, such as a lone dash or an ellipsis, are not counted as words.

Hyphenated terms like "well-known" and contractions like "don't" each count as one word, which is how most word processors count them. Counts can still differ by a few words between programs, because each one treats numbers, symbols and hyphens slightly differently.

Reading time and speaking time

Reading time assumes 225 words per minute, a common estimate for an adult reading ordinary text silently. Speaking time assumes 130 words per minute, a comfortable pace for a speech or presentation.

Real speeds vary a lot between people. Technical or unfamiliar material is read more slowly, and a presentation with pauses, slides or questions takes longer than the raw figure suggests.

Common length guidelines

Many places limit how much you can write. These are typical figures, but always check the exact rules of the platform or assignment you are writing for.

Ways to use the counts

• Check an essay or application against a word limit before you submit it.
• Trim a title or description to fit a character limit.
• Use the most used words to spot repetition and find better wording.
• Shorten long sentences: a high word count with few sentences often means the sentences are too long.
• Estimate how long a blog post takes to read or how long a speech will run.

Languages and limits

Word counting relies on spaces between words, so it works well for English and other languages that use spaces. It does not work for languages such as Chinese, Japanese or Thai, which do not separate words with spaces. For those languages, use the character count.

Sentence counting is an estimate. An abbreviation such as "Dr." followed by a space may be counted as the end of a sentence. Text with hard line breaks inside paragraphs, for example when copied from a PDF, will show more paragraphs than it really contains.

Your text stays private

The text is analysed in your browser as you type. It is not uploaded to our server or stored, and it disappears when you close or refresh the page.