Free Word & Character Counter Online
Count words, characters, sentences, and paragraphs in your text. Includes reading time estimate.
A word counter does more than count words. It gives you a quick read on the shape of a piece of writing: length in characters with and without spaces, sentence count, paragraph count, and an estimated reading time based on an average adult reading speed of 200 to 250 words per minute. Use it to hit a word target for an essay or application, to size a blog post or email, or to check whether a tweet, meta description, or subject line fits a platform's limit. The text you paste stays in your browser — nothing is sent over the network — so you can count words in private notes, drafts, or confidential documents.
Word Counter
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Words
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Characters (with spaces)
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Characters (no spaces)
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Sentences
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Paragraphs
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Reading time
How to use this word & character counter
- Paste or type your text into the input area.
- Counts update live as you type or edit.
- Use the result that matches your target: character count for text-length limits, word count for essays and posts, reading time for content planning.
- Select a portion of the text to get counts for just that section (where supported).
- Clear the box to start fresh.
Common use cases
- Hitting a strict word count on an essay, grant application, or cover letter
- Trimming a social post to fit Twitter/X (280), SMS (160), or Facebook character limits
- Estimating reading time for a blog post before publishing
- Checking whether a meta description fits SEO best practice (150-160 characters)
- Measuring progress on a long piece of writing such as a book chapter or report
Frequently asked questions
How is a word counted?
The counter splits your text on whitespace (spaces, tabs, newlines) and counts each non-empty run of characters as a word. Hyphenated terms like word-counter count as one word. Numbers count as words. Punctuation attached to a word is counted with the word, not separately.
Are spaces counted as characters?
Both numbers are shown — total characters including spaces, and characters excluding spaces. Word-limit forms almost always mean characters including spaces; text-message and tweet limits usually count every character the same.
How accurate is the reading time estimate?
It is a rough guide. The estimate assumes about 225 words per minute, which is typical for an adult reading English for leisure. Technical or academic text reads slower; skimming is faster. Expect the estimate to be within 20 to 30 percent of your actual pace.
Can I count a specific section of my text?
Yes — select the text you want to measure and the counts update to reflect only the selection. Deselect to go back to counting everything.
Does this work with non-English languages?
Whitespace-based word counting works well for English and most European languages. For Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which typically do not separate words with spaces, the character count is more meaningful than the word count.