What a word counter does
A word counter reads a piece of text and tells you how long it is. The most useful number is the word count, but a good counter also reports characters, sentences, paragraphs and how long the text takes to read or say out loud. Writers use it to stay within a limit, students use it to check an assignment, and editors use it to see whether a draft needs tightening or more detail.
This page gives you all of those numbers at once, and they update as you type. Nothing is sent anywhere: the counting runs in your browser, so you can paste a private draft without worrying about where it goes.
Exactly how this tool counts words
Different programs count words in slightly different ways, which is why the same text can show two different totals. Here are the rules this counter follows, so you know what the number means.
- A word is a run of letters or digits. Spaces, tabs and line breaks separate words, and any amount of extra white space is ignored.
- Contractions count as one word. "Don't" is one word, not two.
- Hyphenated words count as one word. "Well-known" and "state-of-the-art" are each one word.
- Numbers are words. "66", "3.5", "1,000" and "2026-10-09" each count once.
- Emoji and lone punctuation are not words. A dash, an ellipsis or a rocket emoji on its own adds nothing to the count.
- Languages without spaces are split smartly. Chinese, Japanese, Thai and similar scripts have no spaces between words, so the tool uses your browser's built-in word segmentation when it is available. Where it is not, it counts each character as a word.
If your assignment or publisher counts words differently, for example by splitting hyphenated words in two, expect a small difference.
How sentences, paragraphs and lines are counted
A sentence ends at a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark that is followed by a space or the end of the text, so "3.14" and "example.com" do not split a sentence. A blank line also ends one. Paragraphs are blocks of text separated by one or more blank lines, and lines are the non-empty lines of your text.
Reading time and speaking time
Reading time assumes 238 words per minute, a commonly cited average for adults reading non-fiction silently. Speaking time assumes 150 words per minute, a comfortable pace for a talk or a voice-over. Both are estimates: a technical article is read more slowly than a light blog post, and a nervous speaker may talk faster or slower than average.
| Words | Reading time | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| 250 | 1 min 3 sec | 1 min 40 sec |
| 500 | 2 min 6 sec | 3 min 20 sec |
| 1,000 | 4 min 12 sec | 6 min 40 sec |
Checking a word-count target
Many tasks come with a length requirement: an essay, an application, an article, a product description or a post. The right number always comes from the person or platform setting the task, so check the brief, the submission form or the platform's own rules rather than relying on a general figure from the internet.
Then use this tool in three steps. Paste your text, set the word goal field to your target, and watch the progress bar. Check whether the brief counts headings, references, captions or footnotes, because the counter only knows about the text you paste into it. If the rules exclude something, delete it from the box before you compare numbers.
Two worked examples
Example 1: a contraction and a hyphenated word
Input:
The quick brown fox doesn't jump over the well-known fence.
Output: 10 words, 59 characters (50 without spaces), 1 sentence, longest word "well-known", reading time 3 seconds. "Doesn't" and "well-known" each count as one word, which is why the total is 10 and not 12.
Example 2: numbers, symbols and an emoji
Input:
Order 66 shipped on 2026-10-09 🚀 — 3.5 kg, 1,000 units!
Output: 9 words, 55 characters (45 without spaces), 1 sentence, longest word "2026-10-09". The rocket emoji and the dash are not words, while "66", "2026-10-09", "3.5" and "1,000" are.
Tips for tightening or expanding text
If you are over the limit, start with the easy cuts. Delete filler such as "really", "very" and "in order to". Replace long phrases with one word, and remove sentences that repeat a point you already made. Read the keyword density list: if a word you did not mean to lean on appears again and again, vary it or cut some uses.
If you are under the limit, resist padding. Add a concrete example, define a term your reader may not know, or explain the reason behind a claim. Those additions make the text better as well as longer. Check the average word length and longest word as a rough guide to readability: shorter words usually read more easily.
Your text stays private
The counting happens on your own device, inside the page. Your text is not uploaded, saved or shared, and the tool works without an account. When you close or refresh the tab, the text is gone. You can read more about how the whole site handles data in the privacy policy.